Life insurance is a great benefit for any business to offer their staff. It's hugely important, and can sometimes be more useful than a pension fund or petrol allowance. Employee Life Cover or Flexi Staff Cover has one vital role: to secure the financial futures of your employees' families.
The importance of Life Cover was highlighted during the pandemic, with many families losing sole breadwinners and struggling to provide for their families while grieving the loss of a loved one.
Sadly, saving enough money to have a proper safety net is not possible for many South Africans, and individual life insurance policies can be quite expensive and restrictive, leaving a large portion of our population without adequate cover.
This is where employee Life Cover or Flexi Staff Cover comes in. By getting Flexi Staff Cover, employers can often get cover for their staff at a better price than what individuals would be able to get for themselves. Because a policy for a group of people spreads the risk across the group, insurers can price the product more affordably for employees.
Not all Flexi Staff Cover options are the same, so it's important for employers to choose cover that is a good fit for their employees' needs and profiles. With Simply, you can select a unique combination of benefits - Life Cover, Occupational Disability Cover, Critical Illness Cover, Income Protection Cover and Funeral Cover, and you can adjust the amount of cover per benefit too. Your staff and their families also have access to 24 hour stress and trauma counselling at no extra charge to you.
Employee life insurance – the basics
A monthly premium is paid to cover your staff with any of the five benefits mentioned above. Your employee's spouse and children under the age of 21 will also be covered under the included Funeral Cover. Should one of your employees die or become disabled, a lump sum will be paid out to your employee.
Why offer employee life insurance?
One of the most common reasons for companies to offer Flexi Staff Cover has to do with cost-benefit: it's relatively inexpensive to introduce, and employees will value it because it's convenient for them and cheaper than taking out individual cover.
Group life insurance can also help you to:
- Attract and retain workers (especially ones with families, i.e. more experienced)
- Reduce staff turnover and associated recruitment costs
- Improve employee morale and engagement
- Reducing absenteeism
What other benefits may come with employee life insurance?
Flexi Staff Cover often includes additional benefits programmes at no additional fee. Employees can use these whenever they need to, as they are independent from any claim. These benefits can be offerings such as 24 hour psycho-social counselling services.
How much does company life insurance cost?
Every business is different, and its employees will have particular needs and priorities. Determining the cost of premiums is therefore quite an involved process, which will take into account factors such as:
- Workers' ages
- Staff salaries
- Your industry
- Size of your workforce
- Level of cover (i.e. multiple of salary)
- Policy cease age (i.e. the maximum age at which the policy will cover a worker)
How do I set up employee life insurance?
Getting cover for your staff doesn't have to be a complicated process. With Simply, you can get a quote and buy online in a matter of seconds, or leave your details and we'll call you.
Simply Financial Services (Pty) Ltd is a registered financial services provider (FSP 47146). T&Cs online.