Employee Benefits

Health Insurance

Health insurance is insurance that pays for all or part of a person's health care bills. The types of health insurance are group health plans, individual plans, workers' compensation,and government health plans such as Medicare and Medicaid

Health care costs include doctor visits, hospital stays, surgery, procedures, tests, home care, and other treatments and services.

Dental Insurance

Dental Insurance is insurance designed to pay the costs associated with dental care.  Dental insurance pays a portion of the bills from dentists, and other providers of dental services. Dental care costs include cleanings, exams, x-rays, fillings, crowns and other treatments and services. 

Disability- Short & Long Term

Short Term Disability is insurance that protects people who become temporarily disabled due to sickness or injury.  Some policies also include maternity leave as short term disability.This insurance replaces a portion of your income for a short period of time specified in your contract. 

Long Term Disability insurance is insurance that protects people who can’t work because of sickness or injury that lasts typically six months or more.  This insurance replaces a portion of your income for a long term period of time specified in your contract.

Vision Insurance

Vision insurance is insurance that provides coverage for the services rendered by eye care professionals such as ophthamologists and optometrists. There are many vision insurance companies. The typical vision insurance plan provides yearly coverage for eye examinations and partial or full coverage eyeglasses, sunglasses and contact lenses, with or without copays, depending on the plan chosen.

Group Life Insurance

Group life insurance covers the lives of multiple persons, such as some or all employees of a business, members of a labor union or members of an association.  The person owning the “master policy” in these examples is the employer, the union or the association.  The insured persons (employees), generally may name their own beneficiaries.  The most common form of group life insurance is “term life insurance”. 

Group Voluntary Products

Are often referred to as Worksite Marketing products and they can be any type of additional benefit that is added to an employer’s menu of benefit options.  These benefits may be provided through insurance products that can be classified as core products or ancillary products.  Commonly offered products are Life Insurance, Disability, Critical Illness, Dental and Accident Insurance. 

Employee Wellness Programs

Wellness programs often involve some form of education.  From smoking cessation programs to weight loss to biometric testing and diabetes screening, these programs at the very least raise awareness around important health issues.  Wellness programs are implemented by a third party company that takes care of the health and well-being of employees within the company.  Employee wellness programs vary from health screening and nutritional advice to fitness programs and education. 

Business Succession Planning

A succession plan is an outline of the way that you expect your business to continue when you are no longer at the helm.  It serves as guidance to your successors in a way that you believe will result in effective management of your company.  The plan may serve other purposes as well, for example – help secure family financial interests in the business and delineate strategies that will reduce significantly the impact of estate tax at your passing.

Long Term Care

Long term care is the services you will need when you are chronically ill and no longer able to care for yourself.  Chronic illness may result from an accident, injury or gradual frailty.  Long term care services range from assistance with basic personal activities such as bathing, dressing and eating to more specialized nursing care or physical therapy.   Most employer based long term care is offered as a voluntary benefit.

Flexible Spending Account

A tax advantaged financial account that can be set up through a cafeteria plan of an employer.  An FSA allows an employee to set aside a portion of his or her earnings to pay for qualified expenses as established in the cafeteria plan, most commonly for medical expenses but often for dependent care or other expenses.  Money deducted from an employee's pay into an FSA is not subject to payroll taxes, resulting in substantial payroll tax savings. 

401(k) Retirement Plans

A voluntary retirement plan offered to employees of a company that allows up to a certain percentage of their pretax pay to be set aside and invested within the retirement plan. The percentage varies from company to company and can increase each year. The employer can also contribute to the employees plan if they wish. The funds and the growth are not taxed until the funds are withdrawn. There are restrictions as to when and how you can withdraw these funds without penalties.

403(b)

A 403b plan is a retirement plan for University, civil government, and not-for-profit employees. It has the same characteristics and benefits of a 401k.