Health Care Benefits
Group Benefits/ Group Pensions
Group Policies and Benefits – Employers want to retain and motivate their employees. Most realize that they do this by offering more than just competitive salaries. Benefits have played an important role in the decision process potential employees make before joining a firm, and in their retention by the firm. Perhaps the most significant of benefits offered are those relating to health care.
Health care can be provided in the form of:
- group health care benefits,
- private health service plans, and
- stand-alone association plans.
Group Health Care Benefits:
Group health care benefits are offered in the following categories:
- Group Life Insurance, including Accidental Death and Dismemberment, and Dependent Life
- Short Term Disability
- Long Term Disability
- Extended Health Care (EHC which includes hospitalization, drugs, travel insurance, parameds and more)
- Dental and,
- Critical Illness
Many insurers offer benefit plan enhancements as medical review by noted physicians, and reduced wait times for specialized services such as diagnostics.
Private Health Insurance Plans (PHSP’s):
PHSP’s are both cost and tax efficient vehicles delivering EHC and Dental benefits to owners and employees of corporations and sole proprietorship’s. The rules are different for each of these types of businesses. A fee is paid for joining the plan and then an administration fee usually equating to 10% of the medical costs is payable when the plan is used (plus gst on the administration fee). There is no monthly charge! The costs are entirely tax deductible by the business and the employee is reimbursed for legitimate medical expenses up to the limit provided by the employer.
Options for Travel and Catastrophic (medical) expenses, Critical Illness and DSAI (Diagnostic and Specialist Access Insurance-often called Wait List Insurance) are also offered.
Association Plans:
Association plans offer a number of benefit packages each with a defined set of benefits and each with its own price structure based on the age of the insured person, for one low monthly per person fee. Various insurers such as Manulife, Alberta Blue Cross, Great West Life and others offer these plans and we as brokers can advise on each of these. In some cases there is no medical underwriting.
We at Morgan National would be pleased to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each type of group policies and benefits plan.
Note: The law is changing…our courts in Canada have been imposing a greater “duty of care” on employers in looking after the welfare of its employees. Generally speaking, the greater the financial capabilities of the corporation, the higher the duty imposed by the courts. Learn more about employer obligations by contacting us.
We can design a benefit program that most closely meets the requirements of the employer on the most cost-efficient basis possible. As brokers, Morgan National can request quotes from various insurers; we then assess the quotes and recommend the selection of the final insurer.
Call Morgan National Corporation today at (866) 595-3533 for information on group policies and benefits packages.