What information do I need to collect to get a quote?

Insurance companies will need a census of your employees that includes the number of employees, their birth dates, their genders, birth dates of dependents to be covered, and the number of children to be insured. In addition, they will need your company’s inception date and the start date of coverage.

Half of my employees are insured elsewhere. What should I do?

This is a challenge for small business owners. If one of your employees has a spouse who has family coverage where he or she works, your employee may be covered on that policy, and not interested in group health insurance.

If you want to offer a group plan, be aware that your insurer may require you to cover all of your employees.

Can I purchase and offer individual plans to my employees?

Maybe, but individual plans do not offer the advantages of group plans. Generally, with individual plans, your employees would be subject to individual underwriting. An employee who needs the coverage may not be eligible.

Another thing to note is that the contributions you make towards the cost of individual policies may be taxable as compensation to the employee. Check with your accountant for details.

Do I need both Group Health insurance and Workers’ Compensation insurance?

Group Health is optional; workers’ compensation is usually required.

In most states, employers are required to provide workers' compensation insurance, which generally pays for medical expenses and loss of income for employee injuries that are work-related. Unfortunately, most health insurance plans specifically exclude work-related injuries.

If you're a sole proprietor, partner, or officer of a small corporation, you may not be covered automatically by your workers' compensation policy. If this is the case, you must determine whether your own health insurance has an exclusion for work-related injuries; you could have a gap in your own coverage.

Generally, most business owners should consider electing to cover themselves under workers’ compensation if that option is available in their state. Check with your own insurance company for more information.

What about life insurance, dental insurance, and vision insurance?

There are many group insurance plans available. However, most employers work with limited budgets and need to make some choices that are attractive to the majority of their employees. Many businesses, regardless of the number of employees, rank the importance of group insurance plans in this order:

Group health insurance
Group life insurance
Short-term disability insurance
Dental insurance
Long-term disability insurance
Medical reimbursement plans (for non-insured expenses)
Vision, pre-paid legal expenses, pet insurance, etc.