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 a Professional Employer Organization (PEO), such as Workforce Solutions, to discuss your insurance needs. A PEO provides all the services you would expect an internal Human Resources department to provide, including benefits administration, but it is a separate entity from the organization to which it delivers these services. PEOs deliver expert and efficient employee-related administration, sharing the responsibility and risk of managing workers. 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