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Employee Benefits

Open Enrollment is Over…Now What?

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2022 has presented employers with a unique set of challenges. With healthcare costs rising due to inflation, employees opting for unconventional careers post-COVID, and the Great Resignation hanging over their heads, employers need to work harder than ever to attract, retain, and reward their team. Most employers can’t afford to lose anybody. In order to keep their teams intact they need to actively seek out how to make their benefits package more enticing for current and prospective employees.

Here’s a quick hit of the things employers should be doing right now to ensure they’re delivering the best benefits without going over on cost.

1. Are your employee benefits offerings delivered online?

If they’re not, you’re way behind the times. This is an easy way to bring your benefits, delivery, and communication into the 21st century. (Curious how you can get your benefits up to speed, learn more about your Employee Benefits Audit.)

2. Have you done a great job of packaging your offerings to attract employees?

Can you show a new prospective employee what your offerings are, easily and digitally? Beyond medical insurance, employees should be able to easily access the status of and information about their PTO hours, 401K, and remote work options. This is all part of the package employees will look at and consider during the hiring process and the easier it is to understand, the more likely they might be to sign on.

3. Is your HRIS up to speed?

Since the start of the pandemic, the majority of employees are opting for full-time or hybrid remote work. This means your HRIS System needs to be able to manage remote workers effectively and accurately.

Ask yourself:

  • Do my employees currently have an easy way to clock-in, clock out, sign documents, and request PTO from home?
  • Can they view their hours worked or PTO availability?
  • Are all the rules being followed on meal breaks? Would I know if they weren’t?

If the answer to any of these was “I’m not sure”, let’s talk.

4. Have you looked at low cost ways to expand your benefits?

Healthcare costs are rising and this can be a headache for employers. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, take a look at voluntary plans that you can add to your benefits package. Benefits like dental, vision, life, disability insurance, and AFLAC are all great benefits that employees they can’t get on their own.

5. Take time mid-year to review the market and assess how you can improve your offerings.

Contrary to popular belief, renewal is not the best time to reassess what your benefits package looks like. Your broker should actively be helping you find ways to improve your offerings throughout the year. Get strategic with your broker. Now is the time for them to shine.

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If your broker is not a valuable part of your business planning team, give us a call at 818-377-7260 or email us at marketing@corpstrat.com

5 Hidden Attributes in Health Insurance Plans

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Many people don’t even think about their health insurance plan until they get sick. The fact is, it also means many people aren’t getting the most out of their plans because they don’t know how to unlock hidden benefits. We firmly believe that a good health insurance plan can do something powerful for everybody. Even if you’re not sick or injured, a good plan can put you on a path to optimal health with the right type of support along the way.

Today we’re sharing some of the most popular hidden attributes in health insurance plans.

1. Alternative Medicine

That lingering back pain might be a thing of the past. Most insurance plans provide some benefits that cover chiropractic care, massage therapy, and acupuncture treatment as a means of alleviating pain or assisting with an injury or illness.

2. Weight Loss & Smoking Cessation

Many insurance companies have moved the needle on preventative care and are incentivizing people to lose weight and get healthy. They have outreach programs that support those struggling to quit smoking and lose weight. Some even subsidize health club memberships.

3. Mental Health

As part of the Mental Health Parity Act of 2010 in the ACA, all insurance companies are required to provide equal benefits for mental health. Let’s face it, in these crazy and uncertain times, we can all use a little mental therapy. If you look closely, there are benefits available to you designed to help you cope and deal with life’s challenges. These benefits include access to psychologists, psychiatrists, and both in and out patient care.

4. Telemedicine

Stay healthy and alleviate concerns, all from the comfort of you own home. The pandemic accelerated virtual healthcare visits and most insurance companies have moved towards allowing people to have consultations and doctor’s visits virtually. Many people have this benefit without realizing it, be sure to login to your benefits platform to take advantage of not needing to go to the doctor’s office.

5. Disease Management

People that are diabetic and asthmatic can benefit from full-fledged programs that include blood sugar monitoring and consultations. These diseases may require round the clock support so having resources to aid in disease management is key.  Don’t be afraid to ask your plan if they sponsor blood sugar management tools.

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Insurance companies are adapting to become much more consumer-centric. Reach out and find out what’s available. You’ll be surprised how many opportunities there are.

If you have any question, reach out to us at marketing@corpstrat.com or 818.377.7260

Are You Worried about the Quality of Your Benefits Offerings Post-COVID?

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During the pandemic shutdown, many employers had to get creative with how they delivered benefits. For the first time ever companies had fully remote teams, made work/life balance top priority, and ensured ample tele-health and mental health resources were available to their teams. As we return to the office, employees are now expecting these benefits and perks and feel more empowered than ever to ask for them. This creates a tricky situation for small business owners who might be working with tighter budgets. Employers are juggling budgets with making sure they’re keeping their talent happy in a post-pandemic world.

Small Business Owners Are Finding It Hard to Expand Benefits Post-COVID.

For companies with 500 employees or more, expanding benefits is a no-brainer. Many plan to increase their offerings in the next 12 months. However, for small business owners with fewer than 500 workers, affordability can be a barrier. The pandemic has changed the kinds of benefits and support employees are expecting. Many employees now want benefits like expanded retirement savings, pet insurance, access to fitness and mental health professionals, and more.

When It Comes to Benefits, You Don’t Have to Be on Your Own.

Many smaller companies don’t have an HR team to help them understand how to deliver benefits without breaking the bank. They want to offer their employees the world but don’t know how to create a benefits package that makes fiscal sense. In order to empower small businesses with the resources to evolve their benefits options, it will require better communication from both small business owners and their providers to decide on the products and services employees want and how to deliver them.

That’s where we come in. In order to fix the problem and empower your small business with the resources to evolve your benefits options along with your workforce, you need someone to guide you through the process. We can help you combine creative and main stay benefits that will attract and retain talent.

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Don’t wait until it’s too late, call us today to get your benefits set up for 2022. Call us at (818) 377-7260 or email us at marketing@corpstrat.com.

Can Employers Offer Employees Different Levels of Contribution?

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Today we want to share a hack around discrimination in employer contribution to employee benefit plans. The question we often receive is: Can you give different employees different levels of employer contribution?

The short answer is “Yes you Can.”

It’s commonly thought that employers don’t have a lot of discretion in designing and delivering health care benefits for their employees. But the reality is, there are many ways employers can enhance the delivery of their benefits by defining the class of eligibility. Thus creating legal and non-discriminatory ways to enhance employee benefits by class.

Now while it is possible, there are some complexities to setting it up because it touches on some issues regarding employment law and may not be advisable depending on workplace culture. But in general, an employer can create classes of employees and define the contributions or the offering of benefits to these select classes of employees.

Non-discriminatory ways to define an employee’s class of eligibility:

Generally employers have discretion when structuring their benefits plans and are able to make distinctions among employees and the benefits they’re offered. Plans may differ among employees only on “bona fide employment-based classifications”. A “bona fide employment-based classifications” might include: full-time versus part-time employee status; different geographic location; membership in a collective bargaining unit; date of hire or length of service; or differing occupations. Each of these can be treated as different groups of similarly situated individuals and receive different levels of employer contribution. For example, it is perfectly fine to offer three weeks of vacation to exempt employees and two weeks to nonexempt employees because the basis of the vacation benefit is their FLSA category and not any protected category.

The key is to make sure that benefits plan decisions are non-discriminatory, and that’s where we can help. We can make sure protected groups remain protected and design an employer contribution plan that delivers the best possible benefit while eliminating any unintentional discrimination that may result from these decisions.

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With the current challenges in recruiting and retaining it’s a perfect time to revisit how you deliver, what you deliver, and make sure your benefit packages are competitive in helping you attract, retain, and reward the A players to move your business forward. Need help creating classes of employees and defining contributions? Let’s talk, shoot us an email at marketing@corpstrat.com

5 Employee Benefits Tax Strategies You Need to Know

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Have you explored ways to re-engineer your Employee Benefits to maximize your dollar? If you’re spending after tax dollars to pay for medical expenses, you may not be maximizing your savings. Health benefit plans allow employers and employees to set aside funds, pretax, to help employees pay for qualified medical expenses. By combining a number of different tax strategies, we can help you find major savings for both your company and your employees.

1. Flexible Spending Account (FSA)

FSAs are more important than ever. They can reduce the amount of taxes an employee needs to pay and also help save the company money by reducing payroll taxes. A Flex Plan is a consumer-driven account that allows employees to use pre-tax money for eligible healthcare and dependent care expenses. Typically the funds in a flex plan are available during a 12-month enrollment period, however due to COVID-19 and its effects, this enrollment window has been extended, allowing employees additional time to use their FSA account balances. If you want to learn more about how COVID-19 has affected your FSA, reach out to us today.

2. Health Savings Account (HSA)

Similar to FSAs, HSAs sets aside funds into an account, pre-tax. However HSAs offer employees more flexibility and control—they can use, save, or invest the money in their account. Any unused money rolls over instead of disappearing and, because it belongs to employees not the employer, the HSA is portable and moves with the employee to their next job.

3. Medical Reimbursement

Did you know you can pay all out-of-pocket medical expenses using company deductible dollars? You may be able to claim a deduction if your total healthcare costs for the year are high enough. You can deduct your health insurance premiums—and other healthcare costs—if your expenses exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income. Owners may also qualify to write off their professional and business, out-of-pocket expenses using a discriminatory medical expense reimbursement plan. (Ask us how!) 

4. Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA)

HRA plans are employer-funded medical reimbursement plans. The employer sets aside a specific amount of pre-tax dollars for employees to pay for health care expenses on an annual basis. Depending on how the plan is designed, HRAs can generate significant savings in overall health benefits.

5. Self-Insured Dental Expense Plan

A self-insured dental expense plan can “beat the heck” out of a fully-insured dental plan and here’s why: The fully insured plan offers employers peace of mind but they cost more and the rates increase every year. Self-funded plans on the other hand offer employers more control, increased transparency, and significant annual savings. Most plans have a firm cap on this liability per covered life and, assuming they don’t discriminate, can create an efficient employee benefit.

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These are just our top 5 hacks, but we have so many more strategies in our tool kit. To learn more about these tax strategies, schedule a FREE 30-minute consultation with an Employee Benefits experts or email us at marketing@www.corpstrat.com. We’ll see how we can rethink your benefits and save your company money.

8 Reasons Why You Need an Employee Benefits Audit

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8 Reasons Why you Need An Employee Benefits Audit. Woman in office handing a document to an employee.

When’s the last time you took a hard look at your Employee Benefits? If you’re running your Employee Benefits the same as it’s always been, you could be missing out on major cost-saving opportunities. We’d highly recommend getting an Employee Benefits Audit to make sure you’re not missing out on hidden benefits.

During an Employee Benefits Audit, we take a close look at your current offerings and work with you to create an efficient solution that’s better for your organization. Read on to see eight reasons why you should get an Employee Benefits Audit as soon as possible.

1. You’re not communicating clearly with your employees.

The technology around Employee Benefits continues to improve, we can connect you with better platform tech that can offer your employees a better experience and make it easier for you to communicate benefits plans to your employees more clearly.

2. You’re overpaying for the wrong benefits

A benefits audit can help you identify areas to improve your plan benefit, save you money, and reconfigure your total benefit package. Choosing to just go with a standard package can cost you—narrow networks and subtle benefit design differences can add up to big savings.

3. You’re not taking advantage of tax opportunities

If you’re not taking advantage of tax opportunities, you’re leaving money on the table. During an Employee Benefits Audit, you’ll work with an experienced benefits broker who knows their way around the various tax benefits.

4. Your Employee Enrollment Experience Isn’t Great.

Employee satisfaction is so important and surveys show that when the benefits enrollment experience isn’t approachable and easy to use, employee satisfaction begins to trend down. A benefits audit can help you find where your tech is lacking so you can take advantage of the best technology in the market to produce the best enrollment experience possible for your staff.

5. You’re not sure if you’re compliant.

Why stay up late worrying if you’re compliant. After a quick audit, we can ensure that you are compliant with COBRA, ERISA and other areas of exposures employers need to cover.

6. Your Team is Work From Home and Benefits details aren’t being communicated.

There’s no question, COVID has changed how we work. Now that most employees are working from home, it’s more difficult to make sure the value of your benefit program is being recognized. Not only are there benefits you can add to your package, designed for remote teams, there are also new tools that can help you better communicate with your employees, virtually.

7. You’re putting off a Benefits Audit because you don’t have time.

Don’t wait until enrollment is around the corner to do a benefits audit. You might be putting off big savings and you’ll be rushed to enroll may not have enough time to do critical analysis.

8. You don’t want to be met with hefty fines or costly litigation

Rules, policies, and plans are constantly changing, if you don’t do regular audits of your employee benefits package, you could be met with hefty fines or costly litigation. As an employer, you’re a fiduciary, which means you have compliance and legal obligations that can cost you if you fail to comply, communicate, and file.

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Need an Employee Benefits Audit? We can help you with that. Email us at marketing@www.corpstrat.com or schedule a call with one of our experts today.