Blue Monday

January 18th is known as “Blue Monday” and is dubbed the most depressing day of the year. It is said to be when Brits are most miserable due to aspects like the gloomy weather, the end of Christmas and failed New Year’s resolutions.

At the EB Partnership we understand how the wellbeing of employees is key to any business. We can help provide your employees access to key wellbeing apps such as the Employee Assistance Programs. EAPs provide counselling services, webinars and online mental health services. If you already offer this benefit, another option to consider is a Health Cash Plan which offers additional services which are usually well received by members.

To find out more information and the wellbeing benefits we can provide your employees please contact enquiries@theebpartnership.co.uk

Critical Illness Cover

Critical illness cover offers protection should you be diagnosed with a critical illness during the term of your policy. Critical illness cover pays out a tax-free lump sum if you’re diagnosed with an insured medical condition. It’s not the same as life insurance, which pays money to a person or people you name if you pass away.

Employers tend to provide this benefit for their employees which goes hand in hand with group income protection and life assurance benefits. To find out more information on how to provide this policy for your employees please contact enquiries@theebpartnership.co.uk

Health Cash Plans

Whilst private medical insurance can be quite expensive for some employers, alternate options do exist and there is no reason why smaller companies cannot afford to offer benefits to their employees also. We find that one of the popular low cost option is to implement a companywide health clash plan.

A health cash plan is a program that gives discounts on things like dental, chiropractic, optical, even maternity. It tends not to cover the plethora of medical situations that a full medical insurance policy does. Instead, it just helps to put some cash towards those routine medical maintenance appointments throughout the year (like getting teeth cleaned). A cash plan can be a fantastic way for employees to feel cared for by their employer without breaking the bank.

If you are interested in implementing a cash plan for your employees, then get in touch with us today and we will be happy to talk you through the options.

Use those benefits!

With the UK returning to some sense of normality, and people beginning to head back into the office, now might be a good time for employers to remind their employees of their benefits – especially those that might have ‘add-on’ benefits tucked away. For example, some Group Life schemes come with an Employee Assistance Programme which employees can use to get advice on health, legal and financial matters.

Also, with the UK economy reopening, employees will also be able to make better use of any discounts available through their Health Cash plan or Private Medical Insurance schemes. With this being the start of a new tax year, now’s a great time to remind employees of the importance of pension funding. If you need any help with benefits or communicating them to employees, please feel free to get in touch.

enquiries@theebpartnership.co.uk

End of tax year reminder for employers

With one month to go until the end of the current Tax year, it is a good time to remind employees to top up their pension and ISAs.   Where possible, individuals should try to utilise their allowances for the current year. For instance adults can contribute £20,000 each into an ISA and maybe £40,000 into pensions. Don’t forget though that higher earners may have a reduced pensions annual allowance and their contributions could be capped at £4,000 per annum.

Individuals with earnings that take them into a higher tax bracket maybe able to contribute more to their pension to reclaim additional tax relief.

Many companies will have benefits that are due to renew in April and it is a busy time for benefits consultants.  Where companies provide dental insurance and Health Cash plans, don’t forget to remind employees to claim for any treatment before the end of the policy year.

Lots of our clients engage us to talk to their employees about the company’s benefits at this time of year. In addition we provide 1 to 1 sessions for individuals for financial guidance. If you would like to find out more about these services, please get in touch at enquiries@theebpartnership.co.uk

Providing Benefits Support to Employees

With everyone working from home, companies are finding it harder to communicate with their employees as the usual office contact has been completely removed. We work with a growing number of companies who engage The EB Partnership to communicate the company’s benefits to employees and answer any questions. Typically this involves the following:

Talking to new employees about their benefits

Explaining auto-enrolment and pension contribution options

Explaining options for existing pensions

Communicating with the company to ensure contributions are correct.

We are also engaged to keep an eye on the paid pension contributions to spot problems such as contributions being paid as ‘employee’ when they should be ‘employer.’ 

If you would like to discuss these services, please contact charlie.mccall@theebpartnership.co.uk

Using Salary Sacrifice savings to pay for other benefits

In these difficult times, where money is limited, it can be hard for many companies to provide a decent level of benefits to their employees.

Here’s an example of a recent new client of ours who were referred to us. They wanted to provide more benefits but were not sure how they could afford it.

The company had 50 employees and had group personal pension scheme and a small PMI scheme with only partial take up. They were keen to offer more to their employees, however, did not have the budget to achieve this. 

Upon reviewing their current benefits, we suggested that they offer the employees the option to contribute to the pension via ‘salary sacrifice’.  As well as being tax efficient for the employees, the exercise would save Employer’s National Insurance (13.8%) on the amount contributed by the employees.

We launched ‘salary sacrifice’ via Teams meetings and phone calls with the employees. This went down well with the employees, and many of them chose to increase their contributions too. With the NI savings this generated for the company, our client was able to start a Group Life scheme, a Health Cash plan and add more people to the PMI scheme!

If you have plans to improve your employee benefits, but don’t currently have the budget to do so, please get in touch with us and we will do everything we can to help.