Option for ee who wants more $ and no insurance

Paige

Can we offer this to a candidate:

The employer's 50% share for a family plan is $XX per month. If you elect to keep your own insurance we will add the employer's share (cost) to your base salary, which would increase it by $XX per annum. Please keep in mind, however, that in the event you elected to participate in our HMO some time in the future that you would be 100% responsible for the costs.

Basically eliminate the employers cost of insurance and give it to the candidate as salary with expressed understanding that she ever decide to join our group she would be responsible for 100% of the cost.

Lori B

Hi

I don't think your contract with the carrier would allow it. Group plans usually designate the employer portion for the group. Assuming you could do it, is it a precedent you want to set for others? Lori

Terry

You are probably better off saying there will be a salary reduction based on the current employer contribution or $XX, instead of having to pay 100%.

Down_the_Middle

Paige:
What you're considering is offering a flexible compensation program to a single individual and may be more problems than it's worth. I'm assuming you work for a relatively small employer (otherwise this option would clearly be problematic for large employers) and may be able to do this w/o a lot of hoopla. Eventually, some other employee will surface asking for the same deal (and most likely be in a protected class) and you'll be forced to address the disparity.

I currently offer a with and without benefits type of program and am now creating plan documents to make this a bona-fide, qualified type of benefit plan. doing this may be more trouble than it's worth, but I would be cautious about doing this for one employee and ignoring the others.

Aletha

Did you ever implement your "benefits with", "benefits without" program. If so, is it something you could share.

Thank you.
Aletha
[email]aletha@personnelstaffing.com[/email]
Fax: 256-547-9484

Paige

No-we did not implement it. The candidate ended up withdrawing.