If you’re a small employer (fewer than fifty full-time employees or the equivalent number of part-time employees), you know that the federal mandate to offer health insurance or be subject to penalties doesn’t apply to you.
Further, you may have decided that offering group health insurance isn’t the best option for your workforce. Depending on household size and household income, an individual without access to group health insurance may be eligible for a significant subsidy through Healthcare.gov to reduce the cost of heath insurance. If most of the jobs with your company are low-skilled and low-paying, your employees may be able to get health coverage as individuals at much less cost to them (and you!) than you could provide with a group health plan.
However, employee turnover is still a concern and, generally speaking, benefits are important for recruiting and retention. Can you still offer other benefits if you don’t offer health insurance?
YES.
Even without health insurance in your benefit package, other “ancillary” coverages you offer can still be valuable to employees – and what’s more, a group benefit almost always gives better benefits for a lower cost than your employees could find individually.
Here are the most popular employer-sponsored benefits when an employer doesn’t offer health insurance. All of these can be offered as a “contributory” benefit (where the employer pays a portion of the premium) or a “voluntary” benefit (the employer doesn’t pay anything toward the premium, but collects the employee’s premium as a payroll deduction and pays the insurance carrier invoice):
- Dental
- Vision
- Life
- Disability (short-term and long-term)
- Telemedicine
In addition, employers can sponsor voluntary supplemental coverages (hospital confinement, supplemental accident, critical illness, etc.)
Need help navigating the options? Reach out to us for options tailored to your needs.
