MP Benefits Perspective

As an employee benefit broker, I know the number one thing customers HATE about benefits: PAYING FOR THEM In a recent informal survey, respondents—employees and employers alike—outlined their main complaints about benefits: Rates Lack of coverage Wait times for...

There is NO secret sauce

MP Benefits has been around for a long time…and in all that time, I can say I know of no “secret sauce” to what we do. Being focused on employee experience, abiding by the employer’s need for cost certainty, transparency, and open communication, means creating benefit...

“We’ve always done it this way.”

Disruption is such a business BUZZ word, like the annoying mosquito, or house fly, which just doesn’t take the hint when you flick your wrist. There’s nothing wrong with disruption for improved practices, so long as we remember to maintain the greater good. What made...

Benefits

Hiring and Benefits, Ten Quick Questions

Every business owner will have their own reasons for wanting a benefit plan. It could be holistic to take care of employees, providing protection of health and wealth. It could be because there are specific needs which require coverage, or it could be as part of the...

How COVID-19 continues to drive health care costs

What is on the horizon for health care costs? While we are aware of the economic impact of the pandemic, it is also important to look to the future to see how the pandemic will continue to drive costs, especially on a company’s employee group benefit plan. According...

SHifT Highlights

In our effort of being consistently responsive to our clients, for more than a year, we’ve hosted the “Let’s talk about this SHifT” zoom cast where we have engaged in great conversations with experts from a diverse field of professions. Consulting We see our role as...

Compensation

Tiered Health Care

Two-tier heath care…buzz words for any news story talking about the ever increasing costs of providing health care in Canada. Whenever I hear the words two-tier health care, it seems like there is always a lot of opposition to the concept, equating two-tier health to...

Employee’s Waiving Coverage

The employee doesn’t want to be part of the benefit plan. They have coverage elsewhere.” Can employee’s waive off benefits whenthey have alternate coverage? Yes, but not ALL coverage. On a typical benefit plan, an employee MUST be enrolled for the Life, AD&D,...

Terminations—Reinstatement Periods—Leave of Absences

Rules and protocol vary from provider to provider, which often leads to confusion when there is a maternity, leave-of-absence or reinstatement, but below are some general guidelines. Terminations: The date an employee is no longer active, (via termination or layoff)...

Culture

Building Trust through Benefits

There is no “right” or “wrong” answers, but there is trust. Only the business owner and their human resource team knows their staff and the needs that “fit” within that organization structure. But when it comes to benefits, many overlook the essence of TRUST....

What’s Missing?

Guidelines, Policies, Procedures for Employee Group Benefits The Benefit Administrator’s Checklist is just the beginning… Who manages your guidelines, policies, and procedures regarding your organization’s employee group benefit plan? Do you even have a policy that...

Benefit Discrimination based on Marital Status

There have been more than a few situations in which spouses who are both employed within the same organization have been declined access to benefits because an employer “thought” they need only offer benefits to one or the other, but not both. This is just one example...