Umbrella Company Benefits

[iumbrella]

Thank you for your feedback, plenty to go away and think about.
regards
Danny

[TheFaQQer]

We want to offer a basic level of insurance which would come out of the existing admin fee. Our employees could then either top this up or leave it as they wanted. We obviously wouldn't impose a fee hike, we want to add value to what we are offering now.

If you are going to be offering benefits, then you might be able to extend this to offer a more flexible benefits package, e.g. critical illness cover for your employees, if they want to pay something towards it.

[Nixon Williams]

Health insurance is a very personal thing - some peopel want family cover, others have existing ailments they might want specifically cover. A policy which is cheap enough to absorb into your admin fee is (IMHO) likely to be next to useless for many people. Those that worry about health cover will find it insufficient. Those that don't worry will find it an unnecessary.

The funding of a decent policy would be unlikely to be achievable from an umbrella company's fees.

In addition there would be a benefit in kind for each employee, a p11d needed for each employee and the umbrella would have to pay Class 1a NIC of 13.8% on the cost of the benefits.

[Yehudi]

Health insurance is a very personal thing - some peopel want family cover, others have existing ailments they might want specifically cover. A policy which is cheap enough to absorb into your admin fee is (IMHO) likely to be next to useless for many people. Those that worry about health cover will find it insufficient. Those that don't worry will find it an unnecessary.

[iumbrella]

Rather than spending a portion of the weekly fee on insurance, you may find that you can attract more contractors by reducing your fee by the corresponding amount.

I realise that there are now additional employment perks etc, but I personally still think of an umbrella as a convenient way to obtain payment and am only after a no-frills service.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this, obviously when considering these type of benefits we can negotiate substantial discounts with the wholesale providers (it equates to less than £1 per week per contractor.) There is an option for the contractor to "increase cover" by paying an additional premium should they want to ..... Trying to gauge whether this would be seen as an un-necessary extra or if it would be welcomed as a benefit, hence the post.

I dont think that our fees are particularly expensive (and it would be us as a company funding this from our admin fee, we would not make an increase to cover the additional benefit)

[Wary]

We want to offer a basic level of insurance which would come out of the existing admin fee. Our employees could then either top this up or leave it as they wanted. We obviously wouldn't impose a fee hike, we want to add value to what we are offering now.

Rather than spending a portion of the weekly fee on insurance, you may find that you can attract more contractors by reducing your fee by the corresponding amount.

I realise that there are now additional employment perks etc, but I personally still think of an umbrella as a convenient way to obtain payment and am only after a no-frills service.

[iumbrella]

We want to offer a basic level of insurance which would come out of the existing admin fee. Our employees could then either top this up or leave it as they wanted. We obviously wouldn't impose a fee hike, we want to add value to what we are offering now.

[Yehudi]

If it's optional, then fine. I wouldn't want to have my choice of health insurance dictated by my employer though, so if it was automatically included in your fee then I think that'd make you more expensive than most others for no good reason (since I have a long-standing insurance policy already).

[The Spartan]

Health Insurance gets a definite thumbs up from me

[iumbrella]

Just looking for some constructive engagement here.....
I am the MD of Intelligent Umbrella, I am looking at the possibility of offering health insurance as part of our standard weekly/monthly charge. Is this something that would be of interest to you guys as contractors or do you think that the money needed to administer this could be better spent elsewhere? Trying to get a consensus of what would be best received.