By Alex Moral, Senior Vice President, Trustmark Voluntary Benefit Solutions
Don’t all employers today want to offer their employees a rich benefit plan? But in reality, many
This high-deductible strategy, while cost effective for employers, still leaves employees with extra expenses to contend with before they reach 100% coverage. The good news is there are ways to relieve this burden for employees, without added costs for yourself.
Two particular voluntary benefits, accident insurance and critical illness insurance, can supplement your core major medical plan without being medical plans themselves.
As an employer, you may make such voluntary plans available to your employees. It is up to each employee if he or she wants the plan.
Through the payroll deduction process, your employees pay the full premium. If an accident or critical illness occurs, the benefits can help buoy an employee’s finances. Benefits fill financial gaps to help pay for deductible and co-insurance out-of-pocket costs and also can be used for employees’ household expenses.
Through the payroll deduction process, your employees pay the full premium. If an accident or critical illness occurs, the benefits can help buoy an employee’s finances. Benefits fill financial gaps to help pay for deductible and co-insurance out-of-pocket costs and also can be used for employees’ household expenses.
Voluntary accident insurance isn’t casualty insurance, and it also isn’t a reimbursement for services. It is a tax-free payment made directly to the employee if he, she, or a family member is injured in an accident that occurs outside of work. Funds can be used for any purpose.
Benefits might cover smaller costs such as emergency
Realize that accident insurance is separate and different than disability insurance. Accident insurance
Critical illness also serves a different, important purpose. It offers a larger, tax-free lump sum amount for
Fifteen or 20 years ago, more critical illnesses proved fatal than they do today.
With a greater survival rate due to modern medicine, employees now need the financial cushion that critical illness insurance provides. It helps cover everyday household expenses while employees recover from such life-changing illnesses, above and beyond the medical treatment coverage a core plan provides. There is a saying in the business
With a greater survival rate due to modern medicine, employees now need the financial cushion that critical illness insurance provides. It helps cover everyday household expenses while employees recover from such life-changing illnesses, above and beyond the medical treatment coverage a core plan provides. There is a saying in the business
At open enrollment time, you may have important company benefits changes or new 401(k) information you need your employees to understand. Ask your broker/consultant about using an enrollment service to deliver all of these important messages to your employees on a one-on-one basis. These one-on-one informational meetings are of no cost to the employer as long as the employer agrees to make voluntary benefits available to employees.
The enrollment firm does the rest. This should include educating employees as to why they need accident and critical illness insurance, for example, which then becomes a personal decision for each employee. To complete the process, the voluntary benefits carrier facilitates payroll deduction using your present payroll system.
The vital role that work-site insurance plays in helping supplement employee benefits programs has fueled the personal passion I have for this business.
Voluntary benefits are born out of real needs and help address the particular financial dynamics of the middle-class blue- and gray-collar workers in our society. The traditional kitchen table sales philosophy of past decades has not disappeared. It has only been transferred to the workplace through the human, one-on-one guidance of the voluntary benefits enroller.
Higher-earning individuals have investment brokers and financial consultants to whom they can turn. Plans
About the Author:
Alex Moral is senior vice president of Trustmark Voluntary Benefit Solutions, a carrier of voluntary and work-site benefit insurance plans for nearly 100 years, with headquarters in Lake Forest, IL. Trustmark provides payroll deducted voluntary universal life, disability, critical illness, and accident plans to employer groups through brokers. Reach Alex at #alex.moral[at]trustmarksolutions.com.
Alex Moral is senior vice president of Trustmark Voluntary Benefit Solutions, a carrier of voluntary and work-site benefit insurance plans for nearly 100 years, with headquarters in Lake Forest, IL. Trustmark provides payroll deducted voluntary universal life, disability, critical illness, and accident plans to employer groups through brokers. Reach Alex at #alex.moral[at]trustmarksolutions.com.