Limited/ Supplemental
Plans
Mini-Medical, Limited & Supplemental Medical Plans
Mini-Medical/Limited/ Supplemental Plans
are now becoming a growing trend, but Niche Benefits
saw the need for such plans years ago, and is now one of
the industry leaders in what is considered a relatively
new frontier of insurance coverage.
In 2000, Niche Benefits responded to
the growing population of uninsured employees, part time employees without coverages and to the
employers who wanted a benefit product that would "fit"
under a major medical benefit plan with high deductibles. For the last 4 years
Niche Benefits has been refining that offering to bring
brokers/clients its
"best -of -breed"
solutions for employees that are flexible enough to attract and retain
the best employees while meeting and protecting your fiscal
objectives.
More than ever, increasing benefits costs
and in particular, health care costs, have been forcing
employers to re-evaluate the following aspects of their
benefits plans:
- Level of benefits provided
- Employer and employee contribution levels
- Alternatives to the type of benefits offered
- Whether or not to even continue to offer benefits
Growing numbers of employees are opting out of taking benefits
from their employer, which is leaving a major gap in coverage
alternatives and raising employment and retention issues
for the employer. Employees, with benefit incentives offered
by the employer, tend to stay with that employer thereby
reducing turnover and lowering costs.
Niche Benefits designs plans with the cost element of providing
benefits for the "non-benefited" employee in mind
in respect to the mini-medical/limited medical marketplace.
The design is very unique in that it provides for up to
any number of plan benefit alternatives that are created
with the employer. A significant issue, because of employer
payroll cycles, has been the "effective date"
and thereby the payroll deduction effect when premium needs
to be paid. The effective date issue has been addressed
by allowing the employer to have weekly, biweekly or monthly
effective dates to coincide with the way they do business
on some of the plans offered. Upon review of the various
benefit plans the employer may decide that certain benefits
need to be increased, decreased, added or subtracted from
the schedule of benefits. Flexibility is critical to pricing
of any product line but in the limited medical marketplace
it is significant.
The administrative costs are also reduced under these benefits.
The administrative efforts of the employer can simply cover
enrolling employees electing coverage, reporting those that
have enrolled on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis and
paying the insurance carrier the premium. The employer may
offer these programs with or without an employer contribution.
However, if the employer makes, at least, a 50% contribution
of the lowest single premium the premium costs for the plan
offerings are reduced a minimum of 10% to as much as 20%.
With the proper selection of the Third Party Administrator
the “managing headache” goes away.
Enrollment options available for the mini-medical/limited/supplemental
medical plans are: 1. Call Center Enrollment 2. Internet
Enrollment and 3. Paper Enrollment. The Call Center has
both English and Spanish speaking representatives. That
is also true of the Customer Service Center. Toll free number is supplied for call in by the employee and employer.
Marketing and enrollment materials can also be prepared
in English and Spanish for the convenience of the employee.
The development of the marketing materials is the responsibility
of the Agent/Broker with final approval of the carrier.
Once enrolled the Employee will receive Identification
Card (s) and Summary Plan Description (s) for the coverages
they have chosen during the enrollment process.
A Customer Service Center is available using a toll free
number to provide for continuing access for the covered
employee to have any questions responded to.
Please click on sample
plans to see a representative sample of plans that can
be offered by employers to the identified workforce.
Please click
here to have us contact you about Limited Supplemental
Plans.
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