Premium increase only part of problem
Moria
78 Posts
Hopefully this will not ramble, it is not as complicated, I hope, as I will make it sound.
Like most of you our health plan increased by 24.6%, so we (a not-for-profit) are madly searching for ways to keep benefits, decrease costs in a down economy, and retain employees. We had paid 90% of the employees benefit and 70% of the dependent coverage. We now are proposing to pay 100% of the employee and 0% on dependent. Well, this is not even in affect yet, and I have already had one employee quit over this, or at least that was the excuse. But wait this gets better. (I have not been here a complete year). I just found out that we have an "unwritten" policy that states that our seasonal employees who keep their insurance while they are out during the off season, we will continue to pay our portion of the premium. (They are off on "job attached" status). We now want to stop this practice. (Dah!) But we have two long term employees, in our dining facility, that we want to "grandfather" them so that we continue paying, whatever we would pay during the season. We need to hire some additional folks into that department and they would NOT be eligible for this benefit.
Our Director of Food Services, who is also off the season, is exempt. So we pay him 12 months and deduct his premium year round. The rest of the employees are hourly. What payroll has done in the past is estimate what their insurance costs will be through their off time, and deduct that amount during the season. Because these are estimates we sometimes come up short. (Why is it not ever in our favor)?
Can we do this without being in some kind of violation? And what do other people do that have seasonal employees. Both of these long term employees say that the only reason they work here is for the benefits. And of course both are high utilizers. Ugh!!!!
Can you help? xpray
Like most of you our health plan increased by 24.6%, so we (a not-for-profit) are madly searching for ways to keep benefits, decrease costs in a down economy, and retain employees. We had paid 90% of the employees benefit and 70% of the dependent coverage. We now are proposing to pay 100% of the employee and 0% on dependent. Well, this is not even in affect yet, and I have already had one employee quit over this, or at least that was the excuse. But wait this gets better. (I have not been here a complete year). I just found out that we have an "unwritten" policy that states that our seasonal employees who keep their insurance while they are out during the off season, we will continue to pay our portion of the premium. (They are off on "job attached" status). We now want to stop this practice. (Dah!) But we have two long term employees, in our dining facility, that we want to "grandfather" them so that we continue paying, whatever we would pay during the season. We need to hire some additional folks into that department and they would NOT be eligible for this benefit.
Our Director of Food Services, who is also off the season, is exempt. So we pay him 12 months and deduct his premium year round. The rest of the employees are hourly. What payroll has done in the past is estimate what their insurance costs will be through their off time, and deduct that amount during the season. Because these are estimates we sometimes come up short. (Why is it not ever in our favor)?
Can we do this without being in some kind of violation? And what do other people do that have seasonal employees. Both of these long term employees say that the only reason they work here is for the benefits. And of course both are high utilizers. Ugh!!!!
Can you help? xpray
Comments
>hours per week."
We are changing that too, to 32 hours to be eligible, we have not mentioned "seasonal or partime", so I am glad you brought that up. Moria