How much do your ee's pay for Health Insurance?

jerzal · December 2003

We are a small five person company in PA. We currently pay all benefits in full for everyone, including families. We have 4 single ppl and 1 family. We are thinking of having the ee's pay a portion of the insurance in the next year.
How do you determine the % the pay?
I need some examples.

I was also thinking of just going with a cheaper plan with less benefits, but I don't want to have sucky insurance!

Thank you!

Hunter1 · December 2003

This is a wide open question, but the employer determines (lacking a labor agreement or contract with the employees) how much of the premium is paid by the employees. It ranges from total employer pay, to, more common, employee pays for something like 20% of single coverage and up to 100% of the difference between single and family coverage. Your employees have been very fortunate, but this is a subject that you will find is VERY near and dear to their hearts when you implement employee payments. "You got some 'splainin' to do, Lucy!"

marc · December 2003

We pay 100% of the EE premium and require the EE to pay all dependent coverage. This is only for health insurance.

There are lots of ways to look at it. If you had two EEs who were identical with respect to performance, position, salary, etc, and one has a family, while the other is single; the family EE is in effect getting a significantly larger paycheck for an equal amount of work.

Would you consider a request from the single EE to get the net effect of not paying family coverage for him/her added to the paycheck? It seems a fair request from some perspectives.

System · December 2003

>
>If you >had two EEs who were identical with respect to performance, position, salary, etc, and one has a family, while the other is single; the family EE is in effect getting a significantly larger paycheck for an equal amount of work.
>
>Would you consider a request from the single EE
>to get the net effect of not paying family
>coverage for him/her added to the paycheck? It
>seems a fair request from some perspectives.

There's that four letter "F" word again. It's fair if you offer the same plans to all employees. It's the employees' choice to purchase family coverage. Often, you find that an employee's spouse has coverage with his/her employer.

But to answer your question, we (a local government) offer the HMO to employees for 15% for any level - single, family, etc. EEs who chose the POS pay 25% of the difference between the HMO and the higher option.

Rockie · December 2003

Let me give you a little "heads up" on providing 100% insurance coverage for your employees, especially in a smaller group.

Our group has grown to midsize (around 300 people) and we had, for years, provided this perk for employees.

This past year, our experience level was awful and the insurance company hit us with a 42% increase. We battled them down to 30%, but it was still a huge increase for our company. We had to ask employees to "cost-share" and it was a real morale buster to go from paying zero to cost sharing.

So...my advice is to at least get employees used to cost sharing, even a small amount in case you get caught in this scenario. It only takes one bad year to have a tremendous effect on your company's bottom line. Even with cost sharing, our company is still absorbinb $120,000 over last year.

BUMMER!!!!

CJ_2 · December 2003

Our agency is a small home health agency, approximately 31 full-time EE's. Presently, the agency pays 100% for EE's and the EE pays for family and/or spousal coverage. We provide updates yearly as to the status and coverage elements the plan provides. We also have a drug card. The EE has to pay a 3-level tier co-pay for each prescription and also a co-pay for office visits which does not go toward a deductible. We had to raise the deductible to $1,000 for cost-containment. We have also advised EE's each year that depending on the rate increase, we may have to assess a percentage of the EE's cost to them, so that isn't something new to them. I also show them the prior year's cost and the new year's increased amount. If you would like more info, please email me at [email]cwinebarger@charter.net[/email]. I also agree with the earlier post about benefits paid for single EE vs. married with family benefits.

MrCreosote · December 2003

We cover 90% of the employee premium and 70% of dependent premiums.

Betty I_O · December 2003

We pay 88% of the employee premium and 78% of the family premium for medical insurance.

mwild31 · December 2003

Hi Jerzal - your insurance carrier may have the answer for you already. In our case, by contract we have to pay a minimum of 75% of the medical cost & 50% of the dental cost for each employee (we actually pay 100% on both for each employee & there's no contract requirement for family members - so that's at ee expense). Check with your carriers to see if they too have guidelines.

franfields · December 2003

We just moved from 65% of the cost for all tiers to $200 regardless of your marital status or number of dependents. The $200 covers about 95% of the cost of the employee only tier. I suggested a dollar amount rather than a percentage so that management can decide how much more they want to pay when they see how much the rates increase each year.

How much do your ee's pay for Health Insurance?

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