Choosing the right benefits package for employees is more than a nice-to-have perk. This is especially true of life insurance, which cannot only help improve office morale, but it can help convince employees to stick around.
By Wendy Herndon
Small-business owners often have a lot on their plates, often balancing everything from making sales calls and ordering inventory to meeting with customers and managing employees. As a result, evaluating employees’ benefits offerings may unintentionally get relegated to the bottom of their to-do lists. However, choosing the right benefits package for employees is more than a nice-to-have perk. This is especially true of life insurance, which cannot only help improve office morale, but it can help convince employees to stick around.
With the topic of life insurance, by necessity comes the discussion of death – and that can be understandably uncomfortable. However, the consequences can be just as tough if they are not addressed and planned for in advance. In fact, 70 percent of all U.S. households said they would have trouble covering everyday living expenses after several months if the primary wage earner died.1 The good news is life insurance can help provide financial protection to cover funeral expenses, pay off mortgages or other debts, continue sending children to college or pay for day-to-day expenses. With so much already on their minds, employees may not make getting life insurance as much of a priority as they should.
Life insurance can make the difference between taking out additional loans and accumulating more debt and having the necessary funds to help continue covering ongoing expenses now and into the future. With life insurance being so important to a family’s financial stability – especially considering that 58 percent of employees say they are at least somewhat likely to take a job with slightly lower pay but a more robust benefits package2 – small-business owners need to ensure they are providing employees with access to this coverage.
Often, choosing whom you work with is just as important as including life insurance in a benefits package. As you look to select a company to work with, the following factors should remain top of mind when selecting life insurance:
- Guaranteed-issue options: Having coverage that you can count on at every stage of life is important, especially considering that nearly half of American households need more life insurance.1 Look for plans with guaranteed-issue options that will allow your small-business staff – whether that is 10 or 100 employees – to better plan for their needs without any underwriting questions required.
- Flexibility: Find a company that offers both whole and term life insurance. This allows your employees to plan for both short- and long-term needs with a strong life portfolio that can be tailored to fit their lives. Plans with more flexibility to meet the needs of individual employees help provide you with a higher value.
- Customer service: Life insurance can be complicated, so it is important to work with a company with a strong customer service reputation that can respond to employees’ questions and concerns.
- Costs: With so many companies offering life insurance, a big differentiator can be price, especially since 66 percent of consumers say they did not purchase enough life insurance during benefits enrollment because it is too expensive.3 Be sure to compare plans by examining what features are offered to help ensure employees get the best product for the best price.
Providing employees with attractive benefits is not only good for employees, but it is good for business, too. Adding life insurance, like that offered by Aflac, to a benefits package can help protect an employee’s financial future as well as help retain high-performing workers. Take the time now to research which company is best to work with so you can not only help protect your employees, but you can also position your company as one that cares about its employees and retains top talent by helping them prepare for the inevitabilities in life.
Wendy Herndon is second vice president of Product Development and Implementation at Aflac. With more than 15 years of experience in this field, she is responsible for managing and guiding product portfolios through their entire life cycles, including strategy, development and implementation.
1 LIMRA. “Facts About Life 2016,” https://www.limra.com/uploadedFiles/limra.com/LIMRA_Root/Posts/PR/_Media/PDFs/Facts-of-Life-2016.pdf. Accessed June 1, 2018.
2 Aflac. “2017 Aflac WorkForces Report,” https://www.aflac.com/docs/awr/pdf/2017-overview/2017-aflac-workforces-report-employee-overview.pdf. Accessed June 1, 2018.
3 LIMRA. “2017 Insurance Barometer Study,” https://www.bestliferates.org/blog/2017-life-insurance-statistics-and-facts. Accessed June 1, 2018.
Life insurance stock photo by Africa Studio/Shutterstock
