Should a new business startup offer health insurance now or later? If I’m a new business owner and I’ve just started my company, I’m sitting down at my table, and I guarantee you there’s a huge pie in front of me. And it’s cut up into a lot of little sections.
Those sections include the General Liability policy, the commercial, combined with my rent, combined with my 401(k) offerings that I may want to do, and health insurance. Is health insurance something I want to do now or do I want to do it later?
A lot of companies feel like when they start their business, they immediately have that health insurance itch and they want to scratch it right away. It doesn’t always have to be that way.
Picking the Right Time to Offer Health Insurance
Suppose I sit with a company that might have three or four employees, and when I’m done talking with them, I only need a health insurance solution for one of them. Why put out a big expenditure when we can put that money in different places and grow into health insurance?
But then there are times when an employer is saying to themselves, “Well, I’ve left my job and I brought a couple of people with me, and we need to have a plan, and we need to have it pretty quickly.” That’s where we sit down and very strategically go through the options.
- Do we want a health savings account plan? (If you don’t know what a health savings account is, take a look at some of our other vlogs and blog posts in our series about HSAs, because it’s really important that that is potentially in your benefit plan.)
- Do we want a traditional plan where it’s just copays?
- Do we want to offer one or two plans or three plans, to give our employees choices? It allows them to feel like they’re more engaged in the process.
- Also, there are tax advantages you should know about.
You really need to know which choice would make more sense. When we help you review these choices, we’re not just talking to the employees, we’re talking to your CPA, your lawyer, things of that nature, to make sure that we’re taking advantage of all the options.
Take Your Time to Make the Right Decision
This decision is not anything you want to rush into, whether it’s done right now, or later. The last thing you want to do is come back to me potentially and say, “Look, we made a mistake and went too quickly with this, and now we have to stop it, or we have to end it, or we have to pull back on all the offerings that we had given.”
That’s just not the way you want to do it or the message you want to convey to your employees. That’s where a health insurance professional really can play an important part in your plans. Those of us here at MBhealth Insurance are ready to help you make the right choice for your business. Call us at (314) 544-5400 to look at your options.
