Group Health Insurance
Offering your employees an attractive group healthcare package gives your company a competitive edge that can mean the difference between retaining that superstar employee or losing him or her to another business. Some of your employees may even have considered being independent contractors, but opted to work for you because of the valuable benefits package you provide.
Whether you choose to offer pharmacy benefits, dental and vision plans, behavioral health benefits, or simply a traditional medical insurance policy, your Mountcastle agent can discuss all of the features available to give your employees the choices and savings they want.
The Affordable Care Act made health insurance coverage for companies with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees (FTE) mandatory for business owners. This means these employers are legally bound to share in the payment of a percentage of their employees' group health insurance premiums. You can count on the guidance of your Mountcastle agent to structure your health benefits package in a cost-effective manner that will help you attract the top tier talent you want, and assure your employees that you care about what matters most to them.
Group Health FAQs
Healthcare is the most important benefit employees want from their employer, and an unsatisfactory healthcare package makes employees much more likely to seek alternate employment. Group Coverage through an employer is more affordable for your employees, offering lower premiums than with individual health plans. And the premium payments are pretax, meaning employees' annual taxes are also lower.
Your net effect (in addition to greater employee satisfaction) is paying lower payroll taxes; your payments to group health insurance premiums are tax-deductible.
Integrated HRA - Your company may combine a group policy (often a high-deductible health plan) with a reimbursement benefit (a monthly allowance of tax-free money). This type of policy typically reimburses deductibles or coinsurance costs that are covered under the group policy. Individual insurance premiums are not reimbursed.
Health Savings Account (HSA) - A Health Savings Account, offered in conjunction with a high-deductible health insurance plan (HDHP), may be a helpful way for employees to save for medical expenses while simultaneously reducing the employer's taxable income. The employee will choose how much money to contribute to the HSA account, but he/she may not exceed maximums mandated by the federal government. Typically, employees may opt to have automatic contributions deducted from their paychecks. Either a debit card or checks will be issued to the employee, giving access to the funds for eligible medical expenses. These may include coinsurance, copays, deductibles, and other qualified medical costs not covered by their plan. Generally the HSA funds can not be used to pay premiums. One nice benefit of an HSA is that the funds remain available at year's end, rolling over the balance to the next year, so employees never lose their savings.
Speak with your Mountcastle agent to learn more about these and other options that best meet your business's specialized group health insurance needs.