Group insurance policies are policies that are taken for a group of individuals such as members of an association or employees of an organization. There are different group insurance policies that are available to Canadians. These include group life insurance, group critical illness, group disability, group health insurance and group auto and property insurance.
Reasons for Having Group Cover
Group insurance policies have several advantages for both the employer providing the group policy and the individuals under the group policy. Some of these advantages are provided below.
Economies of Scale – The premiums charged for group policies are usually significantly lower than those of individual policies because of the covered numbers. Furthermore, due to the numbers, insurance companies are willing to negotiate further and provide better services. It is generally much easier to get compensation under a group policy than under an individual policy. With group insurance policies, insurance companies are even wiling to overlook some terms of contract that they can use to turn down compensation. This is because an insurance company stands to lose more if a group client discontinues services as compared to an individual policy.
Employee Retention – Another major advantage of having a group insurance Toronto cover is that it provides for employee retention. Employees are attracted to employers who can provide quality coverage for health and life insurance policies. For example, if a company provides group critical illness and an executive cannot get individual cover because of a family disease, they will be attracted to an employer with a group critical illness cover as no medical or scrutiny of family history is done to be covered.
Tax Deductible Expense – Group insurance policies are a tax deductible expense for an employer. Therefore, if you provide a group insurance Canada policy to your employees, you can deduct it as a valid expense for taxation purposes.
Extras Available With Group Cover Only – There are some benefits that are only available for group insurance policies and not individual policies. For starters, critical illness insurance for a group is automatic and the whole group is covered without taking medicals. The same applies to a group disability insurance policy. However, for individual disability insurance and individual critical illness cover, the policyholder will need to take a medical and have their family history considered. The group life insurance policies also come with a bonus of a few guaranteed covers. Therefore, if you have an uninsuranble person in a group, they can get coverage under such riders. The critical life group insurance Canada policies also allows for portability. Policyholders in a group can continue with coverage even after they seize to be a part of the group and they will enjoy similar benefits as they did under the group.
Technology – Most group insurance Ontario companies are now providing very robust online infrastructure to manage group policies. You can make a claim, manage policies or follow on refunds from this online portal. The website solution differ from company to company but they all provide convenience to the group insurance Canada policyholders.