Know before buying group health insurance for your employees

As an employer, choosing the right group health insurance for your employees could be a difficult task as there are a number of factors and variables involved in the decision. So, let’s take a closer look at the advantages it offers and the things one must consider before choosing a policy for the organisation:

Advantages to the employer:

1. Offering health insurance policies help in better recruitment and retention of talent.
2. The employer gets tax benefits for providing insurance to the employees and it is highly cost-effective in the long-run.
3. The organisation gets a healthier workforce that is financially secure, motivated, and happy under the protection of an insurance cover.
4. The group plans are highly customisable and it can be tailor-made to suit your organisation’s exact needs.

Advantages to the employee:

1. Pre-existing diseases get covered  from the first day itself. This means that an employees with pre-existing conditions does not have to undergo a long waiting period before his illness is covered.
2. Under the group coverage, a person does not have to undergo a medical checkup to be eligible for coverage and the protection begins for a number of illnesses covered under the plan.
3. Group policies provide for maternity benefits that are especially crucial for female employees as it helps take a large financial burden off their shoulders.

What are the key aspects one should know about before making a decision?

As an employer, these are the most important factors you should consider:

1. Number of employees – While different insurers do have different limits on the minimum number needed for a group insurance, IRDAI has ruled that the minimum number should be 20. If the number of employees is less then a company can still have micro insurance group policies if the number of employees is more than 5. An important thing to note is that even with less than 20 employees, a company can opt for group insurance if the family members of the employees are brought under the cover. This applies only for permanent workers and does not apply for part-time and contract workers.
2. Customisation – Group health policies are highly customisable. But there are 5 most important covers that you should look for. The policy should have zero waiting period to begin with. It should provide your employees cover for pre-existing conditions. It should give your employees maternity coverage. The policy should cover domiciliary hospitalisation expenses. And finally, it should cover for dependents (children, spouse, and parents).
3. Sum Insured – Most of the basic group policies provide a cover of Rs. 2-5 Lakh. A basic family floater plan for groups can include the employee, their spouse, and their children. The more benefits the insurer provides and the more members it covers, the higher the premium goes. It is, therefore, important for you to decide the cover you want. A cover of Rs.5 Lakh is usually provided for the employees but you can opt for the cover of Rs. 7/10 lakh as well for your employee’s benefit.
4. Who is covered – This is an important decision you will need to make for your employees. The various options available are: i) Self (individual); ii) Self + Spouse; iii) Self + Spouse + Dependent Children; and iv)Self + Spouse + Dependent Children + Parents. The premium costs will vary as more people are included but providing ample cover to the employee’s family is always the preferable option.
5. Different slabs of cover – You can also opt for different covers for your employees based on their position in the company’s hierarchy. For example, an administrative level employee may have a larger cover than a managerial employee. This categorisation is often done to align an employee’s cover to their contribution to the company.

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash.

OneAssure is a distribution platform that helps you make right decisions on matters where health and finances converge. Visit oneassure.in to know more about your health insurance choices.