If you are the owner of a small business located in Arizona, you are probably eligible to enroll your employees in a small business group health insurance plan.
But is that the smartest and best option for you and your employees? Maybe yes and maybe no. You may not be aware, but in many cases, small business health insurance plans cost considerably more than individual health insurance plans.
If you provide health insurance to your employees, you are required to pay at least 50% of your employees’ premium. If you have eight employees insured on a small business group health plan, perhaps the premium for each employee is $300. That comes to a total monthly premium for your employees of $2400 each month. You are required to pay at least $1200 of that amount. Can you afford to do this?
Using those same eight employees as an example, you may find it would cost considerably less each month if you put each employee on an individual policy instead of a group plan. Often, this is the case. If all of your employees are young males, you might find that the total premium for all eight young men comes to half of what the group plan would cost you. And if you are able to ensure all eight on individual plans, you are not required to pay at least 50% of each employee’s premium – you can pay whatever you like, as long as you treat each employee the same.
One big problem that could arise, however, is if one of those young men has a medical problem. This is because group insurance is guaranteed coverage, meaning the insurance company must offer you a policy. When applying for an individual plan, you may be turned down due to your health. Perhaps one of the employees has diabetes. No insurance company that we are aware of will usually write a policy for someone that is diabetic. So you’ll be able to get seven of your employees covered inexpensively, but the eighth employee is left out in the cold, with no insurance. In this situation, if you wanted to insure your employees, you would have no other choice other than putting all eight employees on a true small group plan.
If your employees have no major health conditions and there are only a small handful of employees, individual health insurance policies for each employee are probably the way to go. Click here for an individual or family quote.
If your small business is located in Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, Yuma or any other Arizona community, click here to begin the process of getting group health insurance rates for your company.
If you need advice about what you should do in your situation, contact us at 1-800-600-9663, and we will be happy to help guide to the right health insurance solution.
