insurance, remote, benefitsEverybody on our four-person team is a US citizen working from home; each of us resides in a different state. (CA, MI, MA, NY)
We’re trying to buy group health insurance for our team, but we can’t find any way to do it. All of the health insurance companies we’ve tried to contact require that we have at least 51% of our employees in that state. They literally won’t take our money.
What do we do? Whom can we call?
This is due to regulations imposed on the insurance industry by the federal government, so you aren’t going to get around it.
Best thing to do would be to have the employees get their own insurance then, as a company, decide if you want to bonus each of them some amount each month (or annually) to help defray those costs.
Don’t reimburse at all. If all of your employees are US citizens residing in the USA, have them get a plan that works for them and mail you the monthly bill. You cut the check, you pay for it. You won’t get a group rate, unfortunately, but they should be willing to have you as the “Bill To” on the policy. The other option is opening expense accounts in the company’s name, and giving them access to it to pay for the policy.
I don’t think it’s considered income for them if you do this, but you’d need to check.
Ironically, Cigna International would give you a group plan if all of your employees were US citizens living outside of the country. I just looked into this because I wanted to get insurance that worked abroad (as I am an expat) but also domestically, since I’ll be spending more and more time in the US for work and leisure soon. The regulations around it now are just crazypants.
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