Employees Complaining About Their Benefits

[ABC]

There are many ways to handle this.

Explain to the upset employees that less than 50% of small groups under 50 do not even have a group health insurance
plan.

2nd. Contact the owner and explain the need for he/she to communicate the cost of the health insurance to the employees.

3rd. Give the upset employee an option to buy there own individual plan.

4th. Explain in the small group market most employers pay 50% of the employee cost and the rest lays on to the employee.



One thing I have learned in the small group market is you have to sell how lucky the employees are to have an employer that invest in them with a group health plan.

Everyone knows the state of the economy so for an upset employee to complain about 100% paid benefits I would have a hard time not being able to sell them on how lucky they are.

 

[bill3173]

It is really closer to 25% when you factor in fica, futa etc... We used to use a company, but now we just create the benefit statements/hidden paychecks in house.

The thing you have to remember when people like this call in is that some people just want to call and complain. They don't necessarily want anything done for them or want any answers, they just want someone to listen while they sound off.

We always train our people internally to try and first figure out what type of person this is. We have saved a lot of trouble by not trying to help and find solutions for people who just wanted to vent.

I spoke to this lady, wife of the employee, again today, and it was pretty much just a venting session.

After listening for almost 15 minutes I wanted to jump out of the window, thankfully I'm on the first floor.

It's not that I'm not sympathetic, but you are right on target. She knows there's nothing that I can do about it(not going into specifics), she just wanted to let me know how bad their plan is and how poorly they've been treated by her husband's employer.

Get this, this will kill ya - her deductible and benefits are better than mine, and they're not paying a dime. Her husband's salary is very good, not the $22K that healthagent mentioned, more like 3x that amount.

There's really nothing that you can say to someone like that, they know exactly what's being paid for the insurance on their behalf as well.

 

[stuy119]

I have a client like this. The owner and I are good friends, and his business is growing. Only 1 of the 12 families on the group health plan has a problem with it, and they are threatening to walk away (financial industry) with their book of business (and maybe a producer or two) if they don't get a better plan when renewal comes up.

And by better plan, he means a more expensive plan with a $0 deductible. What will everyone else think about that? "Who cares" is this families motto.

Oh, and I love getting calls from the wife to bitch about it. Seriously, WTF?

 

[LGilmore]

If the wife wants to vent let her. I would rather have them call me in all honesty because if I don't listen, they'll tell someone else I didn't listen and so on and so on....

Try to find out what the problem really is... if you can. Fix what you can, explain why you can't fix what you can't..

"I'm sorry, none of the providers offer that type of plan anymore. We look at every possible plan we can within the budget we have to work with. I understand what you're saying, it's just unfortunately not available."

or something to that effect.

Every company has at least 1 person like this. The goal should be to keep it at 1 person.