October 28, 2025 • 27 mins
Open enrollment doesn’t exactly make anyone’s top 10 list of exciting life events — but the choices you make during this short window can save (or cost) you thousands. In this episode, benefits expert Amy Evans helps us simplify the chaos. We unpack the hidden perks and smarter strategies that can make your benefits work for you.
You’ll learn how to:
- Spot hidden benefits like free therapy, legal services, and identity-theft protection
- Avoid wasting money on coverage you don’t need
- Use your benefits to save time, stress, and major cash all year long
💡 Grab The Grown-Ass Woman's Guide to Open Enrollment
Because understanding your benefits isn’t boring, it’s grown-ass.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Open enrollment doesn'texactly make anyone's top 10 list
of exciting life events. Butthe decisions we make during this
short window can have a majorimpact on our finances, our health,
and definitely our peace ofmind. If you've ever stared at an
HR email or benefits portalthinking, I'll deal with that later,
then this episode is for you.And if you're someone who's self
(00:23):
employed or runs a businesswhere you provide benefits, there's
something in here for you too.This is the Grown Ass Woman's guide.
I'm Jackie McDougall. AmyEvans has spent more than two decades
helping people understand andactually use their benefits. Today,
she helps us uncover thehidden perks that can save us thousands
(00:45):
and the simple things we cando to make open enrollment a little
less painful and a lot moreprofitable. A recent AARP survey
of people age 50 and olderrevealed that 24% of older workers
are planning to make a jobchange. But when seeking new employment,
salary isn't the only thing weshould consider. When someone is
(01:07):
looking for a job or maybethey're an employee, how important
are the benefits to theoverall salary? We're always looking
at how much money I make, butnot really necessarily the benefits.
How important are they?
I'm going to give you the beststatistic I know to nail this question.
My benefit package at mycompany is worth about $24,000 of
(01:33):
income to me on an annualbasis. That's a huge number in relation
to my overall compensation. Soto your point, when you're looking
at the numbers in terms ofhourly income or salary for the year,
I think factoring in the valueof the benefits is huge because it
(01:53):
can be a large part of anoverall compensation package.
Absolutely. And so where inthe job search, you know, interviewing,
job offer, where in that wholejourney should someone be like, I
need to know what the benefitslook like?
Navigating that conversationcan be interesting. It is certainly
(02:15):
reasonable for a prospectivecandidate to say, benefits are really
important to me, and I wouldlike to see what is included in your
benefits package, because thatwill be a factor in my decision.
But an employer is notobligated to provide that, and that
might be a challenging thingfor a prospective employee to navigate.
(02:36):
So you may not have all theinformation until you're hired and
you're going through theonboarding process and going through
the process of selecting yourbenefits and. And then always with
an asterisk that that canchange at any point. Just because
an employer has a prettylittle sheet that describes what
they're offering right nowthey might be going through the renewal
process, as many of my clientsare doing right now, in the fall
(02:57):
to prepare for open enrollmentfor January. And so everything can
change. The carriers canchange, the plans can change, the
rates can change, thecontributions can change on an annual
basis. So it's a difficultthing to pin down, but it's worth
asking to see what's beingmade available. Right.
Okay. So this brings up aquestion that I never even considered.
(03:19):
If I am a single woman or I ama mom of 12 children. Does the cost
for the company change basedon my family status?
The cost for the companychanges based on how many people
you're choosing to enroll. Youmay have 12 children. You're not
(03:40):
necessarily enrolling all 12children. You may have a spouse.
You're not necessarilyenrolling your spouse. I'm based
in California, and inCalifornia, employers who have under
100 employees have insurancerates that are based on each individual
employee's age and the age ofeach of their dependents, which makes
(04:02):
things really complicated. Soyou might be talking about an employee
who is 40, 45. Their spousemight be 20 years older than them.
And so that premium for thespouse is going to be a lot higher.
You might, when you're talkingabout 12 children, be talking about
a whole bunch of children thatare all in their late teens or early
20s, still eligible asdependents, but treated as adults
(04:26):
in terms of rating, versusvery tiny children who will still
have premium, but the premiumwill be a lot lower. So it's very
layered.
Do you think this has anythingto do with how difficult it is for,
let's say, a woman over 40,woman over 50, to get a job, that
(04:47):
sometimes it's not just thejob itself, but the cost of the benefits
that go with that job?
That's a. You ask reallyinteresting questions. So I mentioned
I'm in California. So foremployers with less than 100 employees,
the rates are determined byeach individual person's age, including
spouse and dependents over 100employees. It's generally community
(05:09):
rating, where employee only isone rate regardless of age. Employee
plus spouse is one rateregardless of age. Employee plus
family is one rate regardlessof the number of children. When you
ask if it's harder for womento be employed when they're older,
it would be very difficult tofind a statistic because that would
(05:33):
be age discrimination. Andmost employers, even if they're engaged
in that, are avoiding doinganything that looks like that. Have
I had conversations withemployers under 100 who have jokingly,
or maybe not so jokingly, saidI guess we better hire a bunch of
young people because if wehire older people, it's going to
(05:54):
cost us more. Yeah, I'veabsolutely heard employers express
that it doesn't matter if theperson is male or female. It used
to be that rates for healthinsurance were gender based and they
are no longer. So whether theperson is male or female doesn't
matter. But is the employergoing to pay about three times as
(06:16):
much for a 60 year old thanthey would for a 20 year old? Yes.
Of course, none of us haveever experienced age discrimination,
but just in case. Maybe keepyour age, your spouse's age. Or you
know, the gaggle of kids youhave at home. Keep that to yourself
while interviewing for a job.Let's move on and talk benefits.
We think about healthinsurance and 401k, but what about
(06:38):
those hidden gems, thosepotential benefits available that
either come free. Or cost justa few bucks per. Paycheck that we
totally overlook?
One that has become more andmore popular in the last few years,
particularly during and rightafter Covid was the Employee Assistance
Program or eap. The way I liketo describe it during open enrollment
(07:01):
meetings is it's like mentalhealth urgent care. So if you think
about your health insuranceplan, all health insurance plans
provide coverage for mentalhealth services like any other doctor
visit. So whether you're goingto a general practitioner or an ob
GYN or a therapist, you'regoing to pay the same office visit
(07:24):
copay for any of those visits.So you have mental health coverage
under a health insurance plan,but what you don't have is urgent
care for mental health under ahealth insurance plan. So if something
unexpected were to happen,let's use the example of a parent
dying suddenly and an employeereally wants support from a mental
(07:47):
health provider to talkthrough that, maybe even over a weekend,
you know, something, somethingimmediate, calling your health insurance
plan or going online andfinding an in network therapist and
calling them and scheduling anappointment. That might take weeks
and sometimes even months. Soan employee assistance program is
going to provide that mentalhealth support 24 hours a day, seven
(08:11):
days a week. The employeecalls an 800 number. It's no cost
to them. They typically get upto three visits per incident with
no limit to the number ofincidents. So it can be the death
of a parent in January, it canbe the loss of a spouse's job in
March, it can be a sick childin September, and the employee totally
(08:34):
confidentially can speak to amental health professional, get that
immediate support, and thentransition to coverage through their
medical insurance. WhenThey've exhausted those three visits
per incident. And since mentalhealth has come more in the forefront
of conversation in the lastfew years, the employee assistance
programs have become more andmore of a topic of conversation.
(08:58):
So how do we get EAP benefits?Sometimes it's right through our
health insurance company andthe number of sessions available
to you might vary, but othertimes the benefits might come from
a more unexpected place.
A lot of times I see themthrough the same provider that's
offering like the vision andthe dental insurance and often they're
(09:18):
thrown in at no cost to theemployer. So if you have say, vision
and life and dental insurancewith a carrier like Guardian, for
example, Guardian will providetheir employee assistance program
for free to the employer. Soit's free to the employer and free
to the employees. It is anabsolute no brainer.
(09:38):
So what are some otherwellness perks we should be paying
attention to?
Gym memberships, pelotons. Alot of insurance carriers are partnering
with apps like Headspace andCalm so that you can put those on
your phone no cost to you, andhave sleep stories and meditations
and walking exercises and allkinds of amazing calorie trackers,
(10:01):
all kinds of things thatinsurance companies are now partnering
with to make those availablefor their members. And that means
it's no cost to the employeeto access those services.
Let's dive deeper into ourgrown nursery. Did you know that
you could potentially create aliving trust or will for a reduced
(10:22):
price or even free rightthrough your company benefits?
Let's talk about will prep. Soif an employer is offering even bigger
basic life insurance, and whenI say basic, it's kind of how we
refer to it in the industry,but generally means employer paid
life insurance. And someemployers will provide 10,000 or
(10:45):
25,000 or 50,000 of term lifeinsurance for employees while they're
employed at the job. And whileit doesn't feel great to say that's
burial expense money for thefamily. So if someone's employed
at a job and they die from forsome reason during their employment,
on the job or off the job,then this is a policy that's going
(11:06):
to pay the family and help tocover those expenses. And it's very
affordable for employers tooffer this benefit, it's usually
pennies per month to cover alltheir employees. So I have a lot
of employers who provide that,a lot of carriers, insurance companies
will add some bells andwhistles to that life insurance.
(11:28):
And one of those is Will Prepservices. And kind of similar to
the eap, it's an add on itusually has a separate flyer, it
probably has a separateprovider. So if your life insurance
is through principal, forexample, it's not principal providing
the will prep principal'scontracted with an outsourced party
(11:50):
who's providing thoseservices. But lots of people don't
have wills, lots of peopledon't have estate plans. And if your
employer has a benefit that'sproviding it, or for low cost or
no cost, that's a greatbenefit to take advantage of.
Absolutely. So I neverrealized it was connected to, or
(12:10):
maybe it's not alwaysconnected to the life insurance.
But the reason for thisepisode is because my husband, who's
been working for this bigcompany for 10 years, we put a few
dollars, literally a fewdollars per paycheck into this, like
legal protection, which wehaven't historically needed. And
(12:31):
one day when I was looking todo a trust and I went on this website,
I'm like, I know we paysomething for legal, like completely
clueless. And it was like, oh,the trust is free. And so we put
our house and all of thosethings in a Trust. We paid $875,
recording fees, LA county orwhatever, whoever that was for. But
(12:52):
not only did we get the trust,we got a trust for all. Three of
our kids who are all nowadults. So they may not have anything
to put in their trust, butit's set up so that when they move
into adulthood and they do,they don't have to create this. So
this is like $14,000 in legalservices that we've gotten for, I
(13:14):
don't know, $3 a paycheck.
You mentioned a couple thingsthat are super important. An additional
benefit that an employer canoffer is legal services like you're
talking about. So this istypically something that the employee
would pay for through apayroll deduction and have access
to a national network ofattorneys to handle, not a big criminal
(13:40):
law case, but to handle kindof everyday legal needs. Wills and
trusts is a great example.Getting ripped off and needing a
strongly worded letter writtento somebody to refund your money
or replace your product.
Even buying and selling ahouse, buying.
(14:00):
And selling a house, havingsomebody review a contract for you
to give you.
Adoption stuff, I think someof that is in there in other families.
Absolutely. So legal servicesare a great add on benefit. There's
also usually spoken about kindof in the same breath, our identity
theft service. And sometimesthose are all packaged together or
(14:21):
they could be two separatechoices. But the idea that your information
is not out there being abusedis, is, is. It's just silly now,
like Our information's outthere. Everything's getting hacked.
It just is. And so really, youcan't prevent that from happening.
You need to know whensomething is misused, when somebody
(14:43):
opens a credit card in yourname, when somebody opens a loan
in your name. Like, you needto know that information right away.
Identity theft, another reallygreat benefit, the sale to the employer
is the amount of time that ittakes for an employee to deal with
an identity theft issue whenthey have to do it during work time.
Because they're callingbusinesses to untangle things, it
(15:06):
can be a huge drain on anemployee's time and attention. And
so providing them with aservice that can help to do a lot
of that heavy lifting forthem. Super valuable.
Awesome.
Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Soyou mentioned something when you
were talking about learningabout these Will and trust services.
You said you went on the legalservices website. And I really want
(15:32):
to encourage people to beactive consumers with their insurance
and their benefits and befamiliar with all of the perks that
are included with insurancepolicies that are already in place.
And the best way to do that isregister for all the insurance carrier
(15:53):
websites. If you're withAnthem for health insurance, register
on the Anthem member websiteand put the app on your phone. If
you've got Guardian fordental, register on the Guardian
website. If you've got VSP forvision, register on the Vision website.
If you've got legal services,register on their website, put the
app on your phone and then payattention when they send an email
(16:13):
and go, hey, we want to letyou know we just added some new services
to our offerings. I have seendiscounts on pelotons, discounts
on gym memberships, buyingprograms with things like cars and
package vacations where youcan get a discount just because it's
(16:34):
being offered through aninsurance policy. Your employer already
has things like the legalservices, identity theft, pet insurance.
As we get older, our eyeschange. So having vision insurance
is a good thing. But whatabout dental? Oh, what about dental?
Dental, I feel, is the biggestscam that I've ever.
(16:58):
I love you for saying that.
I have never experiencedanything in my life where you pay
into it monthly. And thenthey're like, you had a cleaning
twice this year. I all done.
I. I totally feel you. And Itell small employers who are offering
benefits for the first timethat there really isn't a need to
(17:21):
pay for dental insurance foryour employees. If I wasn't working
for a large employer thatprovided it and subsidized the cost,
I wouldn't pay for it myself.Either we would do what we refer
to in the insurance industryas self funding, meaning I'm just
going to find a dentist I likeand I'm going to work out a cash
payment program and I'm goingto pay them directly when I need
(17:44):
services. The reason dentalinsurance feels like a scam. I hope
my dental partners don't hateme for this, but it's a very different
type of insurance than medicalinsurance. So with medical insurance,
the most important number tome in a medical insurance policy
is the out of pocket maximum.The out of pocket maximum says when
(18:08):
you, as the employee or as theinsured pay out of your pocket this
dollar amount in a calendaryear, you are done paying for the
year and we're going to covereverything past that number 100%.
So even if an out of pocketmaximum is $10,000, $10,000 as a
(18:28):
portion of what could be acatastrophic medical event is a relatively
small number. So the out ofpocket maximum is, is your protection
as an insured. Dentalinsurance works the complete opposite.
So rather than having an outof pocket maximum on dental insurance,
you have an allowance of moneyfrom the dental provider. Let's say
(18:51):
it's $1,500, which is a prettycommon amount. I see plans between
a thousand and three thousandfor a calendar year. So you have
that amount of money to spendon your dental care that doesn't
count your co payments or yourcoinsurance. That's just the insurer's
money that you're spending. Soif the insurer is covering 50% of
(19:12):
the cost of a crown and you'repaying 50% of the cost of the crown,
the 50% the insurer is payingcomes from that allowance. Once that
allowance is exhausted in ayear, they're done with you. They're
done. You don't get any morebenefit from your dental plan. And
so that number, the annualallowance number to me is the most
important number in a dentalinsurance plan because that's the
(19:35):
most money I have to spend.And a lot of times if you take the
premium you're paying for theplan and multiply it by 12 and look
at the allowance you'regetting from the plan, they're pretty
close together.
Interesting.
And so why would you pay $1500to have access to $1500 when you.
(19:57):
Can actually get a better ratefrom the dentist if you're paying
out of pocket?
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
You just blew my mind andopened, opened my mind. So what are
some perks we might not knowabout that Amy believes to be the
unsung heroes of the benefits world.
My favorite, and one I thinkis terribly underused is something
(20:20):
called health advocacy. Andthink of it as a team of people who
are the go betweens between anemployee who's had a health issue
and the insurance companies.Health advocates will help an employee
find a provider that's innetwork. They will, most importantly,
(20:42):
where I've seen them, be mosteffective, help an employee sort
through medical bills and evennegotiate medical bills.
Wow.
And that can be an awesometask if someone has had a major health
issue. So I've seen the backend of health insurance claims. And
(21:03):
when somebody has something,you know, crazy, unexpected, let's
say a serious car accidentwhere they're airlifted and they're
in ICU and then they're movedto a different hospital and they
have to have surgery and thenthey have to have therapy and they,
they go from ICU to a regularhospital bed and they're. The amount
of paperwork that's generatedfrom an experience like that, nobody
(21:27):
can understand what's going onthere. Nobody can sort through all
of that. It's craziness. Itcan also take years for all of that
stuff to get processed andcleaned up. Literally years. And
so having a health advocateassist an employee in sorting all
of that out can be a huge,huge relief, a huge time saver. It
(21:50):
can help the employee stayfocused on work. I mean we're always
talking about the, you know,the employers being doing things
in their best interest buthelp the employee focus on work.
And I am surprised that morecompanies don't provide that as a
benefit. It's not somethingthe carriers provide. I've never
seen it as an add on toanything else. It's really something
(22:11):
you have to proactively go andcontract with a service to do. And
there's usually a per employeeper month charge for that. But it
is just an awesome benefit andI wish more people used it. Teladoc
is another great example.Teladoc is an independent service.
A lot of insurers contractwith them to provide telehealth services.
(22:32):
So the ability to call andtalk to a doctor, video chat with
them, it's so convenient. Youcan usually get an appointment with
a doctor within five or 10minutes and they can diagnose, they
can refer, and a lot of timesthey can prescribe. When I've had
bronchitis, I can just have afive minute conversation with a Teladoc
(22:53):
doctor and they can prescribethe albuterol inhaler that I need.
Register in advance. Becauseif you actually need something Going
through the whole process oflike, what's your health history
and what insurance do you haveand what prescriptions are you taking?
Get all of that set up so thatwhen you need to use the service,
they've already got theinformation and they know who you
(23:14):
are.
That's a great tip. And I haveanother pro tip to add. If you're
in a partnership, your spouseor partner might be the person who
gets the insurance. I'm nottalking about you, honey. But he
may or may not check his emailor you know, read about some of these
things. So go in and changethe email to the person who can make
some of these decisions. I'mjust saying that might, that might
(23:36):
be.
I agree with you. I agree withyou. That is not unusual that there's
one person in the partnershipwho, who handles those things or
speaks that language better.And yes, absolutely. I mean even,
even the smartest people tendto zone out when it's an open enrollment
meeting. And it's just nobodywants to think about any of this
(23:57):
stuff when they don't need it.And it's a lot of information. It's
so boring.
That's why, I mean I, I wantto talk about all the boring topics
because there is something soexhilarating and I must. I'm so weird.
I know, but it's soexhilarating when you understand
some of these grown ass topicsand you can make choices based on
this understanding. Like itcan save you time, money, effort,
(24:21):
you know, stress, all of it.And so I just really appreciate you
coming on and just simplifyingit for us.
It is absolutely impossiblefor me or for anyone's employer to
communicate all of this stuffto employees all at one time. We
usually get one shot at openenrollment. Now a lot of employers
don't even do open enrollmentmeetings. They use an online enrollment
(24:43):
plan portal they sendemployees through. And no matter
how many add on flyers I putinto the helpful resources of the
online enrollment portal,people don't read them, they don't
look, they just want to getdone making their elections and get
on to the next thing. Butthere's so much being offered that
taking a minute like you didon the legal services website to
(25:03):
learn a little bit about whatelse was available can be super eye
opening. And obviouslydifferent things resonate with different
people. But the carrier'swebsite, the carrier's app, and then
the. If there's an enrollmentportal, if there's an online experience
for making your benefitelections, that's usually going to
have a lot of thisinformation. Too awesome.
I'm the nerd who will watchthe automated video every year and
(25:27):
they're like, we love you.I've learned so much today and I
hope you have too. But if youleave here with anything, it's this.
Take every benefit that isavailable to you and check your benefits
annually, because not only dothey change, but so does your life
and what you value.
(25:47):
Things have changed a lot.I've been in this business for 23
years and it is very differentthan it used to be. Lots more things
are included. And you'reright. If when you signed up for
your benefit program initiallyyou weren't taking any prescriptions,
then maybe you didn't payattention when your insurance carrier
(26:08):
said, we have a mail orderprescription program and you can
get three months ofprescriptions for the price of two.
That might not have beenimportant to you 10 years ago, but
maybe you're a little oldernow and maybe you are on a monthly
maintenance prescription andsaving a copay might be worthwhile.
And it's easy to do if youjust fill out a form, right? Even
if there's a benefit that youdon't think you're going to use.
(26:31):
Take all of it, register forall of it. Sign up for all of the
things that your employer isproviding for you so that you're
getting the emails. Becausethe email communication is what tells
you how to use stuff. So youmight not be able to wrap your head
around all the ways that youcould use a legal service or an identity
theft service or a healthadvocacy service. If nothing's going
(26:52):
on for you right now, howwould you even know how to apply
it? But if you're gettingthose emails and they go, hey, here's
a case study of someone whojust used our service, and then you're
going to have a sense of howthis can be used. The other advantage
is if you've created ausername and a password, if you have
the app on your phone, if theyalready know who you are, it's going
(27:12):
to be a lot easier to use itwhen you do need to use it.
I love that. Because that'sthe whole point, right? It's not
about knowing every detail ofhow things are going to go, but it's
about setting ourselves up forsuccess when things do happen, because
they will. So thank you somuch to Amy. Before you leave, put
it on the calendar, take fiveminutes at a time, register for your
(27:33):
benefits, download the appsyou need, and also, most importantly,
grab the free Grown AssWoman's Guide to Open Enrollment
at Grownasswoman Guidebenefits. Because understanding this
stuff, it's not boring. It'sgrown ass. I'm Jackie McDougall,
and this is the Grown AssWoman's Guide.
Open enrollment doesn'texactly make anyone's top 10 list
of exciting life events. Butthe decisions we make during this
short window can have a majorimpact on our finances, our health,
and definitely our peace ofmind. If you've ever stared at an
HR email or benefits portalthinking, I'll deal with that later,
then this episode is for you.And if you're someone who's self
(00:23):
employed or runs a businesswhere you provide benefits, there's
something in here for you too.This is the Grown Ass Woman's guide.
I'm Jackie McDougall. AmyEvans has spent more than two decades
helping people understand andactually use their benefits. Today,
she helps us uncover thehidden perks that can save us thousands
(00:45):
and the simple things we cando to make open enrollment a little
less painful and a lot moreprofitable. A recent AARP survey
of people age 50 and olderrevealed that 24% of older workers
are planning to make a jobchange. But when seeking new employment,
salary isn't the only thing weshould consider. When someone is
(01:07):
looking for a job or maybethey're an employee, how important
are the benefits to theoverall salary? We're always looking
at how much money I make, butnot really necessarily the benefits.
How important are they?
I'm going to give you the beststatistic I know to nail this question.
My benefit package at mycompany is worth about $24,000 of
(01:33):
income to me on an annualbasis. That's a huge number in relation
to my overall compensation. Soto your point, when you're looking
at the numbers in terms ofhourly income or salary for the year,
I think factoring in the valueof the benefits is huge because it
(01:53):
can be a large part of anoverall compensation package.
Absolutely. And so where inthe job search, you know, interviewing,
job offer, where in that wholejourney should someone be like, I
need to know what the benefitslook like?
Navigating that conversationcan be interesting. It is certainly
(02:15):
reasonable for a prospectivecandidate to say, benefits are really
important to me, and I wouldlike to see what is included in your
benefits package, because thatwill be a factor in my decision.
But an employer is notobligated to provide that, and that
might be a challenging thingfor a prospective employee to navigate.
(02:36):
So you may not have all theinformation until you're hired and
you're going through theonboarding process and going through
the process of selecting yourbenefits and. And then always with
an asterisk that that canchange at any point. Just because
an employer has a prettylittle sheet that describes what
they're offering right nowthey might be going through the renewal
process, as many of my clientsare doing right now, in the fall
(02:57):
to prepare for open enrollmentfor January. And so everything can
change. The carriers canchange, the plans can change, the
rates can change, thecontributions can change on an annual
basis. So it's a difficultthing to pin down, but it's worth
asking to see what's beingmade available. Right.
Okay. So this brings up aquestion that I never even considered.
(03:19):
If I am a single woman or I ama mom of 12 children. Does the cost
for the company change basedon my family status?
The cost for the companychanges based on how many people
you're choosing to enroll. Youmay have 12 children. You're not
(03:40):
necessarily enrolling all 12children. You may have a spouse.
You're not necessarilyenrolling your spouse. I'm based
in California, and inCalifornia, employers who have under
100 employees have insurancerates that are based on each individual
employee's age and the age ofeach of their dependents, which makes
(04:02):
things really complicated. Soyou might be talking about an employee
who is 40, 45. Their spousemight be 20 years older than them.
And so that premium for thespouse is going to be a lot higher.
You might, when you're talkingabout 12 children, be talking about
a whole bunch of children thatare all in their late teens or early
20s, still eligible asdependents, but treated as adults
(04:26):
in terms of rating, versusvery tiny children who will still
have premium, but the premiumwill be a lot lower. So it's very
layered.
Do you think this has anythingto do with how difficult it is for,
let's say, a woman over 40,woman over 50, to get a job, that
(04:47):
sometimes it's not just thejob itself, but the cost of the benefits
that go with that job?
That's a. You ask reallyinteresting questions. So I mentioned
I'm in California. So foremployers with less than 100 employees,
the rates are determined byeach individual person's age, including
spouse and dependents over 100employees. It's generally community
(05:09):
rating, where employee only isone rate regardless of age. Employee
plus spouse is one rateregardless of age. Employee plus
family is one rate regardlessof the number of children. When you
ask if it's harder for womento be employed when they're older,
it would be very difficult tofind a statistic because that would
(05:33):
be age discrimination. Andmost employers, even if they're engaged
in that, are avoiding doinganything that looks like that. Have
I had conversations withemployers under 100 who have jokingly,
or maybe not so jokingly, saidI guess we better hire a bunch of
young people because if wehire older people, it's going to
(05:54):
cost us more. Yeah, I'veabsolutely heard employers express
that it doesn't matter if theperson is male or female. It used
to be that rates for healthinsurance were gender based and they
are no longer. So whether theperson is male or female doesn't
matter. But is the employergoing to pay about three times as
(06:16):
much for a 60 year old thanthey would for a 20 year old? Yes.
Of course, none of us haveever experienced age discrimination,
but just in case. Maybe keepyour age, your spouse's age. Or you
know, the gaggle of kids youhave at home. Keep that to yourself
while interviewing for a job.Let's move on and talk benefits.
We think about healthinsurance and 401k, but what about
(06:38):
those hidden gems, thosepotential benefits available that
either come free. Or cost justa few bucks per. Paycheck that we
totally overlook?
One that has become more andmore popular in the last few years,
particularly during and rightafter Covid was the Employee Assistance
Program or eap. The way I liketo describe it during open enrollment
(07:01):
meetings is it's like mentalhealth urgent care. So if you think
about your health insuranceplan, all health insurance plans
provide coverage for mentalhealth services like any other doctor
visit. So whether you're goingto a general practitioner or an ob
GYN or a therapist, you'regoing to pay the same office visit
(07:24):
copay for any of those visits.So you have mental health coverage
under a health insurance plan,but what you don't have is urgent
care for mental health under ahealth insurance plan. So if something
unexpected were to happen,let's use the example of a parent
dying suddenly and an employeereally wants support from a mental
(07:47):
health provider to talkthrough that, maybe even over a weekend,
you know, something, somethingimmediate, calling your health insurance
plan or going online andfinding an in network therapist and
calling them and scheduling anappointment. That might take weeks
and sometimes even months. Soan employee assistance program is
going to provide that mentalhealth support 24 hours a day, seven
(08:11):
days a week. The employeecalls an 800 number. It's no cost
to them. They typically get upto three visits per incident with
no limit to the number ofincidents. So it can be the death
of a parent in January, it canbe the loss of a spouse's job in
March, it can be a sick childin September, and the employee totally
(08:34):
confidentially can speak to amental health professional, get that
immediate support, and thentransition to coverage through their
medical insurance. WhenThey've exhausted those three visits
per incident. And since mentalhealth has come more in the forefront
of conversation in the lastfew years, the employee assistance
programs have become more andmore of a topic of conversation.
(08:58):
So how do we get EAP benefits?Sometimes it's right through our
health insurance company andthe number of sessions available
to you might vary, but othertimes the benefits might come from
a more unexpected place.
A lot of times I see themthrough the same provider that's
offering like the vision andthe dental insurance and often they're
(09:18):
thrown in at no cost to theemployer. So if you have say, vision
and life and dental insurancewith a carrier like Guardian, for
example, Guardian will providetheir employee assistance program
for free to the employer. Soit's free to the employer and free
to the employees. It is anabsolute no brainer.
(09:38):
So what are some otherwellness perks we should be paying
attention to?
Gym memberships, pelotons. Alot of insurance carriers are partnering
with apps like Headspace andCalm so that you can put those on
your phone no cost to you, andhave sleep stories and meditations
and walking exercises and allkinds of amazing calorie trackers,
(10:01):
all kinds of things thatinsurance companies are now partnering
with to make those availablefor their members. And that means
it's no cost to the employeeto access those services.
Let's dive deeper into ourgrown nursery. Did you know that
you could potentially create aliving trust or will for a reduced
(10:22):
price or even free rightthrough your company benefits?
Let's talk about will prep. Soif an employer is offering even bigger
basic life insurance, and whenI say basic, it's kind of how we
refer to it in the industry,but generally means employer paid
life insurance. And someemployers will provide 10,000 or
(10:45):
25,000 or 50,000 of term lifeinsurance for employees while they're
employed at the job. And whileit doesn't feel great to say that's
burial expense money for thefamily. So if someone's employed
at a job and they die from forsome reason during their employment,
on the job or off the job,then this is a policy that's going
(11:06):
to pay the family and help tocover those expenses. And it's very
affordable for employers tooffer this benefit, it's usually
pennies per month to cover alltheir employees. So I have a lot
of employers who provide that,a lot of carriers, insurance companies
will add some bells andwhistles to that life insurance.
(11:28):
And one of those is Will Prepservices. And kind of similar to
the eap, it's an add on itusually has a separate flyer, it
probably has a separateprovider. So if your life insurance
is through principal, forexample, it's not principal providing
the will prep principal'scontracted with an outsourced party
(11:50):
who's providing thoseservices. But lots of people don't
have wills, lots of peopledon't have estate plans. And if your
employer has a benefit that'sproviding it, or for low cost or
no cost, that's a greatbenefit to take advantage of.
Absolutely. So I neverrealized it was connected to, or
(12:10):
maybe it's not alwaysconnected to the life insurance.
But the reason for thisepisode is because my husband, who's
been working for this bigcompany for 10 years, we put a few
dollars, literally a fewdollars per paycheck into this, like
legal protection, which wehaven't historically needed. And
(12:31):
one day when I was looking todo a trust and I went on this website,
I'm like, I know we paysomething for legal, like completely
clueless. And it was like, oh,the trust is free. And so we put
our house and all of thosethings in a Trust. We paid $875,
recording fees, LA county orwhatever, whoever that was for. But
(12:52):
not only did we get the trust,we got a trust for all. Three of
our kids who are all nowadults. So they may not have anything
to put in their trust, butit's set up so that when they move
into adulthood and they do,they don't have to create this. So
this is like $14,000 in legalservices that we've gotten for, I
(13:14):
don't know, $3 a paycheck.
You mentioned a couple thingsthat are super important. An additional
benefit that an employer canoffer is legal services like you're
talking about. So this istypically something that the employee
would pay for through apayroll deduction and have access
to a national network ofattorneys to handle, not a big criminal
(13:40):
law case, but to handle kindof everyday legal needs. Wills and
trusts is a great example.Getting ripped off and needing a
strongly worded letter writtento somebody to refund your money
or replace your product.
Even buying and selling ahouse, buying.
(14:00):
And selling a house, havingsomebody review a contract for you
to give you.
Adoption stuff, I think someof that is in there in other families.
Absolutely. So legal servicesare a great add on benefit. There's
also usually spoken about kindof in the same breath, our identity
theft service. And sometimesthose are all packaged together or
(14:21):
they could be two separatechoices. But the idea that your information
is not out there being abusedis, is, is. It's just silly now,
like Our information's outthere. Everything's getting hacked.
It just is. And so really, youcan't prevent that from happening.
You need to know whensomething is misused, when somebody
(14:43):
opens a credit card in yourname, when somebody opens a loan
in your name. Like, you needto know that information right away.
Identity theft, another reallygreat benefit, the sale to the employer
is the amount of time that ittakes for an employee to deal with
an identity theft issue whenthey have to do it during work time.
Because they're callingbusinesses to untangle things, it
(15:06):
can be a huge drain on anemployee's time and attention. And
so providing them with aservice that can help to do a lot
of that heavy lifting forthem. Super valuable.
Awesome.
Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Soyou mentioned something when you
were talking about learningabout these Will and trust services.
You said you went on the legalservices website. And I really want
(15:32):
to encourage people to beactive consumers with their insurance
and their benefits and befamiliar with all of the perks that
are included with insurancepolicies that are already in place.
And the best way to do that isregister for all the insurance carrier
(15:53):
websites. If you're withAnthem for health insurance, register
on the Anthem member websiteand put the app on your phone. If
you've got Guardian fordental, register on the Guardian
website. If you've got VSP forvision, register on the Vision website.
If you've got legal services,register on their website, put the
app on your phone and then payattention when they send an email
(16:13):
and go, hey, we want to letyou know we just added some new services
to our offerings. I have seendiscounts on pelotons, discounts
on gym memberships, buyingprograms with things like cars and
package vacations where youcan get a discount just because it's
(16:34):
being offered through aninsurance policy. Your employer already
has things like the legalservices, identity theft, pet insurance.
As we get older, our eyeschange. So having vision insurance
is a good thing. But whatabout dental? Oh, what about dental?
Dental, I feel, is the biggestscam that I've ever.
(16:58):
I love you for saying that.
I have never experiencedanything in my life where you pay
into it monthly. And thenthey're like, you had a cleaning
twice this year. I all done.
I. I totally feel you. And Itell small employers who are offering
benefits for the first timethat there really isn't a need to
(17:21):
pay for dental insurance foryour employees. If I wasn't working
for a large employer thatprovided it and subsidized the cost,
I wouldn't pay for it myself.Either we would do what we refer
to in the insurance industryas self funding, meaning I'm just
going to find a dentist I likeand I'm going to work out a cash
payment program and I'm goingto pay them directly when I need
(17:44):
services. The reason dentalinsurance feels like a scam. I hope
my dental partners don't hateme for this, but it's a very different
type of insurance than medicalinsurance. So with medical insurance,
the most important number tome in a medical insurance policy
is the out of pocket maximum.The out of pocket maximum says when
(18:08):
you, as the employee or as theinsured pay out of your pocket this
dollar amount in a calendaryear, you are done paying for the
year and we're going to covereverything past that number 100%.
So even if an out of pocketmaximum is $10,000, $10,000 as a
(18:28):
portion of what could be acatastrophic medical event is a relatively
small number. So the out ofpocket maximum is, is your protection
as an insured. Dentalinsurance works the complete opposite.
So rather than having an outof pocket maximum on dental insurance,
you have an allowance of moneyfrom the dental provider. Let's say
(18:51):
it's $1,500, which is a prettycommon amount. I see plans between
a thousand and three thousandfor a calendar year. So you have
that amount of money to spendon your dental care that doesn't
count your co payments or yourcoinsurance. That's just the insurer's
money that you're spending. Soif the insurer is covering 50% of
(19:12):
the cost of a crown and you'repaying 50% of the cost of the crown,
the 50% the insurer is payingcomes from that allowance. Once that
allowance is exhausted in ayear, they're done with you. They're
done. You don't get any morebenefit from your dental plan. And
so that number, the annualallowance number to me is the most
important number in a dentalinsurance plan because that's the
(19:35):
most money I have to spend.And a lot of times if you take the
premium you're paying for theplan and multiply it by 12 and look
at the allowance you'regetting from the plan, they're pretty
close together.
Interesting.
And so why would you pay $1500to have access to $1500 when you.
(19:57):
Can actually get a better ratefrom the dentist if you're paying
out of pocket?
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
You just blew my mind andopened, opened my mind. So what are
some perks we might not knowabout that Amy believes to be the
unsung heroes of the benefits world.
My favorite, and one I thinkis terribly underused is something
(20:20):
called health advocacy. Andthink of it as a team of people who
are the go betweens between anemployee who's had a health issue
and the insurance companies.Health advocates will help an employee
find a provider that's innetwork. They will, most importantly,
(20:42):
where I've seen them, be mosteffective, help an employee sort
through medical bills and evennegotiate medical bills.
Wow.
And that can be an awesometask if someone has had a major health
issue. So I've seen the backend of health insurance claims. And
(21:03):
when somebody has something,you know, crazy, unexpected, let's
say a serious car accidentwhere they're airlifted and they're
in ICU and then they're movedto a different hospital and they
have to have surgery and thenthey have to have therapy and they,
they go from ICU to a regularhospital bed and they're. The amount
of paperwork that's generatedfrom an experience like that, nobody
(21:27):
can understand what's going onthere. Nobody can sort through all
of that. It's craziness. Itcan also take years for all of that
stuff to get processed andcleaned up. Literally years. And
so having a health advocateassist an employee in sorting all
of that out can be a huge,huge relief, a huge time saver. It
(21:50):
can help the employee stayfocused on work. I mean we're always
talking about the, you know,the employers being doing things
in their best interest buthelp the employee focus on work.
And I am surprised that morecompanies don't provide that as a
benefit. It's not somethingthe carriers provide. I've never
seen it as an add on toanything else. It's really something
(22:11):
you have to proactively go andcontract with a service to do. And
there's usually a per employeeper month charge for that. But it
is just an awesome benefit andI wish more people used it. Teladoc
is another great example.Teladoc is an independent service.
A lot of insurers contractwith them to provide telehealth services.
(22:32):
So the ability to call andtalk to a doctor, video chat with
them, it's so convenient. Youcan usually get an appointment with
a doctor within five or 10minutes and they can diagnose, they
can refer, and a lot of timesthey can prescribe. When I've had
bronchitis, I can just have afive minute conversation with a Teladoc
(22:53):
doctor and they can prescribethe albuterol inhaler that I need.
Register in advance. Becauseif you actually need something Going
through the whole process oflike, what's your health history
and what insurance do you haveand what prescriptions are you taking?
Get all of that set up so thatwhen you need to use the service,
they've already got theinformation and they know who you
(23:14):
are.
That's a great tip. And I haveanother pro tip to add. If you're
in a partnership, your spouseor partner might be the person who
gets the insurance. I'm nottalking about you, honey. But he
may or may not check his emailor you know, read about some of these
things. So go in and changethe email to the person who can make
some of these decisions. I'mjust saying that might, that might
(23:36):
be.
I agree with you. I agree withyou. That is not unusual that there's
one person in the partnershipwho, who handles those things or
speaks that language better.And yes, absolutely. I mean even,
even the smartest people tendto zone out when it's an open enrollment
meeting. And it's just nobodywants to think about any of this
(23:57):
stuff when they don't need it.And it's a lot of information. It's
so boring.
That's why, I mean I, I wantto talk about all the boring topics
because there is something soexhilarating and I must. I'm so weird.
I know, but it's soexhilarating when you understand
some of these grown ass topicsand you can make choices based on
this understanding. Like itcan save you time, money, effort,
(24:21):
you know, stress, all of it.And so I just really appreciate you
coming on and just simplifyingit for us.
It is absolutely impossiblefor me or for anyone's employer to
communicate all of this stuffto employees all at one time. We
usually get one shot at openenrollment. Now a lot of employers
don't even do open enrollmentmeetings. They use an online enrollment
(24:43):
plan portal they sendemployees through. And no matter
how many add on flyers I putinto the helpful resources of the
online enrollment portal,people don't read them, they don't
look, they just want to getdone making their elections and get
on to the next thing. Butthere's so much being offered that
taking a minute like you didon the legal services website to
(25:03):
learn a little bit about whatelse was available can be super eye
opening. And obviouslydifferent things resonate with different
people. But the carrier'swebsite, the carrier's app, and then
the. If there's an enrollmentportal, if there's an online experience
for making your benefitelections, that's usually going to
have a lot of thisinformation. Too awesome.
I'm the nerd who will watchthe automated video every year and
(25:27):
they're like, we love you.I've learned so much today and I
hope you have too. But if youleave here with anything, it's this.
Take every benefit that isavailable to you and check your benefits
annually, because not only dothey change, but so does your life
and what you value.
(25:47):
Things have changed a lot.I've been in this business for 23
years and it is very differentthan it used to be. Lots more things
are included. And you'reright. If when you signed up for
your benefit program initiallyyou weren't taking any prescriptions,
then maybe you didn't payattention when your insurance carrier
(26:08):
said, we have a mail orderprescription program and you can
get three months ofprescriptions for the price of two.
That might not have beenimportant to you 10 years ago, but
maybe you're a little oldernow and maybe you are on a monthly
maintenance prescription andsaving a copay might be worthwhile.
And it's easy to do if youjust fill out a form, right? Even
if there's a benefit that youdon't think you're going to use.
(26:31):
Take all of it, register forall of it. Sign up for all of the
things that your employer isproviding for you so that you're
getting the emails. Becausethe email communication is what tells
you how to use stuff. So youmight not be able to wrap your head
around all the ways that youcould use a legal service or an identity
theft service or a healthadvocacy service. If nothing's going
(26:52):
on for you right now, howwould you even know how to apply
it? But if you're gettingthose emails and they go, hey, here's
a case study of someone whojust used our service, and then you're
going to have a sense of howthis can be used. The other advantage
is if you've created ausername and a password, if you have
the app on your phone, if theyalready know who you are, it's going
(27:12):
to be a lot easier to use itwhen you do need to use it.
I love that. Because that'sthe whole point, right? It's not
about knowing every detail ofhow things are going to go, but it's
about setting ourselves up forsuccess when things do happen, because
they will. So thank you somuch to Amy. Before you leave, put
it on the calendar, take fiveminutes at a time, register for your
(27:33):
benefits, download the appsyou need, and also, most importantly,
grab the free Grown AssWoman's Guide to Open Enrollment
at Grownasswoman Guidebenefits. Because understanding this
stuff, it's not boring. It'sgrown ass. I'm Jackie McDougall,
and this is the Grown AssWoman's Guide.
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