It’s still true that many people, professionals included, blink in confusion when healthcare insurance is the topic of discussion. That’s why as a broker, you can be a real hero to your clients when you offer them pointers that help break through their employees’ benefits-related fog.
Here’s a starter list for your clients that covers why employees should choose employer-offered benefits.
- Start by reminding your client that this is a win-win for employers and employees. The incentives are both on the side of the employers and the employees—a unique scenario. There’s no downside for employees choosing employer-offered benefits.
- Be sure your clients tell their employees that the public marketplace is not an option. Why? They are offering health insurance benefits, and the public marketplace is designed to help subsidize only those people who have no access through employers to benefits packages—people who are unemployed, disabled, or working for a company with fewer than 50 people. If your employees need health care coverage, the company offerings are the best place to find a plan because the company provides the subsidy.
- Many employees are focused on their families, even at work. Your clients can assure employees that their benefits packages cover the employee’s immediate family members, too. Help clients underscore ways in which the whole family benefits: fewer lost days at work or school by taking advantage of employer-sponsored insurance coverage, especially prevention programs.
- Do the employees know how much—beyond their salary or wages—they are earning because of their company’s benefits packages? They should provide information on the company’s significant contributions for this benefit—often as high as thirty percent of each employee’s salary. This is another way to clarify and emphasize the company’s subsidy.
- Are the employees interested in tax breaks? Make sure your clients emphasize the tax advantage of signing up for company-sponsored health care benefits: their deductions are pre-tax dollars, which lowers their tax burden. It’s a double subsidy: lower insurance costs and a tax break to boot!
According to Entrepreneur, “Many experts suggest you annually provide employees with a benefits statement that spells out what they're getting and at what cost. A simple rundown of the employee's individual benefits and what they cost the business is very powerful.”
Clients may often inadvertently omit another key point, too: in most cases, COBRA, the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act, allows employees and their dependents to continue to receive health insurance at less than the rate offered as private health insurance even after they no longer work for that company. Employees cannot receive this benefit anywhere except from their employer.
Naturally an added incentive would be that your clients can request input from employees on their offered benefits packages, and then work with you to tweak what is offered and make it even easier for every employee to be willing to sign on.