Common Objections to Group Benefits

Group Benefits are too expensive

How did you feel when good employees leave for another job?  Your business requires employees with skill, and when these people leave you, it takes a great deal of time and money to hire and train new ones to replace them.  Employee benefits plan can reduce that cost.

Many business owners eventually have to weigh the costs of hiring and re-training employees vs. carrying a benefits plan.  For the most part, many find that an employee benefits plan can end up saving them money.

I'd rather pay employees more and let them buy their own insurance coverage.

That’s fine if you want to pay them a great deal more.  Have you ever looked at the cost of comparable individual coverage?  From an employee’s perspective, it’s considerably more expensive.  Plus, an employee also has to consider income taxes that will be taken out of any raises that you give them.

From your perspective, a raise in pay will result in increased expenses for you as an owner, since you will also have to increase your contributions to Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan and Workers Compensation.  A more effective solution might be for both you and your employees to invest in a group plan since your contributions as a business owner can be deducted as a business expense, while the employee has the potential to benefit more from a plan than a raise in pay.

We are a small company and we don't really have the resources in the office to deal with the added burden of running a benefits program.

The amount of administration is minimal.  If you could delegate someone in your office to spend one hour every couple of weeks looking after your plan, we can take care of everything else.

As a small company, we just can’t afford the extra cost that benefits will bring to the business.  Maybe next year we will be in a better position to do it.

As a business owner, you have dreams and aspirations for your firm including the success and rewards that go along with growth and prosperity.  These rewards are realized through your own hard work and effort, but also the efforts and retention of your key people.  A group benefit plan will add 3 to 6 per cent to your payroll costs, but it is a small and meaningful investment in your employees and your company’s future.

I’d like to see what other benefits companies can offer.

Why don’t you let Scrivens look after that on your behalf?  We can save you time, effort and money by doing all of the groundwork for you.  Once the quotes have been returned, we sit down together and make a decision on where you would like to do business.

We don’t want Life or Disability coverage, just health and dental benefits.

If you had no dental plan, the worst case scenario would be a few thousand dollars per employee.  If you have no disability insurance, the worst case scenario could be $2,500 per month x 12 months x 20 years or $600,000!  Are you sure you don’t want life or disability coverage?  It’s not that expensive.

I already have a Group Benefits plan.

Successful companies such as yours include it as part of their compensation package to employees.  However, many employers overlook the need to periodically review the design of their plan.  This is one of the ways in which we can add value to your employee benefits program.  It’s important to ensure that your plan continues to meet the needs of your company and employees.