by Barb Walker, GHB Employee Benefits Agent

You can design a comprehensive benefits package that gives employees significantly more without costing them, or your business here in Washington, substantially more even you are a smaller business or a company with a high percentage of hourly workers.

The result is employees who end up walking out of your benefits meeting feeling good – about their job and about their employer.

Isn’t that why you offer benefits in the first place?

It’s  possible because insurance companies have responded to the steep and rapid rise in medical insurance costs by inventing new approaches to valued ancillary benefit products such as dental, life and disability coverage.

Allow them to choose

New technology, and a new openness by insurers to customization allows benefits brokers to assemble benefits packages that give employees more value for the same money. Employers can pick and choose so they pay only for what they need, not the bells and whistles included in prefabricated packages designed for large companies.

Employees appreciate the lower cost and convenience of insurance products bought through payroll deduction that virtually eliminates the possibility of a missed payment and lost coverage. Tax advisors can explain potential tax advantages to these programs, too.

Dental coverage is the second-most-popular employee benefit in the United States, surpassed only by medical insurance, according to LIMRA International.

More workers are realizing that disability insurance is an important component of a family’s financial security. In 2015 the Social Security Administration estimated that one in four 20-year-olds in the workforce today will suffer a disability before they retire. There is a 3 in 10 chance of a person suffering a disabling illness or injury that would keep them out of work for three months or more, a time frame that far exceeds an employee’s sick leave or vacation time.

Technology will make you happy, too

And happily, technology from “customer-sensitive” providers now allows employers to provide better benefits without a heavier bookkeeping burden. Also, at GHB we offer all of our clients expert HR assistance and extensive resources to implement your plan through ThinkHR.

Savvy employers know that a good benefits package doesn’t just support recruiting and retention. It’s a key support for productivity as well. A good benefits package helps keep employees happy, healthy, on the job and productive.

Barb Walker is an employee benefits consultant with GHB Insurance. She specializes in helping employers provide cost-effective benefits programs that deliver maximum value. Contact Barb by phone (206) 930-0596 or email her at Barb@ghbinsurance.com.