Employees, managers, CEOs — they all have different needs from your wellness program insurance. There is rarely a one-size-fits-all solution for everybody, but thankfully, there is a solution.
By differentiating levels of cover by business hierarchy, you can provide a more relevant, more tailored insurance package to your employees. Here’s how to get started:
Base cover
We consider medical and income insurance to generally be base-level cover for most businesses. Everybody from the newest hire to the CEO gets it, ensuring that everybody gets the protections they need if they get sick or have to temporarily leave the workforce. It’s great for promoting physical wellness, as people can get the healthcare they need as soon as they need it. It’s fantastic for mental wellness too, as covered workers are no longer having to worry about where their next paycheque is coming from if they do fall ill.
This is fundamental wellness program insurance, and so it is likely the most important package you’ll need to research. Consider the following:
- How many people are you going to have in the program?
- Are you going to have the resources to fund all of these policies?
- Will you have to fully subsidise, or offer base benefits and give employees the option to upgrade at their cost?
- Do you want to include portability?
- How much cover do you want at this basic level?
- Do you want to include extras such as life and trauma?
- What is the most suitable cover to have for your workforce?
- What is the most relevant cover for your industry?
These are just a few of the questions you’ll need to ask yourself. You can make these policies relatively tailored on a large scale for your business (or very tailored if you only have a few employees), but remember that this is base level cover: it has to appeal to a lot of people, so try to consider broad factors rather than individual needs.
Extended cover
For medium-sized businesses, you may want to offer your management-level employees some additional cover. This might be for practical reasons, such as increasing health cover to cover them if they travel overseas for business, or it might be for recruitment or retention reasons.
You may want to offer your management-level employees some additional cover.
You are building on the base cover here, offering either more diverse cover or more valuable specific policies. You’ll likely have fewer people who are receiving this level of insurance, so you can make it more tailored. Consult with your management team to find out what they would want from an insurance policy — keeping it useful and relevant is just as key here as it is with base cover.
Executive cover
For your executives, you can push the boat out even further. Small businesses might have only a handful of top-level management leaders to consider, so they can really get into the details for their insurance needs. You are no longer having to aim for broad coverage for everyone, after all.
But you should also be looking into more specific polices as well as more well-defined coverage. For example, you may want to develop key person cover as well as shareholder protection cover (if the CEO is also the business owner). This is less important for the employee themselves, but it is an important action to take to protect your business.
Summary
These are some broad guidelines to consider when choosing your wellness program insurance, but remember the golden rule: no matter who is getting the insurance, ensure the insurance fits the employee. People won’t value a wellness program that doesn’t include features that are relevant and useful to them — and that includes the insurance.
People won’t value a wellness program that doesn’t include features that are relevant and useful to them.
Always aim to make your corporate package better and cheaper than the personal equivalents. It’s the ideal way to ensure your employees are happy and healthy while in your employ.
And, as always, remember that all levels of cover can be tailored to your specific business or industry needs. Speak to your advisor to make sure you’re on the right track!
For more information on making the most of your wellness porgram, download our free eBook below.
