Health insurance is the most important life saver for ant business, no matter
whether its a start up or a well stable company.

Joe,

You are probably long past this with your business. But I can't help but jump
in here to give you some quick advise. You have a business to run, so don't
waste your time trying to figure out insurance. Call an insurance broker
(some one that is independent) and have them help you through the details.

I do not suggest that you call an insurance carrier. They will send you one
of their agents and he/she will give you only one option. Call an insurance
broker and they will make your life easy!

Hope that helps so that you can focus on the core of your business.

You might start by contacting your state department of insurance. They can provide a list of companies that are authorized to sell health insurance in your state. They will also have information on how to structure your plan. Also be certain you comply with all the laws, such as the requirement to offer pregnancy coverage if you have a certain number of employees. The web site of the U.S. Department of Labor contains information on establishing a plan that complies with COBRA and ERISA laws. Also check the Employee Benefits Security Administration's web site. You might also check the IRS web site and look for 'HCTC: Eligibility Requirements - Qualified Health Plan Requirements.'

Hi Joe, Here are the steps you need to do. 1. Write out a census (excel spreadsheet) of all the full time employees. You need birthdays, spouses names and birthdays, city and state people live in, any existing health issues, and whether they have current health insurance. This will be the basic information that is required by most carriers to give you a preliminary quote. 2. List down all the options that you and your employees need. Are you guys healthy and flexible? Or someone has existing condition that needs to have guarantee inclusion. 3. Look up Kaiser and Blue Cross / Blue Shield in your state. Go to the section of the site that deals with brokers. Call the licensing department and ask who the brokers are that deal with your geographical region. This hopefully should get you the name of the biggest producer (this helps you with a better rate sometimes). Also call around for health insurance brokers. Check both the yellow pages and the internet. Not all the top companies are necessarily online. Check and ask for quotes. 4. Remember that you are asking for group quotes. You have two choices, checking to see if individual quotes are going to be cheaper (because you have a healthy group of employees) or group insurance. Group insurance also comes in many different flavors so you need to make sure that all the options you need are included. The steps above except #1 & 2 are for doing it yourself. 5. I am always of the proponent for outsourcing if it makes sense. However, you also need to do your due diligence and make sure that the firm you use to get you quotes will be capable and are not a captive broker. (This means that they have contracting abilities with multiple insurance carriers and truly can get you options to choose from.) 6. Just because a firm says they handle benefits does not mean that they handle health insurance. The service varies from firm to firm. You have to ask detailed questions. One of my colleagues advertise his firm as full service benefits for companies but they handle basically 401Ks and that's it. I don't note that we do full service benefits even though my firm handles a wide range of insurance services because I split out the insurance division as a separate company. 7. It is critical that you choose a company that is experienced in health insurance so that they can help you structure a reasonable cost plan. You need someone who will think of options vs. giving you a quote out of the box. In case you have people with health issues, an experience broker will also be able to guide you and help you find carriers or show you what your options are so that one employee will not affect the cost for the entire company. 8. Whether you pay for employee's health care right now is an option until the new health care bill kicks in for the subsidized requirements. 9. Your question #4, it varies from state to state. Carriers are not in all states so you need someone who have access in your state. For example, Blue Cross is simply a brand name that is purchased by a carrier. It does not denote the same company. Blue Cross in one state can be a nonprofit while another state is a for profit company. 10. There are many other things to consider but much too numerous to list here. I hope this gives you a starting point at least.

Hi joe,did you ever get any good answers on this? Minimising health insurance costs is pretty big on a lot of peoples agendas these days so I'd be keen to know what you found out.

The laws are different in each state but in general, you have to provide the same benefits to each class of worker. For example, all part time employees must get the same benefits. Benefits can be free or subsidized (50% or more I believe) Employees may turn down benefits too. Out sourcing this was cheaper for my company. You can do things such as not getting benefits for the first 3 months of employment. This cut our expenses a lot because certain jobs have a large turn around and some of our positions are seasonal. Just keep in mind that if you make that company policy, it has to apply to everyone. I hope this helps.