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Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
Benefits & Compensation
Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
Exchange ideas about health plans, retirement, work/life benefits, and employee assistance.
Hello,
Our company currently offers a fixed package of LTD and Life Insurance.
I was wondering if i should implement additional benefits..
What would be the first step in finding out if EEs wo
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Forums » Topic Forums » Benefits & Compensation » Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
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Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
posted at 4/29/2009 5:58 AM EDT
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Posts: 59
First: 9/5/2008 Last: 9/4/2009 |
Hello,
Our company currently offers a fixed package of LTD and Life Insurance. I was wondering if i should implement additional benefits.. What would be the first step in finding out if EEs would take advantage of that? Is a survey or questionnaire the only options? Thanks. |
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Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
posted at 4/29/2009 6:30 AM EDT
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Posts: 2146
First: 2/15/2006 Last: 9/14/2011 |
I would check with your broker to see if there are minimum participation requirements to offering other benefits. You may find that by surveying, you will get some interest but not enough to put it into place. I'd be more likely to post a message and ask anyone interested to let me know rather than do a formal survey.
And/or the administration for the few that take you up on the benefit outweights having the benefit itself. {I am of the belief that any benefit that the employee could purchase individually out on the open market for a competitive rate should not be offered by the employer. The only real advantage is if the employee is saving money by getting the benefit through the employer (which often health, dental, vision, life and std/ltd do) due either to the employer paying part or all of the premiums OR the employer negotiating lower rates with the insurance company OR being able to have the benefit pre-tax. Otherwise I leave it up to my employees to search out the benefits they want through private sources. |
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Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
posted at 4/29/2009 6:49 AM EDT
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Posts: 59
First: 9/5/2008 Last: 9/4/2009 |
Thank you for the advise.
I was only thinking of additional Life Insurance for them and for their dependents. In e-mail sent out would most likely be enough to see the interest. Thank you again. |
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Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
posted at 4/29/2009 7:12 AM EDT
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Posts: 3870
First: 2/12/2002 Last: 11/2/2009 |
What do you expect to gain by offering more benefits? It's a nice idea to be sure, but unless it would result in improved retention (which disability/life insurance benefits rarely do) or some other key employee metric, then you might want to turn your attention elsewhere.
I've always found that paid time off benefits rank as tops on the list followed by health insurance. Unfortunately, these are the most expensive benefits. |
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Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
posted at 4/29/2009 8:32 AM EDT
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Posts: 1047
First: 4/11/2002 Last: 9/14/2011 |
Additional life insurance is typically offered at employee cost, so there really wouldn't be any additional expense for the employer other than taking the time out of someone's schedule to implement it. Insurance carriers will typically require 25% of voluntary insurance products. This participation percentage can vary from carrier to carrier, while some are going as low as 15%, so long as employee meetings are mandatory. Your employee demographics (age, gender, family status, average salary) and current employer paid life benefit amount tend to influence participation.
What about STD? I find that to be a better benefit than supplemental life. It's quite possible for an employee to find cheaper life insurance on their own than through a group plan (assuming at least average health), but that's definitely not the case when it comes to disability insurance. |
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Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
posted at 4/29/2009 8:47 AM EDT
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Posts: 1047
First: 4/11/2002 Last: 9/14/2011 |
By the way, I would probably refrain from sending a general email out to gauge interest. The people who will be most interested in additional life insurance are going to be the ones in poor health and perhaps have been declined if they tried obtaining it on their own.
Send me an email and I will help you determine if your employee profile is a good fit or not when it comes to supplemental life insurance. matthew.roberts@heliosconsultinggroupllc.com |
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Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
posted at 4/29/2009 9:11 AM EDT
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Posts: 2146
First: 2/15/2006 Last: 9/14/2011 |
Maybe it is because we are a small company, but our voluntary insurance broker requires 70% participation and honestly, there is more administration work than I expected to it. Because each application must go through individual underwriting if they want more than the original basic guaranteed amount. And this coming year, when we renew, I expect that we will drop below the 70% needed so I expect that the benefit will be cancelled.
And if I look at those that participate in our voluntary life plan it actually isn't the most unhealthy/oldest but rather those that either don't have other individual voluntary life OR are very young with few assets and see this as a good way to buy life insurance. |
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Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
posted at 4/29/2009 9:25 AM EDT
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Posts: 464
First: 6/30/2004 Last: 11/22/2010 |
We pay for life insurance for our full time regular staff because our EAP is hooked to it. It's a fairly inexpensive benefit, is two times annual pay capped at $60,000. If they want more, that is optional at their cost and subject to underwriting by the carrier(s). |
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Additional Benefits (Life, LTD..)
posted at 4/29/2009 12:41 PM EDT
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Posts: 1047
First: 4/11/2002 Last: 9/14/2011 |
Who's the insurance carrier rupert? Some carriers require a minimum number of enrolled employees, however, I've never seen an insurance carrier require 70% participation. And what's up with the individual underwriting? The main benefit of supplemental group insurance is lax underwriting. Most carriers rubber stamp every applicant, so long as they don't have AIDS, HIV or were in a hospital recently. |
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