After pay, health insurance is the most important inducement small businesses use to recruit and keep employees motivated. Yet many employers are finding the ability to provide cost effective health insurance more challenging as premiums continue to rise and the options available continue to decrease. Employers are beginning to think “out of the box” and are looking at new ways to offer their employees benefit programs, and to keep them motivated.
NAPEO, the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations, conducted an employee benefits survey in November, 2007 of its members’ clients to understand the concerns of small and medium-sized employers. NAPEO is an organization that represents firms, PEOs, which specialize in providing human resources support and employee benefit packages to small and mid-sized employers nationwide. Mirroring the sentiment across the country, the trade association found that health care costs were their second-biggest worry after attracting workers.
The survey also revealed that more than half of the 365 small businesses surveyed said their premiums rose as much as 10 percent this year, and almost one in 10 told NAPEO they would dump their health coverage next year or are unsure about it. Many of these companies said they will pass at least some costs along to employees next year. One in five said they would raise co-payments for office visits or deductibles; one in four said they’d raise premiums.
California Employers Feel The Squeeze
The survey was conducted nationally, but employers in specific states, such as California, are being hit the hardest. Michael Holmes, Client Services Director of CPEhr, a Los Angeles-based PEO, is not surprised. “This is another wake-up call,” says Holmes. “Soaring health insurance costs in California are hitting small businesses especially hard and these businesses employ the vast majority of workers. This is an extremely troubling development, not just for small businesses and their workers, but for the entire economy.”
A report recently released by the California State Library, entitled, “Ninety Years of Health Insurance Reform Efforts in California” by Michael Dimmitt, Ph.D of the California Research Bureau, reviews the history of health insurance in California dating back to 1918. It reveals some startling facts, and reasons for even greater concern in California:
• Between 1961 and 2002, health care costs increased almost without interruption. No effort to contain them has proven successful over the long term.
• Federal programs provide health care coverage to over 7.4 million Californians. If the programs were not in place, the number of uninsured in the state would double.
• More than 20 percent of Californians, 6.6 million people, currently lack health care coverage over the course of the year according to research conducted for the California Healthcare Foundation.
• Of those without health insurance, an estimated 75 percent are working people and their families.
• As a consequence of the growth in premiums, the number of people covered by health insurance in California decreased from 64.6 percent to 54.7 percent between 1987 and 2005.
Some employers are content to continue along the traditional health coverage path for their staff. While premiums rise, most just consider it a cost of doing business. However, many California employers are now turning to the PEOs to provide relief for their employee insurance woes.
What is a Professional Employer Organization?
Professional employer organizations, or PEOs, pool thousands of employees under one roof and provide cost effective management of small employers’ health insurance plans. Additionally, PEOs help small businesses outsource their time-consuming human resources chores, such as payroll, HR policies and risk management, so owners can focus on making a profit. The PEO acts like an offsite human resource department, so even small employers can gain access to expertise typically reserved for larger, more established organizations. Particularly in California, where complex employment rules and difficult insurance guidelines weigh heavily on small businesses, it is highly beneficial for small California employers to connect with an expert PEO in the state, such as CPEhr.
Like most PEOs, CPEhr creates a "co-employment" relationship with its clients, thereby sharing the risks and responsibilities of being an employer. CPEhr assumes the role of the Administrative Employer, whereby it pays the employees, files payroll taxes, provides health insurance, issues the workers' compensation insurance, and manages most aspects of employment. The client maintains the role as the Administrative Employer and continues to manage and oversee all day-to-day functions relating to their internal operations. This includes hiring, firing, establishing wages, and directing the workforce.
Through this co-employment relationship, small organizations access the economies of scale enjoyed by large corporations. CPEhr’s clients can offer premium benefit packages and retirement plans to their staff, typically provided by their larger competitors. They can maintain a simple in-house HR infrastructure or none at all by relying on the PEO. The client also can reduce hiring overhead. Costs related to monitoring of, and compliance with, employment laws are reduced, as are the often significant costs of failure to comply with such laws. In addition, the PEO provides time savings by handling routine and redundant tasks for its clients. This enables the business owner to focus on the company's core competency and grow its bottom line.
Creative and Affordable Insurance Options
According to NAPEO, the PEO industry grew over 15% in 2007, to $61 billion in gross revenues. PEOs currently provide access to employee benefits for 2-3 million working Americans. This number continues to grow as the economies of scale offered by PEOs make them an attractive solution for small employers looking to offer a wider range of benefits to their staff, without the need to shop, administer or oversee these plans.
CPEhr maintains a fully staffed employee benefits department which is focused on finding cost effective and comprehensive benefits to make available to its clients. Because CPEhr has the manpower to tackle this daunting task, the small employer merely has to join the PEO program, and enjoy access to the benefits without the responsibility to administer the plans.
Like most employers, CPEhr offers its clients standard major medical insurances with the large insurance carriers. However, due to the size of the pool of employees, CPEhr enjoys a stronger relationship with the insurance companies which enables them to offer a wider range of plans and coverage options, with greater flexibility on enrollments and improved customer service. While a small business independently may secure a benefit plan with one or two co-pay options, a CPEhr offers as many as 8-10 options for the same employer.
In addition to major medical, a wide range of supplemental benefits, such as dental, vision, life, and disability insurances are available. CPEhr also extends its benefit offering to include additional employee programs such as such as travel, cancer and alternative health care insurances, credit unions, Flexible Spending Accounts, and robust 401 (k) plans. The Small Business Administration estimates that merely nineteen percent of employees working in a small business have access to a 401 (k). That number skyrockets to an estimated 95% in a PEO arrangement.
While it is obvious that not every small business will need, or even want, to offer this wide range of benefits to its staff, it should be comforting for them to know that alternatives exist. At the least, the small employer should recognize the extraordinary opportunity PEOs offer to help level the playing field in the complex and tough employee benefits environment.
Conclusion
Rising health insurance premiums, complex employment and benefit administration, and a weak economy are all making the task of procuring affordable, manageable health insurance more daunting for the typical small employer. Particularly in California, where 75% of the uninsured population is in the workforce, these challenges are reaching critical limits. More and more employers are turning towards alternative health insurance solutions, such as joining a PEO for their employee benefit coverages. One such firm, CPEhr, is a leader in the California marketplace and can provide these solutions efficiently and cost effectively for state-based businesses.
Small Business Health Benefit Challenges… And Solutions - To learn more about this author, visit Ari Rosenstein's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 |
Related Articles |
|
 Leverage Your Time and Energy - Untie Your Shoes!
|
| |
A while ago, I wrote a short post for small business owners and managers called “Building a Sustainable Infrastructure”. In it, I touched briefly on the idea of leveraging your time and energy by addressing problems...
|
|
SME Financing
|
| |
On friday I had an interesting meeting with Mr.James Kachangati of FSDKenya, James is the head of GrowthFin and had been informed about TIDE from one of our partners, which aroused some interest from him. The meetin...
|
|
Small Business Interview Series Employee Benefits
|
| |
Employee benefits are an important topic for many small business owners and managers. In the first installment of an ongoing series, I speak with benefits specialist Rachel von Sturmer, Principal at True Benefits Fi...
|
|
3 Health Insurance Misconceptions
|
| |
Whether you own a small business out of your home, or run your small business from a retail location, finding quality, affordable health insurance for you and your family can be tough. You've heard from others tha...
|
|
3 HOT tips to improve your ads flyers and letters for Small Business Growth
|
| |
3 HOT tips to improve your ads/flyers and letters to increase your number of leads for small business growth.
|
 |
Related Businesses - Evan Elite Authors |
|
Leanne Hoagland-Smith
Are your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales success or one of the many who have failed to change? So what are you doing to change those results? Let’s be honest, with companies moving globally and at lightening speeds, the traditional business solutions are outdated and dead. My approach moves your business out of its comfort zone and secures your competitive advantage now. If you are seeking to increase sales, build customer loyalty, create a culture of great attitudes or just achieve some sleep filled nights, then we should talk because my clients have experienced exactly those types of results. Learn more about customer loyalty at http://www.processspecialist.com/customer-loyalty.htm Give me a call at 219.759.5601 for a free strategy session. P.S. If you are seeking a motivational speaker, sales trainer or small business expert that will leave your audience smiling and remembering, please feel free to contact me at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
|
Accessible Business Consultants
Dave Turkin, President, of Accessible Business Consultants is a full service business consultant that has over 32 years of experience working with small-medium size businesses. Dave has designed and implemented numerous business and marketing plans, designed internal programs for accounting and operational procedures. He has analyzed businesses and prepared strategic plans setting budgets for growth, expansion and business restructuring.
He currently sits on the Board of Directors of various corporations as an advisor. For many years he has been the Business Coach to many executives offering advice and guidance from old and established companies as well as new companies just getting started.
Dave has the ability to analyze a business quickly and get a strong indication as to the necessary steps to improve operations, productivity and profitability. - Visit Accessible Business Consultants's Website |
|
Dianne Crampton
Dianne Crampton is an Executive Leadership Coach and Team Building Consultant and creator of the TIGERS team development model. For the past twenty years she has helped leaders and teams achieve goals with high levels of collaboration and teamwork.
Crampton is a published author. Her contribution to Working Together: Diversity As Opportunity was endorsed by Stephen Covey. She has written for trade magazines. Merrill Lynch nominated her business for Inc. Magazine’s regional small business and entrepreneurial awards. Her work with Native Americans was recognized at a United Nations sponsored conference in 1994.
The TIGERS model passed two rigorous validation studies in 1992 and 1994. The TIGERS Survey is able to measure and track team development over time.
Dianne is also the creator and distributor of the TIGERS Team Wheel game. This game helps groups identify behaviors that build collaborative groups and behaviors that cause conflict, morale problems, production failures, and misunderstandings.
For more information, or to subscribe to TigerTracks, a free monthly leadership and team newsletter go to http://www.corevalues.com - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
|
David Barr
David Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business.
David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
|
Jeff Foster
WebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|
Vwodek Wojczynski
Business Coach and Consultant Vwodek Wojczynski (pronounced Voy-chin-ski) brings fun, awareness, accountability and fresh perspectives based on his diverse experiences in life and business.
Born in Poland and educated in Greece and Canada, he is trilingual with 8 years experience in business development with clients in Canada, USA, Switzerland and Poland.
His approach is systematic and process-driven. He fuses the know-how of proven business methods with his commitment that entrepreneurs experience satisfaction and joy based on their values, motivations and strengths. He believes that businesses succeed based on their ability to generate value by providing what’s needed and wanted.
Ultimately, he trains executives and true business owners - people who work less, produce more, own businesses that run automatically after a while and make a difference globally.
His current research focus is the development of intelligent business systems and the application of emerging artificial intelligence technologies in business.
He is also an avid traveler, spoken word performer and visual artist. He resides in Toronto, Canada. - Visit Vwodek Wojczynski's Website |
|
Anne Barr
Anne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations,
networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business
ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
|
Kim Castle
With nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation.
BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them?
If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|
The Evan Elite Authors program is currently in beta phase. For details please contact us.
|
|
|
Ari Rosenstein
(Visit Ari's Website)
Ari is the Director of Marketing at CPEhr,
a leading California Human Resources
Outsourcing and Consulting firm. Ari
joined CPEhr in 1995 and has helped sell
and marketing its Human Resources
Consulting services since that time.
With 27 years experience in the California
market, CPEhr offers an array of
integrated human resources services that
includes: workers’ compensation
administration, risk management, employee
administration, human resources and labor
law compliance, payroll and tax
administration, benefits administration
and compliance, training and recruiting.
|
|
|
|
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
