Great Time to Look at Your Employee Benefit Plan

The fall is always a great time to review your employee benefit plan or look at implementing a plan. Many companies have their plans renewing now or are working on their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year.

Employee benefit plans are more flexible than ever and we can help you implement a plan that brings a lot of value to you and your employees.

We enjoy being a part of your team to help attract and retain quality employees.

Please let us know how we might help.

LegalShield – Total access. Total freedom

Everyone deserves legal protection. (membership runs from $18.50 – $34.95 per month)
Now, with LegalShield, everyone can access it.
With LegalShield, everyone can have access to legal protection – no matter how trivial, no matter how traumatic. Whatever situations your employees are facing, we are here to help. From real estate to divorce advice, identity theft and beyond, we have their rights covered. Welcome to total peace of mind.
Welcome to LegalShield.

The Bottom Line…
Reduce absenteeism. One in three employees took time off work (an average of 13 days) for a legal problem in the last year (Russell Research, April 2007), while 70% of those enrolled in a group legal plan did not take any vacation days toward resolving their legal issues, compared to half of those who hired their own lawyer (Harris Interactive, 2011).

Increase productivity. Workers enrolled in a legal plan spent 25% less time resolving their legal matters compared to those who hired a lawyer on their own (4.4 weeks vs. 6.1 weeks on average, Harris Interactive, 2011).

Help reduce your employee’s stress. Allow our services to help them with everyday life challenges. When employees are stressed from legal or identity theft issues, their health suffers and medical claims may go up.

Keep a progressive company image. Show that you care about your employees.

An Industry Leader

• No other legal plan offers 24/7 access to a lawyer in covered emergency situations.

• No other legal plan offers our exclusive Provider Law Firm delivery system. An employee dials directly to their province’s Provider Law firm. A Lawyer, not a paralegal, returns the call to the employee or covered family member within 8 business hours. State of the art quality control measures are in place to ensure quality service is delivered.

• Our Identity Theft Shield plan provides both Credit Monitoring and Full Restoration Services through licensed investigators at Kroll (the world leader in risk management).

• Our network of independent sales associates is extensive and readily available for employee presentations, on-site workshops, lunch-and-learn presentations, etc.

• Currently servicing 34,000 accounts across North America.

• Our members have access to more than 10,000 network lawyers and 50 Provider Law Firms.

• Offering legal plans since 1972, currently providing services to 1.4 million households which represent approximately 4 million members.

Please let us know if you would like to learn more. You can also go to http://www.lifeeventsplancanada.com/ to watch a quick video.

What Small and Mid-Sized Business Owners Need To Know

We hope that everyone had a great summer, we sure did!

Now that summer is over and we move into fall it is the perfect time to review your current group benefit requirements. We have been invited to participate in an online interview at 10 am MST on Wednesday, September 28th where we will be going through some options many small and mid-sized businesses do not realize are available to them to help attract and retain good employees.

SEATS ARE LIMITED! 1 ATTENDEE WILL WIN A $500 BENEFITS ASSESSMENT AND 1 ATTENDEE WILL WIN A $500 COACHING PACKAGE! THERE WILL ALSO BE A LIMITED TIME OFFER MADE TO ALL PARTICIPANTS WORTH $350 EACH.

Should you have any questions please let us know by going through the Contact Us tab at the bottom of our home page.

Please join us by clicking on this underlined text where you will be taken to the registration site. We look forward to having you participate with us.

Take care!

Enhancing Your Employee Benefits Program

We have been approached by many of our clients recently to look at enhancing the coverage in place for their employees. It seems as though everyone is gearing up to attract and retain valuable employees.

There are so many things you can do with your group plan and The Benefit Specialists and BeneCo would be happy to help you with your program. We have many years of experience in this field and we will bring that expertise to you and your employees.

Employee benefits are such a valuable way to attract and retain key employees and it does not matter the size of your company. You can have just yourself as business owner on the plan or you can have hundreds of employees, there are options for everyone.

We look forward to hearing from you! Take care!

Group Benefits Marketing

As independent employee benefit brokers we can work with virtually every Canadian insurance company that offers these types of plans.

We will gather information from you in order to make a decision on which carriers would be most competitive for your company’s needs. Each carrier has their own specials niches where they are most competitive.

Insurance companies will only provide one valid quote to a broker. We will go through the services we offer, etc. and then ask that you decide whether you would like to work with us or another broker and then go to market. Insurance companies don’t offer different pricing by advisor so it is really your decision to work with who you are comfortable with.

We hope this helps a little more light on how testing the employee benefits marketplace works. We would enjoy hearing from you so please let us know if you have any questions by contacting us through our website, www.beneco.ca.

Take care!

Employee Benefit Meetings with Staff

This week we held four employee benefit meetings with the staff of one of our fast growing clients. It was a great experience where we were able to outline so many things to each employee and answer their specific questions. The feedback from the employer and staff was all positive and created an excitement about their group plan.

We have found over the years that by having this type of session has helped control costs long-term and helped the employees understand what they have for coverage, etc.

By having short employee benefit meetings with staff you can save a lot of time and headache down the road.

If you would like to discuss this topic further please contact us through our website, www.beneco.ca.

Take care!

Who Should Be On a Group Benefit Plan

This is a very important topic that, when overlooked, can create major issues for the business owner and any employee not added to the program.

Most group plans are set up as mandatory plans where anyone working a minimum of 20 hours per week should be on the plan. If they are not put on the plan when eligible they can become a late applicant.

Late applicants have to go through full medical underwriting for themselves and their dependents. Should anyone have health issues the employee’s coverage can be completely declined and is therefore out of luck at a time when they may need coverage most.

Please avoid this type of situation by adding all employees and making your benefit program a mandatory part of employment.

Should you want to increase the number of hours worked per week to something higher you can do that as well. Some companies will make it mandatory for employees working a minimum of 30 hours for example.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns by contacting us via email, telephone or through our website: www.beneco.ca.

Take care!

New Group Insurance and PHSP Videos

Recently, The Benefit Specialists Corp and BeneCo teamed up with one of our partners in Calgary to film a few videos on group insurance and private health services plans. Mitch Reynolds from Life Guard Insurance runs the #1 website in the Calgary area for personal life and health insurance and is one of our referring partners. With his help, we filmed some videos that explain what we do for clients, how to get a quote and what to expect with ongoing service.

Sean represented The Benefit Specialists Corp in the first video. Sean did a great job explaining TBSC’s unique value proposition in this video. He highlighted our over 50 years combined experience, our specialization in the complex field of group benefits insurance, and our outstanding customer service and support. If you were ever wondering what sets TBSC apart from our competition in Calgary and across Alberta, take 5 minutes of your time and watch this video.

Paul then did an excellent job explaining n a nutshell what a private health services plan is in the second video. Understanding how this sort of flexible, tax efficient plan can be used by a corporation to extend health and dental benefits to employees is very valuable. Not everyone in your company has the same needs. One might need laser eye surgery while another might need to get braces for their children. A pool of tax free dollars usable by the employees for any eligible health expense is much more flexible and viewed as more fair by employees. Reimbursement of health expenses as a tax free benefit to employees and a tax deductible expense to the corporation. This is a true win-win scenario for health and dental benefits.
These videos are posted on the Life Guard Insurance website. Even though they are featured with one of our insurance partners, the information is universal for all our customers and partners. These videos are only 4 or 5 minutes each and worth a look. Here at The Benefit Specialists Corp and BeneCo we are ready to work for you: design the most valuable employee benefits plan for your company and provide outstanding ongoing customer service.
Thanks for your time, and please feel free to contact us.

January 2011 Bulletin is out!

See the electronic copy at http://beneco.ca/specialists/dyn/news_coll81.php

December’s bulletin is out!

To read it, go to our bulletin section. To subscribe, fill out the “join our newsletter” field on the homepage.