3 Tips On Who is Eligible to be Enrolled in Your Employee Benefit Plan

The first thing to know is that, you as the business owner decide what eligibility looks like, when you set up your Employee Benefit Plan contract with any insurer, such as BF Partners. Employee Benefit plan eligibility has a few components:

1. Waiting period (how long someone must work for you before they go on the plan)
    
2. Minimum hours per week worked on average (usually 25 hours)
    
3. Employee must be a member of an eligible class of employee (you could make the plan only eligible for office/management staff and not available for other workers)

Employee Benefit Plan Eligibility has some flexibility, primarily around the waiting period. For example, if you have a 3 month wait for new employees, you can waive that to zero days if you hire a key employee. Zero days is the only option other than the normal waiting period though, you cant choose 1 month instead of the 3 months in the contract.

Bottom line? Set up your eligibility criteria to ensure your plan is appreciated soon by the people you want to attract and retain. Overly strict criteria can create negative feedback from current and potential employees, defeating the point of having a plan.

BF Partners is a Financial Service company offering Employee Benefits and Financial Planning/Pension advice for businesses and business owners. The BFP brand stands for quality, integrity, commitment and professionalism. Click here for more information on BF Partners Employee Benefits plans.

Mark Bajus - CEBS, CLU, CFP - is the Director, Group Benefits for BF Partners. Learn more about Mark.