Not Breaking the Bank: Employee Health Benefits

Guest Post Written By Sharon Vandeburgt

Next to salary, employee benefits coverage is one of the most important tools in attracting and retaining key staff. But if you are feeling frustrated by your insurance company every time the rates go up, you are not alone.

The reality is benefits can be an expensive venture for the business owner. It requires a cash flow commitment each month. If you are new to the benefits world you will soon learn that insurance companies offer attractive prices to lure in customers – only to surprise them with expensive increases in renewals when the contract period is up. After some years of offering employee benefits, business owners begin to loath renewal time. It requires bracing yourself for the now-to-be-expected rate increase, and then, spending man hours searching for a new insurance provider, who might be able to bait them into a new contract with that lower attractive rate.

What if the business owner got to decide exactly what the premiums will be year over year?

What if there was a solution to keeping the expense under your control?

There is a secret solution:

Covering everything from running shoes to root canals, a Health Spending Account is an amazing, affordable Employee Benefit alternative which does not break the company bank!

It begins by you controlling the cost. The employer decides the amount, based on cashflow and budget. Different classes can be set up for employees (management, non-management, etc.)

Renewal time is not dreadful. If you are happy with the amounts you are contributing, you simply repeat the next year. The administrative costs can be as low as 10%. When comparing that to traditional benefits which can be 30, 40 and even 100% adjudication fees this is an extremely attractive price! And there’s more. The way Health Spending Accounts can be spent by the employee is far more Flexible! Traditional plans will have strict limits not only on how much money can be spent at the dentist, but also which services it will pay for. Rarely will they pay for a root canal and almost never for orthodontics. With a Health Spending Account, the employee can use their coverage for these expenses. =If an employee decides to spend all his money on massage, no problem.

The limits spent on the Health Spending Accounts are only determined by how much money is left in the account, not an insurance company dictating where the money can and cannot be spent.

As the account sponsor (ie. the business owner) can also decide to allow employees to use their HSA for taking care of their health such as gym memberships, running shoes or a new bike.

A Health Spending Account is an affordable replacement for insured health and dental plans. No surprise renewals to deal with at the end of each year AND you decide the amount that will help you retain and attract great employees!

 

Sharon Vandeburgt

Born in Abbotsford, BC I was raised on salty Dutch licorice with my 5 siblings. After high school, I became a practical nurse and worked mostly with the geriatric population. I gotta tell you, there are some pretty cool old people! Leaving the rains of BC, I moved to sunny Calgary in 2000 while I continued pursuing my nursing career. Ray and I married in 2003 and in 2005 I decided to leave my nursing career, long before the Covid19 pandemic, so that I could stay at home to raise our family. In 2009, Ray and I started our own landscaping business and I managed the finances.

I am passionate about people winning in finances, and in 2017 I joined the financial industry. When people know how to manage their money, they can thrive and when individuals thrive, communities thrive. In my spare time, I love sipping lattes with friends, hiking and downhill skiing in the Rocky Mountains and playing board games with friends and family.

Connect with Sharon here:

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