Cover some of the costs of unexpected health issues with critical illness insurance.
Have your employees consider critical illness insurance.
Your employees may not know about critical illness insurance and how it can help them. People don’t often expect to suffer from a critical illness. There may or may not be warning signs and, even when there are, they might not know a serious medical event is imminent. By offering this coverage to your employees, you can educate them on how beneficial this coverage can be.
Health insurance is often not enough.
Many people believe that health insurance will be enough to protect them, even in the event of a significant illness. While health insurance may typically cover some of the expenses, patients can be left with huge medical bills. High deductible health plans, cost-sharing, out-of-network providers, and plan limitations can all contribute to these out-of-pocket costs. Even with a rich insurance plan, your employees could still face tremendous expenses.
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Group Health Insurance
Risk Factor
One of the main factors in attracting and retaining good employees is the benefit program offered by employers. This typically starts with your group health insurance plan.
Solution
Regardless of the company’s financials, there are ways to make health insurance available to your employees and their dependents. Offering health insurance doesn’t have to break the bank. There are many solutions available to small, mid-size, and large employers.
Group Life Insurance
Risk Factor
When employees are worried about their financial situation, they may not be as productive. Many individuals today do not have life insurance or adequate savings to cover final expenses, which places additional stress on employees and/or their families when the need arises.
Solution
A group life insurance plan can put your employees’ minds at ease, knowing their family will have resources available when they need them. Policies can also include a dependent benefit to help the employee pay for expenses if their dependent passes. Another solution is to offer a voluntary life benefit whereby the employee pays a lower premium through payroll deduction than they would if they found coverage on their own. Group life insurance is also tax deductible.
Disability
Risk Factor
Many employers are faced with offering lower wages than their competitors and find it difficult to find and retain qualified workers.
Solution
Offering a short-term and/or a long-term disability program can provide prospective and current workers with another form of financial stability. An employee may be offered a higher wage elsewhere, but are they offered protection if that paycheck stops due to pregnancy, illness, or other disability? How will they pay the mortgage or other bills? Employers offering a disability plan can provide peace of mind to their employees and gain an advantage over those that don’t.
Group Dental Coverage
Risk Factor
Failure to have regular dental checkups can lead to more serious problems than a toothache.
Solution
Offering dental coverage to your employees can help encourage them to see a dentist on a regular basis. Gum disease has been linked to heart disease as well as diabetes. Catching these issues early not only helps your employees’ health, it may help reduce your long-term health insurance costs before a big claim hits!
Vision Care Coverage
Risk Factor
Similar to dental coverage, if your employees are not getting regular eye exams, they may have underlying medical conditions such as heart disease or diabetes that can surface later at a greater expense to your medical plan.
Solution
Offering vision care coverage is a very affordable component to offering health benefits. It’s an inexpensive portion of the benefit package with a high value of return and can help offset the impact of increased medical costs, becoming a cost-effective, early intervention tool.
Voluntary Coverage
Risk Factor
Not being able to meet an employee’s individual needs can pose a threat to worker retention and attracting new talent, both of which can be costly to your bottom line.
Solution
Offering voluntary coverage lets your employees choose benefits that are important to them. It’s a cost-effective way to provide a variety of benefits at little or no impact to your monthly premiums. Examples of voluntary coverage include:
- Critical illness, hospital indemnity, and cancer coverage.
- Life, dependent life, short-term, and long-term disability coverage.
- Dental care.
- Vision care.
Compliance Audits
Risk Factor
Compliance audits are increasing and Department of Labor fines can be costly. Do you have all of the documents and paperwork at your fingertips should you receive an audit letter?
Solution
A good benefits broker will educate you on the compliance pieces so that you are prepared for that dreaded day. A wrap document covers most of what is required and the remaining forms should be readily accessible with proof of distribution to employees and/or eligible participants.
There are additional expenses associated with critical illnesses.
Someone who is facing a critical illness is likely missing income while in treatment. However, there are still groceries to buy, rent and mortgages to pay, and child care expenses to fund. In addition, they may be incurring additional expenses such as transportation costs to receive care. Many policies may offer benefits in the form of cash to be used in any way the policyholder sees fit, making this a more desirable product for employees.
Do you need critical illness insurance?
If you have a family history of illness such as heart disease or cancer and if you don’t have financial stability, you might want to consider this coverage.
What can a critical illness plan cover?
The specifics will vary from policy to policy, but typically heart attacks, strokes, certain cancers, and major organ failure may be included.
Educate employees on what constitutes a critical illness.
What may seem like a critical illness to someone may not be considered one under the rules of the critical illness insurance policy, and the definition can vary from one insurance company to the next. Typically, illnesses such as heart attack, stroke, cancer, organ transplant, coronary bypass, and renal failure would be included. Some cancers may be excluded if they aren’t life-threatening, and recurrences of illnesses also might not be covered.
Want to find out more about offering critical illness insurance to your workforce? Contact us to get started.
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