Employee Benefits
Employee Benefits Solutions for Growing Businesses
Group benefits, Group RRSPs and Health Spending Accounts for businesses across Canada — designed around your team, your people and your budget.
What Employee Benefits Can We Help With?
Whether you run a small business or a larger organization, we take the time to understand your needs and explain your options clearly. Our employee benefits strategies are designed to help you support your team, strengthen your business, and attract and retain key employees. We understand how important good people are to the success of your organization.
That covers designing a plan that fits your budget, going to market to compare what insurers will offer you, handling the setup and employee enrolment, and being the person your team can call when they have a question about a claim. At renewal we review what the plan actually cost and used, and tell you whether it still makes sense.
Group benefits
Provide your employees with health and financial protection that can help give them greater peace of mind, and build benefit plans that support employee well-being and help your business remain competitive.
Group RRSP
A meaningful way to show appreciation for your employees while helping them prepare for their financial future, supporting savings goals with a workplace plan that is simple to understand and easy to participate in.
Health Spending Accounts
A flexible, tax-efficient option that can help business owners and employees, providing a simple benefit solution that can be customized to fit the needs of your business.
What Are Group Benefits?
Group benefits are health and protection coverages an employer provides to its employees under a single plan. Because the group is insured together, employees can usually access coverage more easily and at a lower cost than they could individually.
A typical plan is built from some combination of extended health care, prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, life insurance, disability coverage and an employee assistance program. You decide which of those to include and how the cost is shared between the business and its employees.
Extended health and dental
Prescriptions, paramedical services, vision and dental care — the coverage employees notice and use most.
Life and disability
Group life insurance plus short- and long-term disability coverage to protect employees’ income.
Employee assistance
Confidential counselling and support services for employees and, in most plans, their families.
How Does a Group RRSP Work?
A Group RRSP is a collection of individual RRSP accounts set up and administered through the workplace. Employees contribute directly from payroll, and many employers choose to match some or all of what an employee puts in.
Because contributions come off payroll, employees receive the tax relief immediately rather than waiting until they file — the deduction is applied at source. Investment options are chosen at the plan level, and administration costs are generally lower than for an individual account because of the group’s size.
The accounts belong to the employees. If someone leaves, their savings go with them. For the business, it is one of the more straightforward ways to help a team save without taking on the obligations that come with a registered pension plan.
What Is a Health Spending Account?
A Health Spending Account, or HSA, gives each employee a set annual amount to spend on eligible health and dental expenses. They choose what to put it toward, and claims are generally reimbursed tax-free to the employee while remaining a deductible business expense for the employer, subject to Canada Revenue Agency rules.
The appeal for a business is cost certainty: you decide the amount per employee, so the plan cannot exceed what you have budgeted. The appeal for employees is flexibility — one person may use it for orthodontics, another for physiotherapy or new glasses.
An HSA can operate as a standalone benefit for a small team, or alongside a traditional group plan to top up areas where coverage runs out.
Flexible Benefits for Small and Growing Businesses
You do not need a large team to offer benefits. Plans are available for businesses with just a few employees, and starting small is a perfectly reasonable way to begin.
For a business hiring its first employees, an HSA or a focused core plan is often the right starting point — predictable cost, real value to the team, and no complicated administration. As the business grows, coverage can be broadened and a Group RRSP added.
If you already have a plan in place, we are happy to review it. Renewals often pass with an increase that nobody has questioned, and it is worth knowing whether the plan you are paying for is still the right one.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can employee benefits help attract and retain employees?
Benefits are one of the few forms of compensation an employee weighs against a competing offer alongside salary — particularly health, dental and disability coverage, which are expensive and difficult to arrange individually. For a smaller business competing with larger employers for the same people, a solid benefits plan is often what makes an offer comparable.
What type of benefit plan is right for my business?
It depends on the size of your team, your budget and what your people actually need. A very small business often starts with a Health Spending Account for cost certainty. A growing team may want core health and dental with disability coverage. A business focused on long-term retention may add a Group RRSP with an employer match. We will work through the options with you and compare what insurers will offer.
How many employees do I need to set up a group plan?
Fewer than most people expect. Plans are available to businesses with only a small number of employees, and a Health Spending Account can work for a very small team. The right question is usually not whether you are large enough, but which structure fits at your size.
Does the business have to pay the full cost of a group plan?
No. Cost sharing is a design decision. Some employers cover the full premium, others split it with employees, and it is common to fully cover some benefits while sharing the cost of others. How the cost is split also affects the tax treatment of certain benefits, which is worth understanding before the plan is set up.
Can you review the benefits plan we already have?
Yes. Renewals frequently arrive with an increase that goes unquestioned. We can review your current plan, its claims history and what the market would offer, and tell you plainly whether it still makes sense — including when the answer is that you should stay where you are.
Let's start the conversation
Tell us a little about what you are trying to sort out. We will get back to you and suggest a time to talk — no cost, no obligation.
- Call
- 250-851-2727
- info@total-wealth.ca