If your organization is looking for creative ways to enhance your benefits package without substantially increasing costs, consider voluntary benefits. These optional, employee-paid offerings can enhance your total rewards and increase employee retention — all while having little to no impact on your bottom line.

In this article, we outline four types of voluntary benefits employers should consider including in their employee benefits package.

Looking for more guidance on voluntary benefits? Click here to explore CBIZ Voluntary Benefits Solutions.

Top Voluntary Benefits to Consider

Dental Insurance

Dental coverage is a commonly offered voluntary benefit option that is highly valued by employees. Like medical insurance, dental coverage is offered in several types of plans:

• Dental health maintenance organization (DHMO) - Coverage is only provided when employees visit dentists who are in-network with their insurance plan. 
• Dental preferred provider organization (DPPO) - Coverage is provided with in- or out-of-network dental care providers, but employees will typically pay less with an in-network dentist. 
• Dental indemnity plan - Coverage is provided for any dentist employees choose, with no difference in cost. 
• Discount dental plan - This type of plan is a common option for reducing dental costs without regular insurance coverage; with this plan, employees pay for all dental care at an agreed-upon discounted rate. 

Why Offer Dental Insurance?

Employees have come to expect that their employer will provide them with access to dental insurance, so not including it in your offerings could be detrimental to employee attraction and retention. This coverage is relatively inexpensive to add to your benefits package, and employees with dental plans are often healthier and avoid more costly health problems down the line. The pros of offering dental insurance far outweigh the cons.

Vision Insurance

Like dental insurance, vision insurance is a common voluntary benefit employees expect to have access to. Vision coverage is available in two basic types of plans:

• Vision benefits plan - This type of plan is regular insurance coverage. Depending on the specific plan, coverage may differ between in- and out-of-network eye doctors. Employees will typically pay a portion of their eye care cost through a deductible and coinsurance or copayments. 
• Discount vision plan - With this option, employees can choose to reduce vision costs without regular insurance coverage. They pay for all their vision care, but at a reduced rate. 

Why Offer Vision Insurance?

Regular eye care yields a large payoff, according to a recent VSP® Vision Care study known as the VSP Eye Health Management Program. This study found that eye examinations uncovered diabetes 20% of the time, hypertension 30% of the time and high cholesterol 65% of the time before the individual’s other health care providers detected the problems.

Researchers concluded that for every dollar invested in vision insurance for eye exams, employers were reaping an additional 94 cents in value.

Disability Insurance

Not only does disability insurance fill the gaps in financial protection offered by other programs like Social Security, but it is also a highly sought-after component of a competitive benefits package. Offering disability insurance is a win/win — employees appreciate the peace of mind they receive as their income replacement benefits are being paid and employers can use the resources offered by insurers to manage time and productivity losses and find the most effective way to return employees to work.

Disability insurance replaces a percentage of pre-disability income if an employee cannot work due to illness or injury for a specified time, protecting workers and their families against financial catastrophe by helping them meet daily expenses and maintain their standard of living.

Why Offer Disability Insurance?

Disability insurance is both an employee benefit and a health and productivity tool. The rehabilitation and management tools available from most insurers can yield significant savings to employers. While helping your employees avoid financial disaster, disability insurance also helps you mitigate the indirect costs of disabilities, such as finding replacement workers and the costs incurred by time and productivity losses.

Critical Illness Coverage

If your employees suffer a critical illness, they will not have adequate protection under normal medical and disability insurance plans to cover their expenses. Some of the costs associated with critical injuries are not even covered on many plans.

To combat these expensive medical costs and strengthen your employees’ financial safety net, consider providing critical illness insurance coverage for your employees. This coverage provides a lump sum benefit for the six leading critical illnesses and health events:

• Cancer 
• Heart attack 
• Stroke 
• Major organ transplant 
• Kidney failure 
• Coronary artery bypass graft 

Why Offer Critical Illness Coverage?

There are various benefits of offering critical illness insurance. This coverage complements high deductible health plans (HDHPs) by eliminating employees’ worries of having to pay for a high deductible in the middle of suffering a major illness. Critical illness coverage also serves as an affordable way for employers to fill gaps in coverage and can act as a recruiting tool or help compensate for changes in core medical plans.

The Value of Voluntary Benefits

Voluntary benefits can cost your organization little to nothing to offer, provide great value through cost efficiency and convenience to your employees, aid recruitment efforts, and help build loyalty and retention among employees.

Click here to learn more about the advantages of expanding your benefits package to include various types of voluntary insurance.