Group Benefits: Basic Concepts

Employee benefits are a major part of the overall compensation for employees in the marketplace. The significance of the term “employee benefits” has increased in recent years.  Whether you use a narrow definition of employee benefits or a broad definition of employee benefits, employee benefits are an important “expectation” for employees to receive when working for an employer and for employers to provide to their employees.  

The course covers employee benefits that include Medical Expense coverage, Life Insurance, Retiree Life Insurance, Disability Income, and managed care plans.

To address this important factor in health insurance sales, NABIP has created a course to educate professionals through an introduction to the basic concepts of group benefits and their role in today’s health insurance marketplace.

Learning Objectives
An understanding of the material in this chapter will enable the student to:

• Identify the categories of benefits that can be included in a broad definition of employee benefits, and explain their significance.
• Understand the benefit structure and planning process.
• Understand the characteristics of Voluntary Benefits and when they come into play.
• Understand how the benefit schedules under group term life insurance plans might be determined.
• Describe the eligibility requirements and other contract provisions usually found in group term life insurance plans.
• Understand the tax implications of group term insurance to both employers and employees.
• Understand group variable life insurance options.
• Describe the characteristics of insured disability income plans and their tax implications of group disability income premiums and benefits for the employer and the employees.
• Obtain working knowledge of the providers of traditional medical expense insurance plans and exclusions. 
• Understand the role of provider networks and utilization management in managed care plans.
• Understand eligibility provisions found in medical expense plans and clearly define the coordination-of-benefits process.
• Identify the relationship between employer-provided medical expense coverage, Medicare and the tax implications of group medical expense premiums.
• Identify the objectives of an effective employee benefit communications program, and describe the methods by which it might be implemented.