A group plan prices your whole team as one. The other route is coverage chosen around each person: their doctors, their family, their budget. For a small team, the second one often wins. Let’s find out which it is for yours.
Not public versus private. Group versus built-for-each-person.
One plan, one network, one price for everybody. It is simple to administer, and it is what most payroll companies will quote you. It also means the 26-year-old with no doctors and the 58-year-old managing a condition get the same plan at a price built around the whole group.
Everyone on the team gets a plan chosen for their own situation: the doctors they already see, whether a spouse has coverage, whether their household qualifies for help. You decide what the business puts in. Nobody pays for a plan shaped around somebody else.
On a small team, a single claim history or one older employee can move the renewal for everyone. Individual coverage does not work that way, because each plan stands on its own.
A plan someone picked for themselves goes with them. If the team changes, or someone leaves, their coverage is not a thing you have to unwind.
Three situations I see most. Find yours.
Different ages, some with families, some single, a couple with doctors they will not leave. One group plan cannot be right for all of them at once. This is where individual coverage usually comes out ahead, and where it is worth pricing both properly.
It happens, and on a small team it can be one person’s year that caused it. Before you absorb it or cut benefits, it is worth seeing what the same money buys if each person is covered on their own plan.
Plenty of small businesses want to help with coverage without taking on a full group plan. There is a way to put money toward each person’s own coverage instead. Whether it fits depends on your setup, and that is a short conversation.
Tell me how many people, roughly what ages, and whether anyone has coverage through a spouse. That is usually enough for me to tell you which direction is worth pricing.
Straight answers, no sales pitch.
Carriers set their own minimums, and in a lot of cases a very small team either cannot get a group plan or can only get one at a price that does not make sense. That is exactly when covering each person individually is worth looking at.
Yes, that is the second route on this page. The business decides what it contributes, and each person is covered on a plan chosen for them. Whether it fits your business depends on your setup, so let’s talk it through before anyone signs anything.
Some of your team may already be covered through a spouse or a parent. On a group plan you are often still pricing around them. Covering people individually lets you deal with each person as they actually are.
Nothing. I am paid by the carrier when someone enrolls, never by you, and the price of a plan is the same whether you go through me or not. Here is exactly how I am paid.
Headcount, rough ages, and who already has coverage. I will tell you which direction is worth pricing, and I will say so if a group plan is the better answer.
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