Employee Benefits Basics Yafa Sakkejha

If you're an employee benefits advisor, it's important that you're aware of what captive insurance companies are, why they matter, and how it might intersect with your daily work. If you're a plan sponsor, it's good to know that you have an option to explore captives for your own insurance risk.

The GSC strike is now over, the call centre will be open again Monday April 22, 2024 for group benefits and group insurance phone calls from plan members. We're anticipating a higher than normal call centre volume on Monday.

Some Unifor divisions went on strike March 1 2024 especially those staff who answer the call centre phones for group benefits insurance questions. Let's see what happens over the next few days.

The Canadian budget presented in Parliament yesterday doesn't affect group benefits plans, but does affect independent insurance or financial advisors if and when they want to sell or transition their business, by way of a capital gain.

It's become more popular than ever for employee benefits clients to request that their payroll provider or human resources information system (HRIS) "connects" directly to their insurance carrier. This is doable and possible, but there is a lot of work to be done to ensure a clean file of data can pass through the systems. Here is how to project manage this if it comes across your desk.

It's critical to make sure you look out for opportunities to waive the premiums on pooled benefits where applicable. Here are 3 examines in the Canadian group benefits market.