Minnesota laws regulate health insurance provided by small business owners and their employees in the state. Group health insurance provided by an employer is guaranteed to be issued, meaning that an individual or group cannot be denied health insurance coverage based on medical history. Minnesota also permits small business owners to provide a flexible benefits plan.
Flexible Benefits
Minnesota passed a flexible benefits law in June 2005 that gives small employers in the state the option to offer a specific health plan. This type of plan does not provide coverage for all of the benefits mandated by Minnesota law. Insurance companies in the state can design flexible benefit plans to be offered to employers. The flexible benefits law allows insurers to modify or exclude a mandated benefit from a health plan.
Mandated Benefits
Minnesota law has many benefits mandated for health insurance plans in the state. These include coverage for maternity care, cancer screening such as a mammogram, emergency care, diabetes test strips and insulin, Lyme disease as well as other health care services. Insurers that provide a flexible benefits plan can include a certain number of these mandated benefits in their health plans.
Advantages to Employers
Employers in Minnesota can offer a flexible benefit plan to employees to lower their cost as well as the cost to the insurance company. Lower costs can be achieved because not all of the state's mandated benefits are included in a flexible benefit plan. This gives an employer the opportunity to decide what mandated coverages are worth the cost and ones that are not. Insurance companies also save on costs because they are only paying for benefits that are included in the policy.
Requirements
Insurance companies are not required by Minnesota law to offer a flexible benefit plan. When a plan is available from an insurer there are certain requirements that need to be met. These include making the plan available to all employers in the state on a guaranteed issue basis. A plan needs to guarantee issue unless an employer's location is not within an insurer's geographic area.
Regulation
An insurer that offers a flexible benefit plan must have the plan approved by the Minnesota Commissioner of Commerce. Once a plan has been approved an insurer can offer it to all employers in the state. The law also states that the commissioner cannot reject a flexible benefit plan because it does not contain a mandated benefit. Flexible benefit plans must comply with the laws that exist for small employer health insurance.
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