A large indicator of whether the public sees your company as legitimate is if you provide benefits to your employees. You will not attract the qualified employees that it takes to grow your business if you do not offer them a generous benefits plan.
Buying into a group insurance plan saves you money in the long run through tax incentives. You will often get better prices on group insurance types than you would for personal insurance. Also, employees will be more willing to stick with your company for longer periods of time for the worry of giving up their benefits.
The following are the best healthcare benefits for small businesses.
Table of Contents
Health Insurance
The insurance type that every type of business, both small and large, should offer is health insurance. Certain expenses are not covered by standard Canadian healthcare. Health insurance keeps your employees healthier and gives them an added layer of security.
For most employees, this is the bare minimum amount of protection they’ll require, meaning if you don’t offer full-time employees health insurance, then you won’t have many candidates from which to choose.
Dental Insurance
Similarly, employees want their dental and vision care needs to be taken care of. This doesn’t mean that a group insurance plan will cover expenses in totality, but it will dramatically cut the amount owed at dentist offices.
While most consider dental trips preventative, oral surgeries and other emergency work can cost in the thousands of dollars if not insured.
Life Insurance
As a small business owner, you must be prepared in the event of a tragic situation. Life insurance ensures that an employee’s family or beneficiaries are covered in the event the employee passes away.
Depending on the coverage amount, life insurance may cover costs such as paying off car debt, home mortgage, or credit cards. In some plans, a life insurance provider may pay off a portion of a beneficiary’s college education expenses. It’s important to at least offer your employees basic life insurance coverage.
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Disability Insurance
If one of your employees is injured or comes down with a serious illness and can’t show up to work for a short amount of time, having disability insurance ensures their ability to continue paying their bills and medical expenses. All they’ll have to do is submit a claim online through their insurance provider.
Critical illness insurance is close relative to disability coverage. In the event of a medical emergency such as a heart attack, critical illness coverage provides cash payments to supplement the amount not covered by an employee’s health insurance.
Employee Wellness
As anxiety and depression are at an all-time high, more employers are investing in employee wellness programs. This type of benefit provides helpful solutions such as mental health days, counseling, and massage therapy. Programs offered by the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can prove useful in the area.
Retirement
Providing some form of retirement aid for your employees goes a long way. Workers will be more willing to invest in your business if they can successfully put aside money each week towards their retirement.
There are several forms of retirement benefits, such as profit-sharing, pensions, and annuities, to name a few. A wise thing for business owners to do is find a plan that includes financial planning services. This helps steer employees in the right direction as far as saving for their retirement is concerned.
PTO (Paid Time Off)
Who doesn’t love paid time off? As awesome as you think your work environment is, employees need occasional time off to decompress and refresh their brains. Show your employees some love with a PTO package that pays them their usual daily rate when they need to take a day off.
Another form of paid time off is maternity/paternity leave. Maternity leave supplements a pregnant employee’s income during their time away from the office. You can also throw sick days and bereavement leaves under the PTO umbrella.
Get Group Health Insurance Today
We hope you enjoyed our list of the best health insurance benefits for small businesses.
Group Enroll is Canada’s leader in group insurance quotes. We provide free group insurance estimates to businesses nationwide from top insurance providers.
To see what kind of group benefits are out there for your business, get your quote now!
