NEWSLETTER

Below are a couple of excerpts from an information outreach to Brokers which we recently received. You will find it interesting.

News of a coalition between the federal Liberal and NDP has recently surfaced, with the NDP making demands to the Liberals to stay in power with a minority government. Two of which include the Liberals continue to push the national Pharmacare strategy and include universal dental care. Liberals have lightly been moving forward with a Pharmacare strategy but had not considered the dental care option.

“The hardest thing we think advisors need to deal with is what to do until anything happens. These will take YEARS to implement and roll out. COVID has put businesses in a real fight for talent, and the ability to attract and retain talent is crucial right now. So, you have to assess, tweak, and change current benefit offerings to make sure you are competitive in hiring right now. You cannot sit on your hands and wait for 3 or 5 years to see what comes from this. We do not think this is anything new and the need to think about this was already here. COVID has forced many benefits to go digital since workforces are no longer in a physical location. Also, with multiple generations in the workforce, the need for flexibility is at an all-time high. We are seeing a real increase in the need to meet mental health-specific issues as well as have a wellness spending account made available to meet the needs of employees, wherever they are. The use of HSAs, WSAs, Flex Plans, mental health pool of $, telemedicine, and EAPs are all being heavily utilized and added to benefits right now. These are all strategies that come with a pretty stable cost structure (employer chooses what they spend) that can be tweaked as the government rolls out either strategy.”