Group Health Insurance Tips for Small Businesses

As a small business owner here are some health insurance tips for your small business that you can consider when offering your employees some sort of group health insurance plan.

Business owners will first need to consider whether or not to include all employees in the group health plan. Remember, for an employee to be considered for group health coverage, your employees must be employed full-time with at least a 30-hour minimum work week.

There may be a waiting period before your full-time employees may become eligible for the group health plan you chose to offer therefore, ask your business representatives health insurance agent if there will be any premium saving reductions in case you find the employee waiting period to go beyond 30 days or more.

You may have specific employees that have chronic health conditions. In this case those specific employees may be considered uninsurable. If you choose to add these employees to your business group health insurance plan this action may drive up your group health insurance plan premiums for all employees participation in the group health plan.

When businesses employ twenty or more full-time employees than your company will fall under the group health insurance rules of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act “COBRA” (Federal Act).

Because there are many types of businesses that may be considered high risk to insurance companies finding affordable premium group health insurance plans may be difficult.

Some examples of high-risk company types:
• Companies that work with lead paint and asbestos.
• High-risk life-threatening jobs such as marine divers, pilots, aviation instructors, crop dusters, etc.

Employers, choosing to offer group health plans for your employees is 100% up to you, the employer. There are of course many more considerations you will need to make before signing an insurance agreement. Each insurance plan comes with a variety of options that must be considered. Options you choose to offer to employees may or may not increase your group health insurance premium.