When contemplating what employee benefits look like in an organization, it’s common to envision a traditional model – plans provide a certain percentage of coverage for XYZ health services in different buckets up to a certain amount every year. Think dental care, prescription coverage, professional services such as massage and chiropractor, etc...  These types of traditional benefits plans can certainly work well for large employee populations, but a smaller organization may

We’ve looked at how to build a financial wellness program along with some basic tools you can offer to your people – but there’s much more out there. Some incredible new benefits trends have emerged in recent years that are geared toward enhancing financial well-being in creative and novel ways that, quite frankly, I’m pretty excited about. While some of these might not be for everyone, they’ve been well received by many organizations. 1. Student Loan & Mortgage Repayment: Ca

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of workplace wellness? Perhaps it’s a program designed to encourage your people to get active and move their bodies daily in support of better physical health. Or maybe it’s a strategy to enhance psychological safety and provide tools for mental well-being in your organization. But there’s another layer to wellness that you can build into your culture in support of a holistic benefits strategy – one that might not be to

You’ve probably heard of Health Risk Assessments, but what about Mental Health Risk Assessments? I’ve noticed that several providers are moving more toward offering employers the ability to focus on preventative well-being for a person’s mental health with mental health risk assessments. This change in focus from physical to mental isn’t surprising – as noted above, although chronic pain and illness are often related to a person’s physical health, this can have a significant

More than half of the Canadian workforce deals with a chronic disease in some shape or form – are your benefits working for them? Chronic disease is a multifaceted challenge that employers and employees alike struggle with on a daily basis. It’s a term that covers a wide range of health issues relating to chronic pain or illness including arthritis, hypertension, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, and mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. 

Last month I co-hosted an in-person networking event on the topic of women’s mental health, and it was such an enjoyable evening!! ❤️ I loved chatting with peers in real life and the conversation was incredibly thought-provoking. Fresh off that session, I thought it would be beneficial to put women’s health in focus more broadly this month.  This is an area I’m sometimes hesitant to take on because it may not resonate with everyone, especially those who do not necessarily rel

I often get questions from clients wanting to understand the concept of insurance pooling and it’s no surprise. There are a lot of layers to pooling with different definitions and implications, from pooled benefits and pooled claims to pooled plans, so we’re going to dive in (pun intended!) with a two-part series on pooling over the next couple of months. Pooling is ultimately a way for the insurance company of protect against risk and we’ll explore that in a bit more detail

A few months ago, I shared some details on the Government of Canada’s interim plan for the Canada Dental Benefit. For plan administrators, I noted that the biggest impact for you is currently a new tax reporting requirement and we’ve gotten a few more details on this for the 2023 tax reporting year. The T4 and T4A tax reporting codes have now been released. Here’s an overview: Code 1 - Employee has no access to dental care insurance or coverage of dental services of any kind