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Napa chamber enrolls in program offering employers health care plans

NAPA – The Napa Chamber of Commerce is offering members a $250 discount and a tax-free option for an affordable employee benefits program for small employers.

“Even though this is not the right plan for every business, it can be a really affordable option for some,” said Napa Chamber of Commerce President Kate King.

“It is very attractive for small employers that have a young work force and want to offer benefits, or to those who want to introduce benefits to their employees for the first time.”

Napa is one of the most recent chambers to offer the incentives to members through third party insurance administrator Ben-e-lect.

The company began marketing the employer-driven, health reimbursement products to chambers through its Ben-e-lect Chamber Affinity Program about a year ago and has so far enrolled 17 groups with thousands of members. Bay Area enrolled chambers include Sonoma, San Francisco, Vacaville and Fairfield-Suisun.

Ben-e-lect provides the $250 set-up fee discount to the chamber and free Section 125 plan, which allows employers to deduct premium costs from payroll tax-free. A spokeswoman for the group said it offers employer-driven-type plans from almost every carrier including Kaiser Permanente, Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross and others.

“We actually started this concept with the Fresno Chamber of Commerce, who enrolled themselves in the plan in 2003,” said Ben-e-lect spokeswoman Stacy Morris. “They saw so much savings that they wanted to offer the plans to their business members. … Since then it has mostly spread by word of mouth.”

Employer-driven plans usually carry low premiums and high deductibles. Employers choose a deductible, usually between $1,000 and $5,000, and how much they would like to pay up to that amount.

Ms. Morris said most employers choose to pay anywhere from 60 percent to 80 percent of claims up to the deductible, after which the carrier covers the cost.

“The idea is that statistically only about 4 to 7 percent of employees use their health plan significantly in a year, so the employer is only paying what costs they do incur, rather than for those that could occur,” Ms. Morris said.

For example, for an employee that only has one $200 doctor visit in a year the employer would only pay $160 – or 80 percent in this case – for the entire year. If the employee never files a claim, the employer pays nothing.

In a 12-month survey of Ben-e-lect customers, employers saved an average $1,775 per employee.