California health insurance  -  Group Health Benefits 

California Group Health Benefit Center

Welcome to your center for understanding and shopping California group health benefits. Second only to salary or pay, health benefits are a critical way to attract and keep the best employees. Shopping for Group health benefits has never been an easy endeavor and that learning curve has only steepened since the ACA (Affordable Care Act) was passed.

There has never been a more important time to re-evaluate the group benefits market than NOW.  

Whether you are looking at offering new benefits to employees or reviewing whether your current benefits provide the best coverage to your employees at the best value to the employer, now is a good time to request our free analysis of your current options. Everything has changed.

Quick Points for the Group Health Benefits Market

Most small group health plans must to conform to the new ACA rules and regulations at renewal during 2014.  We have seen rates change by up to 100% depending on the group.

A less known benefit of group health insurance is that they have access to the full networks which is sizably larger than the new Covered Ca or individual family networks of doctors and hospitals.  This is a huge deal!

1. Legitimate group health benefits are 100% deductible to the employer. This includes dental, vision, and group life coverage. We can quote all four for your company.
2. California State law under AB1672 only requires the employer to pay 50% of the employee's premium (not dependents).  75% of eligible employees must enroll. We can help you determine if you meet this threshold since there are exceptions. We just need one person with one non-spouse on payroll to qualify in most situations.
3. The ACA mandates group health coverage for larger employers or they may have to pay a penalty per employee.
   Employers are prohibited from contributing towards an employee's Individual health plan. There can be significant penalties and the IRS is taking a tough stance on this issue.

Tips for Shopping the California group benefit market

It's become more difficult (not less) to compare the plans and rates available.

We recommend this approach:

1. Estimate a monthly budget range you want to stay within.
2. Email us the dates of birth (including dependents if considering coverage) and zip codes for your employees and the monthly budget.
3. Specify what benefits you want to offer (i.e. medical, dental, vision, life, etc)

With this information, we can quickly benefits and rates across all the major carriers to find options that fit your budget.

Here's where you can actually appear to be a much larger company (which you'll someday be, right?)
The Smart Way to offer Group benefits

Once we've established your monthly budget, we can create custom worksheets and benefit summaries for each employee with multiple plan options. The worksheets will show the employee's cost after the employer's contribution (based on monthly budget).

This means you can offer HMO's, PPO's, HSA's, etc with all range of benefits AND YET still cap the employer's exposure to the monthly budget

It's the Best of Both Worlds

1. Employees can choose from any of the plans.
2. Employer can meet it's budget regardless of plan choice
3. Employee's has stake in plan choice since he/she pays the difference.
4. Encourages moving down to the scale for most employees but richer coverage for those that need it.
5. Employee has control of benefit choice. 
6. Employer has control of budget.

Everyone wins!

95% of our groups take this approach (been around for over a decade) and if you haven't done so, it's a great way to empower your employees.
If you have employees that are upset with their health plan, this is THE WAY to make them happy. In the end, people just want a say in their benefits.

They'll usually downgrade a bit on their own accord to reduce their share of the monthly premium but it's THEIR decision to do so.  Everyone wins.

Send us the Dates of birth, zip codes, and monthly budget. We'll get started and there's no cost for our services.
Enrolling California Group Health Benefits

Once we have decided on the right plan mix for the group, we will help you through the entire process of enrolling the group.

This includes:

1. Plan benefit and rate distribution for all employees
2. One on one consults with any employee regarding plan options and rates.  This is huge and employer should not be an intermediary since private health information is discussed. There's no risk to the employer since we capped budget above.
3. Complete support during form completion and enrollment process with the carrier
4. Plan and card distribution support
5. Ongoing benefit and plan support throughout the year and during each renewal (every 12 months from 1st date of plan initiation)

We are full service and there is NO cost for our services. With our experience at the carriers, we can make the enrollment process so much easier.

Call us and tell us how we can help.

Group benefit article archive
Of course, we are happy to walk through any questions at help@calhealth.net or at 866-486-6551
 

You can run your California Group Health Plan Quote here to view rates and plans side by side from the major carriers...Free.

Again, there is absolutely no cost to you for our services.  Call 800-320-6269 Today!