Corporate Life Insurance: Retain the Best Talent

Fancy a free massage at work? That’s what Google offers staff who nail a successful project. In California, Patagonia posts daily surf reports (and the odd company wide broadcast when it’s particularly gnarly) to encourage staff to run out and catch a wave in the middle of the working day. A London based ad agency offers “Botox Leave” (self explanatory).

Perks make a huge difference to a business’ ability to recruit and retain good talent. HR consultants Robert Half found six in 10 Australians prioritise perks over pay – so much so that that eight in 10 would happily accept benefits instead of money if employers can’t meet their salary expectations.

But staff don’t necessarily want the weird and wonderful benefits. They often want more sensible, potentially life changing perks, such as health and life insurance. UK research shows 37% of employees see life insurance as one of the top three employee benefits they value.^[1]

It’s easy to see why given the high cost, high reward nature of life insurance. Many of us are eager to financially protect ourselves and our family should the worst happen. The “worst” includes death, a total permanent disability or a loss of precious income in a country where the cost of living is a constant pressure.

An employer who can cover life insurance premiums, therefore, offers a perk of tremendous, potentially life changing value to current or potential staff.

Yet only 4% of SME employers offer life insurance as a benefit. Legacy infrastructure, systems and technology have made it difficult for bigger, older insurance providers to develop simple products for new markets like SMEs.

Not being able to offer perks to recruit top talent, then, can be another reason small business owners can’t compete against big companies for quality employees. 80 per cent of SME bosses aren’t satisfied with their recruitment pool or process, according to the SME Hiring Challenges Survey commissioned by Cameron Research Group for Michael Page.

We’re changing that. Integrity has developed a unique product in the Australian market called Five+, which offers a combined income and life insurance product for small to medium businesses – available to owners with as few as five employees.

It’s the first group product that combines both income and life insurance, and that can be purchased online. Five+ is also the only product that offers an income benefit to the employer as well as the employee.

Luring away or protecting top talent from big business will always be a challenge, and not every small business can offer free breakfast and a company car. Now you can offer at least one powerful, useful perk – the same protection for your employees (and their families) as the big end of town. And you look great without Botox anyway.

^{[1] Employee Benefits Magazine,  2017 UK}