One Owner, 4 Small Businesses

[NWBenefitProvider]

Looking for a little help or ideas from some of the experts. I'm trying to put together a small group medical plan for a local business person. Trouble is, she has 4 different businesses. Two have 10-12 employees and seperate tax id's. We'll go with 2 different group policies, one for each. The last 2 businesses have a single employee and then 3 employees. They both have their own tax id #, so we can;t add them to the other groups. Any ideas on how to cover these few employees without having to set up 2 TINY group plans?

What do you do in this type of situation? Just give them a raise to help cover their cost of individual plans or what?

Any ideas are appreciated.

 

[ABC]

You could enroll them all in one group.

It falls under the IRS code 414. The company with the most employees will be the SIC code you use.

Most employer applications ask the question about affiliate organizations.

Call your sales reps and tell them the situation. The client should only have to complete one form.

 

[NWBenefitProvider]

Thank you, ABC. I'll double check with a different carrier. The first rep said separate groups, but that didn't sound quite right.

 

[bluemarlin08]

I thought the same thing but wasn't sure.

 

[NWBenefitProvider]

Got confirmation that they can run everyone under a single small group as long as there is common ownership. This does raise a second question:

If there are 20 or more employees combined on the plan, then does that make them subject to COBRA, or is it 20 employees at one single business? I should know this, but I don't?!

 

[ABC]

Got confirmation that they can run everyone under a single small group as long as there is common ownership. This does raise a second question:

If there are 20 or more employees combined on the plan, then does that make them subject to COBRA, or is it 20 employees at one single business? I should know this, but I don't?!

They would have to admin cobra.

 

[NWBenefitProvider]

That's what I thought. does it matter the toal number of employees across all 4 businesses, or just 20 EE's on the plan? Can't find anyhting on the government website that covers counting across different businesses?

 

[stuy119]

Eligible for the plan itself.

 

[LGilmore]

it's 20 employed on any given day, not subject to being on medical plan. You might want to have a long conversation about cobra with the owner so they know they become liable for offering it, even to the single person store.

 

[NWBenefitProvider]

it's 20 employed on any given day, not subject to being on medical plan. You might want to have a long conversation about cobra with the owner so they know they become liable for offering it, even to the single person store.

Yeah, I thought about that. I'm not sure how much turnover they have yet, but that will likely play into whether or not they want to get into a situation where they are liable for COBRA.

I was aware of COBRA being required if you had 20 people on payroll, regardless of hours worked AND you sponsored a group medical plan. I suppose if you bundled all the employees of the 4 businesses onto one single plan, then all of the total employees of the 4 would be used to count towards the 20 to determine COBRA.