Advertise on podcast: Employee Benefits Basics

Canadian Benefits Coaching is a phenomenal tool we’ve developed recently with help from world-class US health insurance enrolment firm Daniel Harris and Audrey Engle of BPA (Brian Patten & Associates). Benefits Coaching is simply the practice of sitting down with an employee, one on one, face to face IRL or on video, to help them enrol in their company’s group benefits health insurance during open enrolment or key life events like being newly hired, adding dependents, or moving on to retirement. It’s also the practice of communicating very clearly and simply to plan members of all stripes. Communications are done 1:1, one-to-many, or broadcast through in person, email, video, SMS, mail, or any medium where it makes things simple and accessible for plan members in English, French or Spanish. We have been building out our Benefits Counsellor practice due to demand from large enterprise cross-border Canada-US employers. As we assembled our team of 30 bilingual advisors / coaches, we were met with one of two reactions from brokers in our network: “You’re crazy. I will never do this. This will never work.” Or “This is phenomenal. It is just like how I started out in my career. This is the yin to the yang of AI bots. We need humans talking to humans to explain the complexities of health insurance. And we need teams talking to teams.” AND — plan sponsors of all sizes, especially large ones, have had only One. Singular. Reaction: “This is incredible. You mean you will give me back 60 minutes a week AND you’ll give my team of HR managers back 30 minutes a day to take off something on our plate that has been a pain point since the beginning of time?” Yes. Beneplan and BPA will, with permission from the plan sponsor and advisor of record, book 1:1 meetings with every single one of your hundreds or thousands of employees during enrollment, and once a year, to explain the plan and be there for them. Are we going too far? Or are we here to help you — the key consultant on the file — help more Canadian employers? And educate more workers? There is no fee or cost to employers to set this up. Commission is earned by Beneplan, BPA, and the advisor on the sale of extra optional voluntary products that employees may choose to add on at time of purchase. All benefits coaches are licensed and regulated insurance advisors in their respective province of Canada or the US. Special thanks to Matthew Williamson and our advisor network at Insurance Offices of America (IOA) as part of the Navacord group. Contact [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected] to get started.

Beneplan is excited to be adding Allstate Canada as a provider on its TPA platform for group benefits, and the reason why they were chosen as a provider for group critical illness, especially distributed on an individual voluntary basis, is because their contracts and terms and conditions show that they will pay claims faster and more often with expanded definitions compared to other products. Beneplan CEO Yafa Sakkejha sits down with Dante Dedomenicis, Vice President of Allstate Canada, and Teddy Fedoryn, Manager of Distribution, in the spring of 2026 to get into the nitty gritty of their philosophy on pre-existing conditions, how to deal with illnesses in a gray area like Alzheimer's, cancer, how kids are automatically added to coverage, and how they don't have a survival period. To work with Beneplan, please contact our advisor wholesaler Diane Carvalho, Vice President of Broker Success, at [email protected] - or call 1-800-387-1670. // Beneplan est heureuse d'accueillir Allstate Canada à titre de fournisseur sur sa plateforme d'administrateur tiers (ATP) pour les avantages sociaux collectifs. Si Allstate Canada a été choisie comme fournisseur pour l'assurance maladies graves collective — distribuée notamment sur une base individuelle et volontaire — c'est parce que ses contrats ainsi que ses modalités et conditions démontrent qu'elle règle les réclamations plus rapidement et plus souvent, grâce à des définitions élargies par rapport aux autres produits sur le marché. Yafa Sakkejha, s'entretient au printemps 2026 avec Dante Dedomenicis, vice-président d'Allstate Canada, et Teddy Fedoryn, directeur de la distribution, afin d'approfondir leur philosophie en matière de conditions préexistantes, leur approche à l'égard des maladies en zone grise comme l'Alzheimer et le cancer, l'ajout automatique des enfants à la couverture, ainsi que l'absence de période de survie. Pour travailler avec Beneplan, veuillez communiquer avec notre courtier grossiste Diane Carvalho, vice-présidente au succès des courtiers, à l'adresse [email protected] — ou par téléphone au 1-800-387-1670.

Canadian healthcare is going through a shift. Whether you believe universal healthcare is better than 'two-tiered' healthcare or vice versa, Canadian business leaders have been teaching each other how to pay to 'shorten the wait' for decades. Obtaining legal private healthcare in Canada can mean many things - pledging to donate money...and then kindly mentioning to your main point of contact that you happen to need to see a specialist, and who they think is the best? It could mean spending dollars towards preventative health items that are technically "uninsured" thereby bypassing the law that it is illegal to charge Canadians for 'insured' services. It could mean going to a different province or country to seek care - another workaround. We have seen people go to the province next door like Quebec or Alberta to get help. Or, it can mean staying in your home province, maybe even Ontario, and leveraging the third party workaround. I can't tell you how many times business owners have asked me in a hushed whisper, effectively, "Can't I just buy an MRI somewhere instead of wait a month?" And then asking the clinic owner/operators, and them responding in a hushed whisper "yes, but don't tell too many people." As someone who is used to transparent and disclosure, it feels unnatural to me to keep gatekeeping this information. I've overheard conversations in rooms where Canadian business leaders are now speaking more openly about how they paid tens of thousands of dollars to a doctor or clinic outside of Canada to "skip the line" and get surgery faster. The information right now is hidden, taboo, confusing, and as a result, Canadians who are willing to spend a large share of wallet are sleepwalking into the stereotype of "just cross the border and pay a clinic" ... instead, we should as a country, be honest about how Canadians CAN keep their dollars in Canada, to buy private healthcare, including MRIs, surgeries, and other items. Here to help explain this entire industry is Gino Stirpe from Vumi Canada. VUMI is a concierge private health insurance plan for Canadians to help them receive medical treatments, surgeries and more on a private and legal basis. Gino will explain how they've built an entire business and insurance ecosystem around it, and why Canadians can buy private medical insurance for the same cost as their existing employee benefit plan, depending on their age and other factors. To request a quote, or learn more about VUMI, please email Beneplan at [email protected], and I am always reachable at [email protected]. Skip to minute 14:00 to hear about the VUMI Canada product, backed by Humania Assurance in Quebec.

Traditional group long term disability plans in Canada are centered around paying an employee for lost wages if their disability prevents them from earning an income. But what happens when the employee can't work because their SPOUSE or CHILD is disabled and the employee is their caregiver? Should they be paid? Beneplan CEO and Canadian group benefits expert Yafa Sakkejha speaks to Philippe Berberi, Vice President of Group Insurance of Humania Assurance, a Quebec-based 150 year old mutual insurance company. Philippe invented the concept of compassionate care LTD when his own mother had to retire form work to take care of her son, Philippe's brother, who developed cancer. As one of the top 1% of actuaries in the world, Philippe used his powers for good (a Beneplan value) to bring a new product to market, embed it within existing LTD contracts, and choose not to charge new premium for it. He is truly a luminary and visionary in our industry and we are already seeing other insurance companies copy Philippe's great idea. To add compassionate care LTD, email [email protected] to request a quote from Beneplan & Humania.

Today, we talk about how supporting an entrepreneur in my personal life lead to 12 leads coming in (that I shared with other benefits advisors), doing mental math in your head, removing the fear of being black listed, and The Gruffalo.

Sonny wrote in to ask, 'what conversations or questions should we ask with a new client who is looking to set up a new employee benefit plan, or looking to leave their current group insurance broker?' Thanks for the question Sonny, and here's my take. Group benefits can be complex, especially in Canada, so we start with a 50,000 foot view and start to dig deeper from there.

In this unsponsored episode, Yafa Sakkejha, CEO of Beneplan, has a conversation with Mitch Hanlon, Vice President of Business Development at Claimsecure, to learn about their custom and unique Formulary Protect management program - plus how he started his own business, how he sold to business owners, and where he sees the industry going.

For Canadian employee benefits advisors: My attention as a business owner was caught when someone commented on my podcast, left us a google review, engaged with me on social media, saw me in my personal life in community work, and invited me to an offline event at the expense of the Canadian group insurance company.

If you're an employee benefits advisor, it's important that you're aware of what captive insurance companies are, why they matter, and how it might intersect with your daily work. If you're a plan sponsor, it's good to know that you have an option to explore captives for your own insurance risk.

The GSC strike is now over, the call centre will be open again Monday April 22, 2024 for group benefits and group insurance phone calls from plan members. We're anticipating a higher than normal call centre volume on Monday.

Some Unifor divisions went on strike March 1 2024 especially those staff who answer the call centre phones for group benefits insurance questions. Let's see what happens over the next few days.

The Canadian budget presented in Parliament yesterday doesn't affect group benefits plans, but does affect independent insurance or financial advisors if and when they want to sell or transition their business, by way of a capital gain.

It's become more popular than ever for employee benefits clients to request that their payroll provider or human resources information system (HRIS) "connects" directly to their insurance carrier. This is doable and possible, but there is a lot of work to be done to ensure a clean file of data can pass through the systems. Here is how to project manage this if it comes across your desk.

It's critical to make sure you look out for opportunities to waive the premiums on pooled benefits where applicable. Here are 3 examines in the Canadian group benefits market.

Let me know what you want to hear about next: how to sell your brokerage? How to sell & prospect? How to manufacture your own products? How to get out of tough legal situations? How to come back to work after having a baby? Let me know at [email protected] or Yafa Sakkejha on LinkedIn