Maybe you’ve just made your fifth hire, or a candidate asked what medical benefits you offer. Either way, here’s how to put your first group plan in place without losing a week to it.
Why small companies buy group cover
Most companies buy group insurance for three reasons. It helps them hire and keep good people. It protects employees from large medical bills. And it spares the company from making awkward one-off decisions when someone falls ill.
Some cover is compulsory: work injury compensation insurance for many employees, and medical insurance for Work Permit and S Pass holders. Those have their own rules. This guide is about the benefits most office teams choose to give.
Step 1: Decide what to cover
Start with what would hurt most. For most teams that’s a hospital stay, so group hospital and surgical (GHS) cover comes first. From there, companies usually add covers in roughly this order:
- GP and specialist visits, which employees use most often and notice most.
- Group term life, which pays the family a lump sum if an employee dies, and usually on total and permanent disability.
- Personal accident, which pays on accidental death or disablement and for the medical costs of accidental injuries.
- Dental, a popular extra that costs relatively little.
- Critical illness, which pays a lump sum when an employee is diagnosed with a serious illness.
You don’t need everything on day one. Hospital cover with GP visits is a sound first scheme, and you can add covers at renewal.
Step 2: Choose a level
Each cover comes in levels. For hospital cover the main question is the ward: a 4-bed ward in a public hospital at entry level, a single room in a public hospital in the middle, and a private hospital at the top. For GP visits it’s whether employees pay a small co-payment at the clinic. For term life it’s the sum insured, either a flat amount for everyone or a multiple of salary.
You can give different categories of staff different levels, such as managers and everyone else, as long as the categories follow objective criteria like job grade.
Step 3: Gather what insurers need
For an exact quote, insurers usually ask for:
- Your company name, UEN and industry.
- The number of employees to cover.
- For each employee: age or date of birth, gender, nationality or pass type, and job role.
- Salaries, but only if term life is a multiple of salary.
- Whether you want dependants covered.
- Your current insurer and renewal date, if you already have a plan.
Names and NRIC numbers aren’t needed at the quote stage. Some insurers ask small teams for health declarations, especially for higher sums insured, and they’ll say so when they quote.
Step 4: Compare the details, not just the price
Two plans at a similar price can be quite different. Look at:
- The panel of clinics, and whether there are panel GPs near your office and near where your team lives.
- How pre-existing conditions are treated, which matters most for small groups.
- The ward class or daily room and board limit, and the surgical limit.
- Co-payments at the GP and specialist.
- Age limits, and how the plan covers foreign employees, who aren’t covered by MediShield Life.
Step 5: Set it up and tell your team
Once you accept a quote, you complete the insurer’s proposal and pay the first premium, and the insurer issues the policy. Employees get medical cards or an app. Then take ten minutes to walk your team through it: which clinics to use, what the co-payment is, and who to ask when they’re unsure. Benefits only help with hiring and retention if people know they have them.
What it costs
Premiums depend on the covers, the levels, and your team’s size and ages. Our calculator gives an indicative yearly range for teams of 2 to 200 at three levels, insurer by insurer. It’s an estimate, not a quote. For exact prices, send us your details and we’ll come back with quotes from insurers on our panel within the next working day.
