Category Archives: Insurance

Rising Health Care Costs – Is There Hope for Change?

Rising Healthcare costs

Company-provided health insurance is getting more expensive. As the most common form of health coverage in the United States, the cost of employee-sponsored coverage is expected to rise another 5% in 2020.

What does this entail? Well, when employees go in for a check-up, they may learn that their doctors will no longer be covered. Or they may notice higher deductibles being charged on their payroll. Either way, rising costs will affect millions of employees who rely on their company’s health insurance policy. In addition, employers will not be immune to these rising costs either—insurance bills they need to pay off will continue to rise, probably higher than wages and inflation.

While in search of a better solution, employers may have heard about the “Medicare for All” plan, a proposal by Democratic candidates to reform the system. But how feasible is this proposal?

The biggest obstacle of this proposal is the lack of a concrete solution—how do they plan to make the health insurance delivery system “more efficient”? Candidates are throwing around vague plans to “expand access to health care” without actually addressing how the care is going to being delivered.

One possible solution to the delivery system comes in the form of telemedicine. Employers have recently shown interest in covering telemedicine to improve access to care. Telemedicine has been a growing field in the health care industry, as seen through the announcement of Amazon Care. Through a virtual clinic, telemedicine makes healthcare more accessible and cost-effective. Physicians and patients can share information and receive a diagnosis without having to wait for an appointment and in the comfort of their own home. But some employees may be slow to adopt this technology since they are not used to accessing heath care this way.

Health care is a complex topic, but one fact is simple: employers want their employees to have access to the most efficient, high quality and affordable health care possible. Some companies have been bringing in more services to help employees navigate their benefits, navigate the delivery system, and understand their treatment options. However, these companies may want to cut down on these costs if they don’t want to charge higher deductibles, especially with the rising costs of health benefits in 2020.

Want to understand health care and what the New Year means for your company’s health insurance? Feel free to contact us at CorpStrat.

Disability – It Won’t Happen to Me!

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Why Do I Need Disability Insurance?

The answer is quite simple and straightforward. It is far and away from the most important piece of insurance that every working American should own.

So why then is there such an extreme emphasis in this country on other products like medical insurance and life insurance while disability fails in comparison?

Don’t get me wrong, life insurance and healthcare are critical to everyone’s financial protection and should be held in esteem in a sound financial plan – but more so than disability income insurance? Not a chance.

If you are between the ages of 18 and 70 and earn a regular paycheck, you need at least 65% of your income protected with comprehensive “own occupation” disability insurance. How else can you afford to pay your bills should you become sick or disabled? When you’re young and healthy imagining a situation where you can’t physically work is really difficult for most people, especially when their pay earning is received automatically. That’s why so many people eventually find themselves in a situation where their income becomes nonexistent with nothing to replace it.

The Importance of Disability Insurance

Most Americans suffer from the delusion that they will not be disabled during their lifetime. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different. Over a quarter of working Americans will be affected by a short or long term disablement during their career. Yet, only 31% of those working in the private sector have any form of income protection insurance.

Why do we feel impervious to accidents and to the thousands of medical conditions and diseases that can harm the human body to the point of disability? Well, that is just human nature to feel impervious.

And that is when most of the problems take shape, in the first two-thirds of our lives. We don’t save enough of our earned income. Expanding retirement vehicles have brought promise over the last quarter-century, but Americans still don’t save enough for emergencies let alone retirement. One-third of us have no retirement savings, and 48% of us don’t save any annual income. How can we expect to financially survive in this world while supporting our families without any savings or income protection? We can’t. People need personal disability insurance.

Personal disability insurance is available to anyone and everyone who works for a living, employers and self-employed professionals included. The question we all need to ask ourselves is…

“What would you do if you couldn’t work? How far could you go without a paycheck?”

How to Get Disability Insurance

Ask us about how to protect your most valuable asset, your ability to earn a living, and we’ll help you navigate the complexities of disability insurance in order to provide a safety net for your future.

The Benefits of Employee Benefits

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Your people are the backbone of your organization’s ability to grow and drive revenue. So how important are quality employee benefits to achieving your company’s goals and objectives? They are extremely crucial.

Employees value a well-rounded selection of benefits, and health insurance, a 401(k) plan, life insurance and dental coverage are a few of the plans that you can consider offering.

The Benefits

Benefits packages offer value to your employees and help you boost productivity and retention in a cost-effective manner. Here are a few of the advantages of offering employee benefits as part of your compensation package.

Talent Attraction and Retention

Employees highly value a good benefits package. Developing a strategic benefits package that targets specific types of employees can help attract the right job candidates to keep your organization running at peak efficiency.

Once you have these top-performing employees at your company, providing a tailored employee benefits package will serve as a barrier to them leaving—a great benefits package can be a huge advantage when looking at retention strategies because it holds more than just monetary value for the employee. A bigger salary at another company likely won’t be as strong a pull for an employee tempted to leave if the other company’s benefits package isn’t as attractive as yours.

Healthy, Productive Employees

When your benefits package includes a combination of health insurance and dental and vision coverage, you will have employees who are able to take a proactive role in managing their health. They will have easy, affordable access to health care, reducing absenteeism due to illness.

When they are on the job, healthy employees are more productive than sick ones. It’s beneficial for your company’s productivity and your employees when they have access to medical coverage and time off when they are sick.

Satisfaction

A good benefits package leads to satisfied employees with higher morale. Employees who find value in their benefits are typically more willing to commit to their company because it helps make them feel valued—which leads to increased productivity and decreased absenteeism.

Efficient Use of Resources

Offering valuable benefits can help lower top employees’ expectations for salary. Many employees are willing to accept good benefits in lieu of a slightly higher salary.

This is an advantage to your budget because the value you present to employees with benefits, especially health insurance plans, can be monetarily equal to a raise in salary for them, while costing you less due to group rates and lower payroll taxes. Employers can avoid the hidden cost of paying extra payroll taxes on higher salary by instead offering benefits to provide similar value to employees.

Thinking Long-term

Even if you think you can save a little money in the short term by skimping on employee benefits, you will eventually face the consequences through a lowered ability to attract high-achieving employees, increased difficulty retaining your top performers, and lowered morale and productivity.

Offering a quality array of employee benefits will pay off through a stronger, more productive workforce with employees committed to your company.

California Puts up a Fight Against Association Health Plans

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California Ban

California is the first state to legislatively ban some of its residents from taking advantage of a Trump administration rule that expanded access to small business health plans. No associations seem to be the key to this legislature.

The state now bans sole proprietors from joining what’s known as cheap, short-term health insurance plans (association health plans). The plans were recently expanded under a Labor Department regulation that allows more small businesses, including self-employed individuals and independent contractors, to band together and buy-in on health plans as a large group. So far, they have yet to make inroads across the country.

The move by California will mean real estate agents, and others who operate as sole proprietors, won’t be able to join association health plans. The National Association of REALTORS is a major supporter of the DOL’s expansion of the plans.

California is one of a dozen states that went to court to sue the Labor Department, though the case is still pending.

For those who have been hoping to form association health plans, this CA law comes as a blow. For employers, it means more of the same and no new options for care or insurance.

History of Fraud

California’s law comes in response to years of fraud and insolvency it experienced with similar plans known as multiple employer welfare arrangements that were around before enactment of the ACA. Between 2000 and 2002, those plans left 200,000 people throughout the U.S. without coverage and racked up $252 million in unpaid bills, according to a 2004 Government Accountability Office report.

The move to ban said plans are part of a broad effort, at the state level, to dull actions by the Trump administration to untangle the federal health care law after President Donald Trump and Congress failed last year to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Finding dominance in an evolving industry is never easy. What should you invest in to make sure you keep up to date with the competition but also find a competitive edge?

CorpStrat can provide an outside perspective to help companies assess their internal operations in Insurance, Employee Benefits, HR, and Payroll.

Get Ready for Year End Open Enrollment Season

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Young employee listening to his manager explain open enrollment options

This is the time of the year where companies of all sizes struggle to get quality employee engagement during Open Enrollment period.

Even with technology offering automated benefits management tools, the challenges still persist when it comes to making it easier for employees to sign up for the benefits that are the best for them and/or their families.

To challenge this disconnect, employers and their Human Resources administrators can follow these tips in creating more employee engagement for Open Enrollment season.

Keep the initial communications on Open Enrollment simple

The very first message regarding Open Enrollment should be short and simple. This is not the time to throw everything at them all at once with boatloads of information on the varying offerings Open Enrollment provides.

Provide them with a clear message of the importance of the upcoming Open Enrollment process, varying deadlines, contact information and any upcoming meetings you have planned.

Keep the language simple and clear on the documentation of your benefits packages.

When describing what each plan is and what is covered, make sure to use bullet points in highlighting key details and while comparing and contrasting the available offerings.

Use your means of communication methods

Be mindful of your employee’s different thoughts, feelings, problems and more regarding their offerings. Communicate the differences to them and work with them to recognize and use their preferred means of communication.

While some people prefer their communication method delivered via email, you may have others who need a hard copy brochure to get your message across. They even might need something tangible they can hold in their hands like a poster or flier to bring home to their families to discuss.

Whichever way your employees prefer to receive their Open Enrollment information, make sure to change up the look-and-feel. Try to keep it fresh and engaging with design and layout changes, even as the information stays pretty much the same throughout.

Create engaging messages around the individual and/or their families

Organizations who are successful with higher employee engagement rates during Open Enrollment do a great job of cutting out the noise by highlighting what’s the most important information for an individual and/or their families in the offerings they are choosing from.

For example, employers may dive deep into what the actual costs are for employees on high deductible health plans, or, they might highlight a new voluntary benefit—added to their offering package. Addressing key components that make the benefits so attractive to add with their traditional healthcare selections.

Promoting voluntary benefits to create employee engagement

In 2016, the cost of care hit over $10,000 per person. With more-and-more employers turning to High-Deductible Healthcare plans to help offset the rising costs of healthcare and to keep premiums lower, we are seeing more people struggle to find the coverage they need as a result.

Voluntary Benefits are extremely important for employers to offer because it gives their employees the power to prepare for the worst when it comes to their healthcare. Today, a traditional healthcare plan might not be enough to support a person or their family financially in the event they get really sick.

Above all, it’s important to stay organized, keep a tight schedule and when in doubt, remember the challenge is to communicate 10x better and more frequently to get your message past all the noise.