Why Would You Purchase a Group Benefit Policy

Mixing an attractive benefit assortment for your people may easily become an overwhelming mission. The balance between offering employees fair benefits, appealing accomplished workers and limiting expenses is a important factor which a business wants to keep in check.

To start, we need to describe what business group benefit insurance brings to you and your people: it spreads the monetary risk of incurring healthcare-related expenditures amongst numerous members of staff, all under a lone plan. Every person then pays a fraction of the plan premium.

When an employer has taken out a Group Benefits Plan, anybody of the covered group who becomes ill or requires services is adequately recompensed by the insurance policy as laid out in the contract. Employees’ family members are included within the plan as per the contract.

Such are the benefits of a Group Benefit Policy for the employees:

• It gives you an edge in the job market. You appeal to and retain quality workers, which helps cut back on expenses resulting from high employee turnover. Your worker will certainly feel well taken care of.
• You get health coverage at a an advantageous price. Group Plans do not discriminate and are not anti-selective, covering everybody with identical conditions.
• Group benefits are a cost-effective way of protecting your employees. Such treatment brings about heightened morale and thus heightened productivity and work satisfaction.
• Group Plans are tax-effective. The majority of premiums that you pay are tax-deductible as a business expense.

How Does Cosmetic Treatment Influence Your Insurability

As stated by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the number of cosmetic surgeries in this Country is the fifteenth highest in the world, with 108,758 procedures carried out per year. Especially contrasted with the rather small population of Canada, this figure is really fairly high.

The surgery ladder is headed by the US, which are followed by Brazil, China, India and Mexico. The developing countries increasingly offer advantageous price for the quality of service.

To help our clients understand the impact of invasive cosmetic and/or plastic procedures on people’s ability to purchase proper insurance coverage, LSM Insurance carried out an analysis among several large life insurance companies. Are these insurees forced to look for no medical life insurance? The insurance team queried five major Canadian insurers. We might have expected that none of the insurers would give any simple resolutions, since all traditional life insurance arrangements must be underwritten fully.

Even those insurers who did talk declared that prospective clients who are looking to undergo cosmetic and plastic procedure like breast enlargement, lip enhancement, or Botulinum toxin (Botox) may qualify for standard policy pricing. However, these procedures are considered just as other operations; the life insurer may postpone making a decision for a pending surgery.Normally, the evaluation will be undertaken only after the actual operation. This means that you should basically—when possible—wait with surgery planning until after their agreement has been signed.

Surgical procedures tied with other nervous or mental maladies may carry with themselves additional hazard and could cause the client to receive a rated insurance plan premium or cause him or her to be turned down completely.

Lorne Marr, author, is an independent insurance broker and an expert on no medical life insurance. Lorne has worked in this industry for nearly two decades. His LSM Insurance brokerage firm works with more than 13 Canadian life insurers, such as Standard Life Assurance or Manulife Financial Life Insurance.

Can Cocaine Users Get Traditional Life Insurance?

According to the most recent data (2009) from the Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey, cocaine and its derivatives were the most popular drugs used by those fifteen years or older, after marijuana.

Whereas cannabis was used by 10.6% of us during the year of the survey, roughly 1.2% of people had experience with cocaine and crack. An average of 11% of Canadians experienced an unlawful drug in the same interval. Among these drugs are heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, speed, hallucinogens (excluding salvia) and, of course, cannabis and/or marijuana. 17.7% of men and 7.6% of women had tried drugs, with youth reaching 27.3%.

Since 2004, Canadians have been abusing banned drugs less and less. This leaves plenty of former users and addicts who will want to purchase life insurance one day.

Quite understandably, insurers in Canada do not really particularly favour the use of cocaine or of other drugs. Current cocaine use, or other forms of recreational drugs, will earn the applicant an instantaneous rejection. This is simply because unlawful drug use is a pre-existing medical condition. It should be noted, however, that drug users may qualify for simplified issue policies. This coverage is not subject to any medical tests and often does not have a drug related question.

We inquired four leading life insurers and scrutinized how their underwriting guidelines look at ecstasy, heroin and cocaine. Here is what we found:

• Ongoing addiction to heroin, cocaine or ecstasy will earn the applicant a decline on the part of the insurance company.
• If the applicant has not been involved with drugs for more than 4 years, the insurer’s quote will in all probability lead to a policy rating if the applicant is otherwise in good shape. A policy rating means for the insured that he or she pays an additional monthly premium on his or her insurance plan due to the larger risk to the life insurance company. Plan ratings are generally in a multiple and can be anywhere from 1.5x to 5x the insurer’s usual cost.
• If the client has not been abusing drugs for over 4 years, the client may qualify for standard premiums (i.e. without policy rating). Of course, this only works if there are no underlying health and lifestyle issues.

An insurance advisor with enough experience in this specific area can help you acquire quality life insurance for a reasonable price.

Lorne S. Marr, author, is an insurance specialist and an expert on hard-to-insure clients. Lorne works with over a dozen Canadian insurers, such as London Life Insurance Company or London Life Insurance Company.