8 December 2018
 Categories: Business, Blog

So, your business has grown enough now that you have to begin thinking about and selecting from thousands of group benefit plans. On the one hand, you are probably thrilled about the fact that business has done so well and grown so rapidly. On the other hand, the task of finding a group benefit plan for all of your employees is quite the daunting one. Here is how a tiered​ benefit plan may be the perfect choice for your employees.

What Tiered Health Plans Are

​Tiered health plans consist of three or more tiers, often referred to as bronze, silver, gold, or tiers numbered 1-3. The lowest tier provides the most basic coverage for the employee, and it may or may not cover dependents. The middle tier covers spouse and dependents, and it provides a higher quality of coverage. The third and highest tier (e.g., "gold" or "Tier 3") provides the best coverage possible with the greatest ability to access any doctors and specialists. Most employees would prefer to have the best coverage possible, but they have the option to take a less expensive plan under the tiered system. 

Your Cost as an Employer

​Another aspect of tiered benefit plans is that you can choose to pay part or all of the associated costs of the plans for your employees. Paying for the employees' healthcare entirely is a very generous thing to do, but a lot of employers avoid this expense when they are a growing business and they want to save money. If you choose to pay part of the monthly cost for healthcare for your employees, you can choose to pay one-third, two-thirds, one-half, or all of the premiums for employees who take the lowest coverage, part of the premiums for those that take middle-of-the-road coverage, and just a little or none of the amount for those that take the best coverage. You can also reverse that by paying for all of the best coverage and none of the least coverage. It just depends how you want to structure employer/employee benefit amounts and which tiered healthcare benefit plans you want to offer/take.

​Flexibility

​Finally, tiered plans offer you a lot of flexibility as an employer to offer your employees what they want and need. Maybe not all of your employees need maximum healthcare coverage because they are covered by a spouse's plan. Maybe they rarely get sick, but they have dependents to care for. Whatever the case, you do not have to sift through thousands of plans just to find one that fits every employee's needs.

Contact a company, like NFP, P & C, Inc., for more help.