What is ancillary health insurance?
Health insurance coverage comes in various forms. Ancillary health insurance is one of these types.
Ancillary health insurance is a secondary type of health benefit that helps employees cover miscellaneous medical expenses.
The term ancillary benefit refers to benefits that are used to supplement group health insurance. It usually includes the most sought-after employee benefits which are; dental, vision, and life insurance benefits.
Types of ancillary health insurance benefits
- Vision and dental coverage: This is probably the most common type of ancillary health insurance coverage.
According to an American dental survey, more than 30% of young adults have tooth decay and this is believed to be caused by a lack of dental insurance.
- Life insurance: Life insurance is a very beneficial part of ancillary health insurance. It pays a fixed amount of money upon the insured’s death.
A lot of people do not carry life insurance because they believe other ancillary health benefits are of more importance while they are alive but this doesn’t change the fact that it is important as well.
- Disability insurance: An employee stands a 30% chance of becoming disabled. Short or long-term disability insurance offers employees a backup plan should they be unable to work due to an unforeseen injury or illness.
Disability insurance also provides women with benefits after childbirth.
- Wellness benefits: Wellness benefits include free gym memberships, flexible workouts that focus on physical and mental health, access to healthy meal plans. All of this is to make sure employees have a healthy work lifestyle.
Why ancillary health insurance?
Ancillary benefits are offered to cover those expenses that many neglects to factor into the cost of health care.
Healthcare plan is not enough to keep employees healthy, the oral and vision care ancillary health insurance offers stands a better chance to keep employees healthy.
Research shows that dental and vision plans can be effective in the early detection of symptoms of high blood pressure, diabetes, and other diseases. The physical vision and dental examination ancillary insurance offers can help in this detection.
Health care insurance does not also provide income protection in the event of death, but life insurance, a major part of ancillary health insurance, can help employees protect their loved ones by providing a monetary benefit to cover the cost of a funeral or a debt.
Group life insurance, another sought-after employee benefit can also help a lot of employees secure their lives and that of their families, and this is made possible by ancillary health insurance.
How to go about ancillary health insurance
First, ancillary health insurance is more affordable to purchase at a group level instead of individually.
As a group, risks are spread through a large population which would automatically keep the price low.
You can establish an ancillary health insurance plan in your company to make your employees happy. There can be a total coverage by the employee or an arranged employer-employee split. This can be broken down into two (2) ways;
- Voluntary, or
- Employer contribution
Voluntary contribution
Here, the employer offers or pays 0 to 49 percent of the ancillary benefits.
The employer can take charge of voluntary contributions through payroll deduction.
Employer contribution
The employer pays 50 to 100 percent of the ancillary benefit premiums.
Employees would pay whatever portion of the premiums that the employee does not cover. Then when an employee uses their benefits, a claim is submitted to the network contracted provider or the member in the absence of a network provider.
This also applies to life insurance. The benefit is paid directly to the beneficiary(in the event of death).
How beneficial is this to an employer?
- The value of the ancillary benefits is high among employees and would enhance the employer’s reputation among employees.
- Offering ancillary health insurance makes your business more competitive in the employment market.
- As an employee, you do not pay for voluntary ancillary benefits, you share the cost with your employees to keep costs down while pleasing employees at the same time.
Benefit to employees
- The cost is affordable, the risk is spread to a large group to keep the premiums reasonable.
- With ancillary dental and vision benefits, you as an employee have access to preventive care against any form of health challenges that you may develop in the future.
Summary
Ancillary health insurance offers tons of benefits for both employers and employees. It is a win-win for both parties so if I were you and your company offers ancillary health insurance benefits, I would jump on one today.
And as a business owner, you should incorporate ancillary health insurance benefits for your employees.