When talking about Group Benefit Plans, the conversation often seems to be spent mostly on questions about the type of Dental coverage, limits within the Extended Health portion of coverage, is travel insurance included, is a doctor’s referral required for massage therapy…all are important points but few want to talk about what I believe is the biggest issue – Disability Coverage. If you are not able to work and earn an income because of an illness or an accident that happened while not at work, workers comp. will not pay you. Employment insurance will only pay you for 15 weeks. Then what do you do? If you have no income, you have a big problem! When I get the conversation back to disability coverage, some business owners nod cautiously saying that they would want to continue paying their employees salary even if they could not work but also are very quick to point out that is not sustainable and they would not be able to do this for long.
You really need to take care of the big picture before you concern yourself with the other coverage’s. For example: Some items to discuss are, both injury and illness, policy would pay for 2, 5 years or to age 65, do you want to buy partial disability coverage, while on benefit do you want cost of living adjustments.
Be sure to seek advice and purchase insurance from those who understand your business!