 You know health insurance is vital to your employees not only because of the benefit, but also because it helps them stay healthy and productive. For these reasons alone, you should help them understand their health insurance benefits and how to access them. The benefits of this are two-fold. First, you are helping your employees, and their families stay healthier. Healthy employees cost you less in sick days and lost productivity.
Second, you are helping to strengthen your company culture and employee engagement. When employees know their company cares about them, they are more loyal and productive for the company. How To Explain Health Insurance Benefits Given the multitude of technology available today, you have a lot of options with how you can inform your employees. Ask your insurance broker or the insurance company for any training aids they might have. This could include online classes or video, handouts, or brochures. Try to make sure that every aspect of your plan is explained clearly. Everything from premium payments to teaching each of the individual benefits should be part of the training. Also, ensure your employees know how and where to access their benefits. Explain any upfront co-payments and how they work. When To Explain Health Plan Benefits Most companies introduce and explain their benefits packages during their orientation or onboarding program. However, that time of an employee's career is busy and often stressful. It's possible they might not understand everything or grasp all of the nuances of the plan. A good idea to keep them informed is to schedule annual training or information days about their insurance plans. These can take place during your open enrollment or maybe during regularly scheduled training days or employee appreciation events. You might want to consider inviting spouses to the event. Don't Trust Technology To Handle The Intricate Questions While it is efficient to rely on online training or other multimedia training tools, nothing beats having a human trainer explain things and answer questions. Ask your insurance company if they can provide a trainer or customer service representative to explain the plan. If they can't, ask your broker if they can send somebody who is familiar with the program. Sometimes, people have very specific questions that a mass training aid can't answer. This is the time when a qualified instructor can help. Another option is to have one of your managers or HR staff become familiar with the program by attending training with the insurance company and conduct training for your staff. Having an in-house subject matter expert is always a benefit to a company. Finally, consider dedicating a bulletin board or a page on your employee web to information about your health insurance benefits. This could be something as simple as a poster explaining the benefits, where to call to learn more, or the name of somebody to contact in the company. This accessibility will be of tremendous value to anybody who needs help immediately during their days off, or if they are working a shift when HR is unavailable. Culture Insurance is a premier insurance broker providing quality products and service to San Diego businesses. We encourage you to contact us if you have any questions about your insurance packages, risk management, or any other insurance-related issues. |