Small Business Health Insurance little secret……once a year Special Enrollment Period

If you are an employer that is looking to put together a Group Health Insurance plan, there may be some affordable options out there, only available once a year.  The ACA (ObamaCare) has mandated that once a year, during the month of November, all carriers, Kaiser, Anthem, Aetna, UHC, Blue Shield, all have to accept Small Businesses with very little restrictions.  This is a little secret that the carriers would rather you NOT know

Some of the cool advantages to the SEP (Special Enrollment Period)

All carriers HAVE to accept any small business, no matter how many of the employees want to enroll OR even if the employer does not want to contribute to the offering of the Group Health Insurance or Employee Benefits.  Insurance companies would rather have the more restricted guidelines for acceptance.  Here’s an example why;  lets say a company of 25 employees want to offer Group Health Insurance but only 4 of the employees want to enroll because the others think its too expensive.  The 4 enrolling are PROBABLY the ones that really need the coverage…maybe they have health issues or whatever.  The insurance companies would rather “spread” the risk around more healthy employees, than just the sick ones.

Very tight window for this to happen

Employers (and brokers that focus on Employee Benefits) have a very small window to get all of the underwriting requirements through the approval process of the insurance companies.  The approval has to happen in early December, for the effective date of January 1st.  Having helped many businesses through this process, I’ve learned a few “tricks of the trade” to get approval quickly.

Change can happen every year

With Group Health Insurance, you have the ability to change your insurance whenever you want.  Its literally a month to month contract.  With this SEP, Special Enrollment Period, if the coverage you choose this year is not exactly what you wanted, you can always change to another insurance company during this time, next year, making it very versatile.

One more reason to working with an agency that focuses on Employee Benefits.  Having a Specialist working for you, whether its us or someone else, can pay huge dividends.

 

Steve Brauer, Principal, Brauer Insurance Services LLC, www.brauerinsurance.com  (877) 421-4325

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