How does a small business start offering employee benefits like health insurance and 401K?
My wife and I have a small business in the Chicagoland area and are expanding. We’ve been doing everything on our own but now we need to hire one full time employee to start off with. How do we offer benefits? How do we go about the task? What is the best company to go to? Thanks!
July 27th, 2010 at 6:45 am
im not sure im the right person 2 be answering thiss sorry
July 27th, 2010 at 7:32 am
you get a really good guy with some really good products
they put a plan together for our company and gave us options to choose from, sat down with our employees to go over benefit plans and 401k’s and iras.. drop me an email and I’ll get you his email, I’m at home and it’s on my office computer.
I would send them to anyone.. it never hurts to look, and a look is free.
July 27th, 2010 at 7:44 am
Try contacting a Primerica Agency in your area the specialized in dealing with financial services for business as well as indivduals.
Check out this website : http://www.primerica.com
They are a member of Citigroup the largest bank in the world.
July 27th, 2010 at 8:42 am
You may want to look into health insurance alternatives such at AmeriPlan Health
July 27th, 2010 at 9:18 am
In Georgia, I think you don’t have to do this unless you want too. You have to have at least 25 employees before it’s mandatory to offer those benefits. I believe that worker’s comp might be something you need to have. I’m not sure though I am doing a little research right now because I’m thinking of opening a business. Just do a google search of your state and see if there are links on your state’s website to answer your questions or check out your state’s Department of Labor website.
July 27th, 2010 at 9:59 am
You probably do not have to offer benefits with only one employee but you can and it will probably help you get better people wanting the job. You can do it 2 ways. Figure what youn can afford to pay and then put 10-20% of that into a benefit fund. Some things like paid time off you can do on your own. Other things like retirement plans and insurance you need an agent. National Association for the self employed is one possible source. Blue Cross lue shield may be another. Another possibility is that if the person you hire has benefits through a spouse you can give additional pay in lieu of benefits. There are some things that if you have yourself you need to offer your employee. If this is truely and employee not an independent contractor you will need to pay unemployment insurance. Your state labor dept can help you with info on the regulations in your area for all this. You may want to check and see if there is more benefit and less expense to you in having one fuill time employee or 2 part time. Often part timers do not expect benefits and there are fewer rules about things you have to offer, In addition if you have 2 part timers each may have different skills and if one quits or doesn’t work out and you need to let them go you still have the other one.
July 27th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Look up Third Party Administrators in your phone book. But a better place to look is Benefitslink.com or Tagdata.com. There is no best company….these are consultants. Meet with a few different ones and find the one that you like and seem to trust.