Has Obamacare made voluntary benefits a key to staying competitive?
Obamacare has made healthcare coverage more accessible than ever. As a result, traditional healthcare plans — even the most generous plans — likely won’t be enough to attract and retain top talent much longer.
So if you really want to set yourself apart from the competition, a solid offering of voluntary benefits will soon be a must – if it isn’t already.
Closing the gaps
Why are voluntary benefits — particularly voluntary medical benefits so important? Because they’ve expanded to fill virtually any gap that occurs between what employees’ traditional health plan covers — and the types of medical situations that can take place.
And that’s a huge benefit when you consider more than half of U.S. personal bankruptcies are caused by medical bills, according to The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.
In addition, because employers are asking workers to shoulder more of the healthcare cost burden, employee deductible and out-of-pocket costs have increased significantly in recent years.
3 effective offerings
So what type of voluntary benefits are best at filling in the gaps in traditional medical coverage? According to the folks at Winston Benefits, a benefits management firm that pens The Employee Benefits Blog, three of the best voluntary medical benefits on the market are:
- Critical illness coverage.Here’s how this voluntary offering works: An insurance company makes a lump-sum payment if a policyholder (i.e., the employee) is diagnosed with one of the critical illnesses listed in the insurers policy. In certain cases, this option can be used for surgical procedures as well.
- Cancer insurance.This option is very similar to critical illness coverage; however, the policy only covers cancer.
- Accident insurance.A type of insurance policy that covers certain medical and out-of-pocket costs that aren’t covered by employees’ regular healthcare insurance plans. Generally, these are cash benefits that can be used for ER expenses, time in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and ambulance rides.
