A Little Now for a Lot Later: Offering Voluntary Employee Benefits
As a responsible employer, you offer your team members the standard, expected suite of benefits – health care coverage, a 401(k) savings plan, and so on. There are ways to extend and enhance the value your employees assign to you as an employer, though, and it may cost you very little, if anything at all.
We’re referring to employers offering a select group of voluntary employee benefit options to their people.
Unlike the traditional benefits package, voluntary employee benefits are just that – employees have the freedom to purchase them on their own or not. The advantage they represent to employers comes in the fact that employees can select these additional voluntary options more conveniently (selected during open enrollment and paid for through payroll deductions already in place), with less work (the choices already have been vetted), and usually at a lower cost (since the options are purchased at a group rate for the company).A sampling of voluntary employee benefit options would include:
- Life insurance, sometimes without requiring medical underwriting.
- Vision insurance, that can include annual eye exams and discounts on corrective lenses.
- Dental insurance, covering preventive services.
- Long-term care insurance, for those who have lost the ability to perform basic daily activities (care not covered under Medicare or Medicaid).
- Short-term disability, covering a portion of wages lost due to disability, usually up to three to six months.
- Critical illness
- Accident
- Hospital indemnity
As with any insurance coverage, voluntary employee benefits options exist to protect employees and their family members in case of unforeseen, even seemingly unlikely, events and occurrences – situations where, if no coverage is in place, the ramifications can be devastating. A little investment now can pay huge dividends later, should the unexpected strike.Contact The Reschini Group for more information on how offering voluntary employee benefits could work for your particular employment situation.Copyright 2017 The Reschini Group
The Reschini Group provides these updates for information only, and does not provide legal advice. To make decisions regarding insurance matters, please consult directly with a licensed insurance professional or firm.