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Very few companies — even Fortune 500 employers — can say they pay 100 percent of medical insurance costs for their employees and their families. Your clients can.
By Tim Adkisson, Regional Benefits Vice President |
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Forget everything you think you know about selling health insurance. If your clients are accustomed to the rigid pricing structure of most health insurance plans, they’ll be pleasantly surprised by the flexible menu of pricing and coverage options available through Select Benefits, our limited benefit medical insurance policy.
Select Benefits is not major medical, but it does provide coverage for such services as doctor’s office visits, X-rays and hospital stays. There are no limitations on preexisting conditions, no required networks and no requirements for proof of good health (except for late entrants).
Depending on the level of coverage chosen, a typical plan might pay $55 for a doctor’s office visit and $600 per day for an inpatient hospital stay.
Insurance for Everyone
We’ve all read the statistics about double-digit medical inflation. The result is that only about 60 percent of businesses offered health plans to their
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employees in 2005, down from 69 percent in 2000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust.1
Of the workers who still get health insurance coverage through their employers, they paid an average of 79 percent more in 2003 than they did in 1996 — a jump from $1,275 to $2,283 per year for family coverage.2 Hardest hit are low-income workers, especially those in hourly, part-time and seasonal jobs. In fact, only about 19 percent of part-time workers receive health benefits at all.3
I’m working with a home services company whose employees fit this profile. To start the benefits planning process, the company’s human resources manager asked her 25 employees how much they could afford to chip in for medical insurance. They told her $75 per month. The company was committed to matching the employees’ contribution, which meant they could budget $150 per month, per employee.
In this price range, major medical coverage is almost always unattainable, but Select Benefits offers two attractive options:
- Plan A: Offer a $150-per-month plan that covers only the employees who are willing to contribute $75 per month.
- Plan B: Offer a $75-per-month core buy-up plan that covers all 25 employees, but gives them three options for increasing their benefits.
Monthly Core Buy-up
Monthly core buy-up plans allow an employer to offer a stable benefit plan to their employees at a fixed monthly rate. The employer selects and pays the premium for the core benefit plan for all eligible employees. Employees who want more coverage can then choose to pay for one of the three buy-up options, which they pay for through the convenience of payroll deduction (view sample plan).
Here are three reasons your clients will want a core buy-up plan:
- Lock in costs and benefits. With a traditional cost-sharing plan design, the employer doesn’t know how many employees are buying in and thus will not know their annual costs until after enrollment. The core buy-up design allows the employer to lock in the annual benefit plan cost prior to enrollment — a tremendous advantage for employers who want to budget for additional programs.
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- Retain employees. Quality benefits help attract and retain employees. Employers can cover every single eligible employee, including full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal workers. Very few companies in America — even Fortune 500 employers — can say they pay 100 percent of medical insurance costs for their employees and their families. Your clients can.
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- Access to richer benefits. Most employers want to provide the best possible health insurance benefits they can afford. But if their budget is limited, a core buy-up plan can still give employees three options for upgrading their benefits.
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Select Benefits offers a unique option that allows employers and employees to create a custom-built plan that fits their needs at a price they can afford. This kind of design is practically unheard of in the health plan world.
Learn more about the Select Benefits difference by contacting the Sales Center at invest@symetra.com or 1-800-706-0700.
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1 Insurance Newscast, "Fewer U.S. Firms Offer Health Insurance, Cite Costs," Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust, Sept. 15, 2005.
2 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, "Employer-Sponsored Single, Employee-Plus-One, and Family Health Insurance Coverage: Selection and Cost, 2003," U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, July 2005.
3 Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "All Part-Timers at REI to Get Medical Benefits," Employee Benefit Research Institute, Oct. 11, 2005.
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