Have questions about employee benefits, compliance, and more?
Choosing and implementing insurance for your business can be an overwhelming task. Be prepared and get the facts! Below are a few helpful answers to some common questions. For a more information request an appointment with one of our expert employee benefit specialists.
Group Insurance FAQs
If you employee 50 or more full-time equivalent employees, then you have to offer health insurance that meets the government guidelines.
Any employee working 30 hours or more is considered a full-time employee.
If this happens you could be subject to an audit, at which point the government will determine if your plan meets all of the ACA guidelines. If it does, the employee will be charged back for any subsidy they received. If your plan doesn’t meet federal guidelines, you will be subject to penalties.
It depends on the situation. If you have less than 50 full-time employees, you are not required to offer insurance. That being said, you are not barred from doing so. If you offer a plan, you may cover as much of the employee’s premium as you want; or you may even contribute nothing. The downside to offering a plan if you have less than 50 employees, is that they may not be able to receive a subsidy depending on their household income. In many cases, it is a catch twenty-two, whereby offering a health plan may help some of your employees and hurt others.
This is a confusing question as well. According to the Affordable care act, any business the employer has ownership in counts towards the total number of employees. This is called common ownership, and has been the cause of quite a bit of confusion. If the total number of full time employees for all businesses owned is 50 full-time employees or more, then you are considered a large group. It should be noted that the businesses don’t have to be in the same field, any business the employer has ownership in counts towards the total number of employees.
If you are a large group, you are required to fill out the 6056 reporting. If you are over 250 employees, you will be required to file this electronically.
If your business has more than 50 full-time employees, for the first 30 employees you will be fined nothing. Moving forward you will be fined $2000 or more annually, per additional employee.