For those of you who own Companies that have a good employee retention but are not required to offer health insurance, you are in the best of all worlds. Once you decide to offer Health Insurance, you now will play in a different world. You will be subject to penalties if you make an error or omission in the administration of the plan. You will be penalized by insurance premiums that are increased as a result of the Affordable Care Act and your insured employees will generally have higher deductibles and co-pays than prior to this Act.
Being generous is paying more than 50% of the employee’s premium…This is another area for serious consideration. It is generally not a good idea to pay more than 50% unless it is an issue of valued employee retention(note…for 2015 check with your legal counsel as you may be able to discriminate in certain classes of employees by paying more for one class than the other). You want the employee and their dependents to have some “skin in the game” so that the plan is not abused.
For those individuals who decline coverage, you want to have the declination from them in writing as well as declinations for those dependents who are also declining. You also want to have an extension of coverage known as employee benefit liability or fiduciary liability for errors and omissions in the administration of your employee benefit plans.
That’s how we do it at Bone Robertson & McBride Inc.
With good health to you,
Best Regards,
Don Bone, President