Cafeteria Plans

Still Need Coffee

Does anyone out there offer a cafeteria plan which includes benefits other than just insurance (i.e., dependent care, cash benefits, etc)?

If so, would you mind sharing an outline of the plan? I'm trying to come up with some creative ideas for 2010 and running into a brick wall.

Dutch2

We allow dependent care in our cafeteria plan. Up to $5,000 payroll deduction every year. The difference with dependent care and health care is the ee can't spend the dependent care funds unless they are already in their account. So, you don't have to worry about the account running into the red during the year.
We have been hit hard this year in our Health Care side. We have had to add an additional $9k to the account just to fund the amounts the ee's have already taken out of the plan. "If" no one departs the plan early we will get all of this back.

ACU Frank

To clarify...

Are you talking about a Section 125 flex plan, or are you talking about a menu of benefits that can be selected ala carte?

The former is often referred to as a cafeteria plan, but it is somewhat of a misnomer. When I read your original post, I thought you meant the latter.

Still Need Coffee

Well, both - cafeteria plans or flex plans, whatever you want to call them, as per the Sect. 125 IRS guidelines.

I'll be more pointed with my question - for those of you with HDHPs, what are you doing to help employees offset the costs of the deductible, and are you running those programs through a Sect 125 program for pre-tax benefits?

ACU Frank

We run the premium through the s125, and include the flex med reimbursement. But for the deductible itself, we have an employer-funded s105 deductible reimbursement plan. It reimburses the employee for dollars 251-1500 of the $1,500 deductible.

mandrews

You could offer up an Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) to your employees who participate in the high deductible plan. As the employer you get to decide how much that reimbursement will be annually and you then can reimburse employees for eligible deductible expense when its incurred in the calender year to help offset the expense for the employees. That money is tax free to the employee so long as it is 100% funded by the employer. This is what we do to encourage employees to take the high deductible plan over the low deductible plan that costs us more money to subsidize. The other alternative is an MSA, Medical Savings Account, where employees can set the money aside pre-tax dollar however, the burden of administration and verification for these is much higher for the employer as they are IRS regulated much like a Flex Plan.