If you’ve ever stood in the cold remedies section of a drugstore or grocery store, perplexed by the sheer number of choices, you have taste of what it’s like to shop for business insurance. In an attempt to be all things to all people, the insurance industry has created a seemingly limitless variety of insurance offerings, most of which you don’t want or don’t need.
But you must have decided that you want something, or you wouldn’t have chosen to read this article. How do you make intelligent business decisions when it comes to insurance coverage for your business and your employees? It’s no small task, but with some careful thought and the suggestions offered here, you can intelligently weigh the options.
The first part of this article is intended for readers shopping for insurance as employee benefits. If you’re more interested in purchasing insuring for your business, skip to “Insuring your business.”
Call an Expert
If you’re an employer or business owner, you probably have more urgent, value-add activities than researching insurance. If you do, it makes good business sense to call someone like The Hoffman Agency, to discuss your insurance needs. The Hoffman Agency is a broker meaning that you will be able to concentrate on handling business while they spend the time and effort to find you the perfect business insurance solution. They can assess the insurance needs of your employees and shop for a package that meets them and that you can afford.
Know What You’re Looking For
Before you can accurately determine the cost of insurance, and before insurers’ quotes will be meaningful for you, you need to determine the kind of coverage you need. And that means knowing something more about your employees than you might already know. What kinds of insurance do they need and what do they already have? What coverage will be most important to them ten to twenty years in the future?
While this type of information may not be readily available—and it may be illegal for you to ask questions that would help—you can discern a great deal about your employees’ insurance needs merely from demographic information. Older employees are more likely to need long-term disability insurance or health plans with greater lifetime maximum benefits. Younger workers will be more concerned about family coverage and manageable co-payments and deductibles than about their long-term needs. Similarly, life insurance appeals more to workers over the age of 35 than to employees just entering the workforce.
If your business is in a large urban area where most employees use public transportation, group discounts on auto insurance will be less attractive than they would be in rural or suburban settings where most employees drive to work.
Your insurance benefits package can’t be tailored to meet all the needs of every employee, but you can learn in broad terms what types of insurance hold the broadest appeal to your workforce.
In part two we will discuss more about things you should consider and what you should look for in an insurer.
