by Willem De Bock
Insurance as part of a salary package
You want to attract and retain top-quality staff. Offering a competitive salary package is a highly important factor. We’re all familiar with offering raises, salary bonuses and other enticements – but have you considered offering insurance policies? These can be a great perk for your staff – and they come with tax benefits. We zoom in on the advantages of group insurance and hospitalisation insurance.
Group insurance
Group insurance is a tax-friendly way to build up a supplementary pension for your employees. Although the benefits of the scheme are not immediate for the employees, many people consider group insurance to be an important element of their salary package. The policy can be coupled with additional income guarantees that offer extra peace of mind.
For example, you might offer life insurance policies or additional coverage for incapacity to work due to illness or accident. The legal payouts for incapacity to work are often not sufficient for the recipient to maintain their standard of living. Guaranteed income can supplement the legal payments to a level of 70 or 80 percent of the recipient’s usual income. You could also offer coverage of this kind as a standalone benefit. These policies are a way that you, as the employer, can offer your staff extra security for a relatively low outlay.
Hospitalisation insurance
Hospitalisation insurance reimburses the costs of hospitalisation or serious illness when these are not covered by a health insurance fund. The monthly cost that you pay (as the employer) is much lower than the cost of full group insurance. Another perk is that when you set up the hospitalisation policy, you can also offer coverage for the employee’s family members. The extra costs to cover family members can be paid either by you yourself, or by the employee. Dental insurance can also be added, and again, you can include family members in the coverage.
Customised
Whether you are looking at group insurance or hospitalisation insurance, you can tailor the policies to suit your company. Note, however, that the benefits must always be offered to an objective group of employees. For example, you might add an extra benefit package for your company executives. In other words, you can set up different benefit packages for each category of employees, tailored to your budget. The cost price for hospitalisation insurance or guaranteed income is relatively low and offering these extras can give you an extra edge when you’re recruiting for new staff.
Willem De Bock
Business Manager Risk Management willem.debock@vdl.be
Disclaimer
In our opinions, we rely on current legislation, interpretations and legal doctrine. This does not prevent the administration from disputing them or from changing existing interpretations.
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