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More Tiers for Insurance premiums
Benefits & Compensation
More Tiers for Insurance premiums
Exchange ideas about health plans, retirement, work/life benefits, and employee assistance.
Hello,
Our company has 2 tiers for its medical insurance premiums - Individual and Family.
Question: can we save on monthly insurance costs by adding more tiers (i.e individual, ind+spouse; ind
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Forums » Topic Forums » Benefits & Compensation » More Tiers for Insurance premiums
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More Tiers for Insurance premiums
posted at 5/5/2009 7:04 AM EDT
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Posts: 59
First: 9/5/2008 Last: 9/4/2009 |
Hello,
Our company has 2 tiers for its medical insurance premiums - Individual and Family. Question: can we save on monthly insurance costs by adding more tiers (i.e individual, ind+spouse; ind + children; family) Thank you. |
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More Tiers for Insurance premiums
posted at 5/5/2009 7:27 AM EDT
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Posts: 2146
First: 2/15/2006 Last: 9/14/2011 |
I suspect you would because there are people in the family category now that would move to the less expensive categories of employee plus spouse or employee plus children. It is going to depend a bit on how much of the premium the employer is paying and how much of the premium the employee is paying.
Plus you might have more "double dipping" than you suspect because an employee might be choosing family to cover the kids while the spouse's employer is also covering the spouse at no cost to the spouse. We have four levels: ee only, ee + spouse, ee+children and family. |
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More Tiers for Insurance premiums
posted at 5/5/2009 9:29 AM EDT
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Posts: 2146
First: 2/15/2006 Last: 9/14/2011 |
We have BCBS Texas and have the four tiers at different levels/premiums, but we are a small fully insured group plan. All the plans we looked at had the same tiered levels (UHC, Aetna, Humana and BCBS).
What size is your company? How many would you have in each tier? It could be you aren't large enough to have tiers, but we have less than 20 ees and we can. I agree with Marc that it is time to shop around -- both insurance agencies and brokers. |
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More Tiers for Insurance premiums
posted at 5/5/2009 9:35 AM EDT
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Posts: 59
First: 9/5/2008 Last: 9/4/2009 |
We have 130 EEs scattered in MA, IL, NY.
From my understanding it will be hard to change brokers since the company has been using them for many-many years and i've been here for less than a year. But i will shop around anyway. Thank you for all your help. |
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More Tiers for Insurance premiums
posted at 5/5/2009 10:17 AM EDT
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Posts: 186
First: 4/23/2001 Last: 4/14/2010 |
We're self insured and have three tiers - employee, employee plus 1, and family. For us it made sense as we tied the move to the middle tier to other changes in a cafeteria plan. Don't buy into the 'you can't change the broker' mentality. I switched brokers my first year here and saved $100,000 per year. The good old boy network is self-sustaining and frequently as the new person you are the best one to change it. |
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More Tiers for Insurance premiums
posted at 5/6/2009 6:02 AM EDT
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Posts: 2146
First: 2/15/2006 Last: 9/14/2011 |
And you can have a separate broker for benefits than all other insurance too. Actually we have our insurance business split between two brokers at two different firms (WC and benefits at one and property/liability/etc at the other).
Some of the best property/business/liability firms stink at employee benefit insurances. Ask me how I know! We pulled ours away because of it. |
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More Tiers for Insurance premiums
posted at 5/6/2009 8:01 AM EDT
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Posts: 1047
First: 4/11/2002 Last: 9/14/2011 |
For a group of 130 employees, having additional rate tiers will not affect "total premium". BCBS has a pretty good idea of what your claims are going to be based on your past claims experience and your premium rates are derived from that, as well as your demographics.
Having additional rate tiers could be more equitable depending on how you're calculating contribution ratios. For example, if your company pays 75% for dependent coverage, employees insuring only a spouse or a child would pay less if there were additional rate tiers (typically employee + spouse and employee + children). Employees insuring an entire family would pay more. |
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More Tiers for Insurance premiums
posted at 7/8/2009 9:19 AM EDT
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Posts: 2
First: 6/17/2009 Last: 7/8/2009 |
When presenting your proposal to change agents, present it in terms of savings and benefits. Generally, the good ole boys are interested in saving money more than loyalty. If not, you will know where you stand. |
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