3 Perspectives On Renewing Your Small Business Health Plan for 2017

Open enrollment is now well underway with small business owners facing some tough decisions about renewing their small business health plan for 2017. For those who are nodding their head over the last sentence, no doubt you have already seen your premium renewal notices and are reluctant to put pen to paper to agree with your new rates this year.   Being a small business owner is always a careful balancing act of needs and finances. There is usually little room for big bumps in financial things that cause a domino effect with budget plans. A quick search on the Internet will reveal a lot of pictures of premium notices from small business owners angered over the rates they are facing for next year. Is that you too?  

Some Questions To Consider Before Renewing Your Small Business Health Plan

If you are in a pickle and deciding what to do about benefits this year, there are a few questions to answer so you know how to move forward from here. Open enrollment ends as of December 15th this year so don’t delay on making a decision. Indecision means renewal in what you have already. If it doesn’t look appealing to you, it is time to take action.  

• How much will you have to add to your health insurance budget this year?
• What will your employees have to face in renewing your small business health plan?
• Will an increase mean a decrease in staff?
• How will having to allocate more budget to benefits affect your growth plans?
• Do you even like the benefits that you are offering?
• What kinds of benefits do you wish you could offer but can’t do financially?

  Take some time to write these down on a piece of paper and really think through your answers. A good dissection of your state of affairs when it comes to renewing your small business health plan is in order if you are going to move forward with the correct decision for your company and your employees for 2017.

The Perspective You Need To Have In Deciding To Renew Or Not

  There are 3 main ways to look at your current situation of renewing your small business health plan to decide if renewing is really the best way to go: Don’t Just Do What’s Easy - You may want to just sign to renew and be done with it, even if you are not happy with your new rates or changes in coverage. Many decide to do this and lay awake at night with regret. They face frustrated employees who don’t want to be stuck with the benefits they have. You have to have a well-rounded approach to whether or not your existing coverage is in the best interest of your employees. If it isn’t, they will try to figure out how to solve their benefits problem without your help: possibly by working for someone else.   Consider If Your Benefits Plan Will Help You Grow - It may seem a little abstract to think that renewing your small business health plan could have an impact on the growth of your business but it certainly does. When you have to allocate more funds towards benefits, something has to give.   You have likely already planned your budgets for next year and this upended what you thought you’d be able to put towards things like more inventory, more staff, better marketing solutions, or other locations. If you just take the financial hit and decide to renew, what will happen to those plans?   Counting The Cost Of Unhappy Employees Like You Do Rate Increases - Unhappy employees cost employers a lot of money every year. Factoring in renewing your small business health plan with rate increases and the cost of unhappy employees and you have a real problem on your hands.   Why do unhappy employees cost a small business money? First of all, unhappy people are not as productive. You are paying more for less work by not striving to create a good place to work, plain and simple. They also leave companies, costing them plenty in overtime, stress on increased workload and the cost of hiring a new candidate. The average cost of hiring a new employee is roughly 16% to 20% off the annual salary of the position you are hiring for. If you thought your rate increases were putting a crimp in your finances now, try replacing a few people who wished you’d made a better choice.

Get Better Benefits, Lower Rates And Happier Employees

  Have you considered a PEO to solve all of these issues? A PEO can help you get a lower rate on benefits and will likely offer much better coverage than you even dreamed of offering. Did we say lower? That is correct. The average PEO rate for benefits is up to 40% less than what renewing your small business health plan is for less coverage and higher deductibles.   If we’ve got you thinking on the possibilities, PEOs customers will tell you the curiosity is worth the phone call. Will you dedicate a half an hour of your time to speak with a PEO broker like PEO Spectrum to see if you should stop renewing your small business health plan for 2017 and go with a PEO?