9 insurance programs for employee retention and attracting talent

Any progressive organisation tries to provide best benefits to its employee so as to increase employee satisfaction with organisation which in turn would help increase fidelity of employee with organisation and also help attract fresh and good talent.

HR should try to be proactive and should go beyond its call to find ways on how employee satisfaction can be achieved some of the ways are :

1. Decrease the stress of employee when faced with an medical emergency/condition,
2. Enhance sense of security to the family in case of any unfortunate incident leading to untimely death of employee.

HR has choice of many insurance instrument’s which when used judiciously and prudently have all ingredients to increase employee satisfaction and fidelity towards organisation.

1.   Group Health Insurance.

Health of self and family members is one of the biggest stresses for employees.

In today’s environment where mean age of employees is less than 35 maternal & new born care and maternity expenses are also among the bigger stress points.

For middle and upper management health of dependent parents and fear for being diagnosed with a critical illness is very high stress point.

Understanding the above points are very crucial for HR and could be used to negotiate a health insurance policy giving covers like:

1. The policies are family floater
2. Definition of family is: employee+spouse+2 dependent children
3. Children up to the age of 25 are considered as dependent.
4. Parents or Parents in Law are covered
5. Pre-existing disease is covered from Day 1.
6. No waiting period of 30 days
7. There is no waiting period of 1 year or 2 year for specified procedure like tonsillitis, stone in kidney or gall bladder, hernia, dialysis, Cataract etc.
8. Maternity benefits are defined for both normal and C-section.
9. Maternity benefits are payable from day 1 without any waiting period.
10. Newborn Baby coverage from day 1
11. All waivers effective for employee are effective for parents also.
12. There is no co-payment
13. There is no limitation or CAP on ICU/Room Rent expenditure and usage.
14. There is no disease specific or procedure specific cost CAP.
15. A corporate buffer is maintained.
16. Regular addition and deletion of employees is allowed

 

In addition VAS( Value added services ) like regular health camps, discounts in pharmacy and diagnostic chains etc etc.

It is a very good alternative to ESI health insurance scheme which are limited by upper limit of monthly salary which is fixed at Rs.21000 per month.

The group health insurance policy can be designed matching benefits offered by ESI.

For best support in designing a health insurance product for your employees visit : http://business.plancover.com/group_health_insurance.aspx

2. Workers Compensation Policy/ Employee Compensation Scheme

Workers compensation policy is best suited for Factories, Civil contractors, Engineering Contractors, Industrial contractors, Labour contractors where attrition rate of labour force is high , most of the workers are working on contract and draw less than or equal to Rs.21000 per month.

The basic risks covered under the policy are:

Any death or Disability including Partial, Temporary and permanent because of any accident while on duty or in course of his employment.

Medical extension cover for covering hospitalisation cost incurred in treatment of any injury arising out of accident is an optional cover or add-on under the policy

Policy can be brought on unnamed basis.

The policy is based on workmen compensation act 1923 with all amendments

For best quotes for WC policy please visit : http://business.plancover.com/Employer-liability.aspx

3. Employee State insurance corporation -Health Insurance

Employee State insurance came into effect after approval of Employee State Insurance Act 1948.

Under this act the Blue Collar or industrial workers are covered, it is one of the largest social security scheme across the globe as per last figures published on 31 March 2016 :

No of insured family units covered are : 2.13 crore

No of insured employees: 1.89 crore

No of beneficiaries: 8.28 crore

No of employers: 7.83 Lakhs

Under the section 2(12) the act is applicable to non seasonal factories employing more than 10 employees.

Under the section 1(5) of the act the act the scheme has been extended to employees of shops, hotels, restaurant, road-motor transport undertaking , newspaper establishment employing 10*or more employees.

Under section 1(5) of the act the scheme has been extended to Private Medical and educational institutions employing more than 10* or more employees.

Note: However in some States threshold limit for coverage of establishments is still 20 Employees of the aforesaid categories of factories and establishments. These State Governments/UTs are in the process of reducing the same.

States where ESIS scheme is applicable: all states except Manipur, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram.

UT where scheme is applicable :in Delhi and Chandigarh

 Coverage :

With effect from 01/01/2017 the wage limit for availing services under the act has been enhanced to 21000/- per month.

The Basic salary + Dearance allowance(DA) are considered as wages for coverage under ESIS scheme.

The scheme is contributory where w.e.f 01.01.2017 employee contributes 1.75% of the wages and employer contribute 4.75% of the wages fo the scheme.

The scheme is administered by Ministry of Labour GOI through 62 regional and sub regional offices headed by State Labour commissioner in every state

Reference : www.esic.nic.in

4. Group Accident Policy

Group accident insurance policy is a good option if employees travel a lot and spend more time commuting and travelling to different locations and in field procuring and servicing new and existing business.

It is a good option for organisation where salaries are more than limits set under Employee Compensation policy and the coverage is available for 24 hours.

The basic risks covered under the policy are:

The policy provides benefits to beneficiary if person covered under the policy because of any accident which is an unintended and unexpected occurrence and impact is external, visible and violent resulting in an injury or loss leading to death or disability which can be partial, temporary or permanent in nature.

Medical extension cover for covering hospitalisation cost incurred in treatment of any injury arising out of accident is an optional cover or add-on under the policy

Regular addition and deletion of employee details can be done.

Please visit : http://business.plancover.com/Group_personal_accident_insurance.aspx

5. Group Life Term Insurance Policy

Group term insurance policy is a very good option where death because of accident or natural causes can be covered and provides benefits to beneficiary in case person covered under the policy meet death because of any accident or any natural causes not limited to any disease.

For best proposals please click on : http://business.plancover.com/Group_term_life_insurance.aspx

6. Group Gratuity cash accumulation Policy

It is an option where HR in addition to Gratuity Accumulation Policy can take add-on cover where in case of death of an employee while in service a death benefit equal to the gratuity accumulated is paid to the survivors.

7. Group Pension Plans

The Management and HR for better utilisation of employee welfare fund can make provision for fixed percentage from them as contribution to pension plans and after discussion with insurance company can design a Group Pension Plan and can introduce group pension plans and  encourage employees to join the same.

The plan Can be of two type defined contribution or defined benefit where for defined contribution plan the corpus created from employee welfare fund can  contribute to a fixed amount for employees which helps create corpus for the employee which is payable on retirement/death/resignation.

In Defined benefit plans a minimum pension can be defined which becomes payable on retirement or cessation of service for this contribution from employees can be solicited.

8. Employee deposit linked insurance( EDLI)

 Is an insurance scheme administered by EPFO, and applies to employee with salary up to Rs/15000 and the benefit are capped to Rs.600,000 , if the salary goes beyond Rs.15000 benefit are capped at Rs.600,000.

The scheme is for employees of organised sector and if you are member of EPF you automatically become eligible for EDLI

But HR can inform EPFO of opting out of EDLI and enrolment under a different group life insurance scheme in place of opting for EDLI, where the benefits are equal or better.

PFRDA( Pension Fund and regulatory authority ) approves such plans.

Group Term Life Insurance plans are better than EDLI as higher SI can be opted.

For more information please visit http://business.plancover.com/Group-employee-deposit-linked-insurance.aspx

9. Group Travel Insurance policy

 If in an organisation because of its pedigree or business relations or business interest a lot of employees regularly travel overseas, we all know that overseas travel can become very stressful if there is an accident, or a health scare or loss of passport etc.

In a foreign country without support from family and friends a person is alone and without help. For situation like this HR should purchase an group overseas travel insurance where he is in touch with native language speaker at the call Centre who helps traveller to come out of sticky situation he finds him/herself in.

HR can also use this policy as a reward program whereby allowing high performing employee, associates take benefit of this policy for independent or family travel….

For more information on Group travel Insurance please visit : http://business.plancover.com/Group-Travel-insurance.aspx

For more information and understanding the above plans kindly visit :https://www.plancover.com/#