We’re another year into the Affordable Care Act and its provisions, and there are some topics you might want to go back over with your clients. Here are three ACA issues brokers should discuss with clients.
- Compliance. You’ll need to be in-the-know about your group sizes and what provisions apply to them. As their advisor, you should be prepared to help them look at the provisions and ensure they are in compliance. Remember, the provisions depend on how many workers are employed. So your smaller clients with under 50 employees won’t be mandated to provide health insurance to employees under the ACA; but you can still encourage them to offer benefits through, for example, private exchanges. And for clients with 50 and more employees, they’ll have compliance and reporting requirements to meet. Make sure you’re on top of what they’ll need to do.
- Pay or Play. You can be a big help to your clients in deciding whether they should pay (the penalty) or play (offer qualified group health insurance). As their advisor who is well-versed in all things ACA, you can first of all help them calculate their number of full-time employees to see if the employer mandate even applies to them. If it does (50 or more), you can help them calculate the costs of paying the penalty vs. playing by providing benefits.
- Tax Credits. As your clients’ broker and advisor, you should address any tax credits that apply to your groups and their employees. You should analyze their work force and help clients understand if individual health insurance tax credits apply to any employees and their families. You can also help your clients understand how their business can take advantage of any individual tax credits for cost savings overall. If the client is a small business (under 50 employees), they may be eligible for the small business tax credit. You can guide them on how to take advantage of that.
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