August 2022 Newsletter

IAG HealthWrap: Providing Benefits to Lower Paid Employees

Do you have employees who are unable to afford a traditional healthcare plan? Fortunately, Horizon Payroll Solutions has risen to the challenge of offering a health plan that’s actually affordable! 

Working with PayrollPlans’ HealthWrap, we’re able to provide your employees a discounted, non-major medical plan that allows an unlimited number of telemedicine visits. This one perk alone may be worth the $21 a week that your employees will pay for a policy that covers just themselves. They can also opt to pay more to cover their spouse and/or dependents. 

Plan Features: 

• No co-pays or deductibles 
• Guaranteed issue and no waiting periods 
• Your premium is deducted from your payroll 
• Perfect for people who don’t need/can’t afford major medical coverage
• Large network of providers to choose from 
• Dependent coverage available 
• Options for ancillary care
• Options for dental, accident, life, and critical illness 

One of the best benefits of choosing HealthWrap is the fact that you don’t have to meet a deductible to receive care! When you consider the fact that 84% of employees never meet their healthcare plans deductible, HealthWrap becomes much more appealing to lower income workers and those who have enjoyed good health throughout their lives. 

Employees can utilize HealthWrap to get eight office visits a year, along with six visits to the lab, and three x-ray sessions. They’ll also be given one ambulance ride annually, two days in the emergency room, one surgical procedure, and much more! Each of these benefits has a cap, so the employee may end up with a bill. However, even if they are billed, it will be for a much lower amount than it would have been otherwise. For instance, HealthWrap pays up to $500 per day for emergency room care. 

We’re proud to offer HealthWrap to your workers because everyone deserves access to quality healthcare! 

The Truth About Overtime Pay

Put simply, overtime is owed to an employee who works more than 40 hours per week. Unfortunately, there’s nothing simple about overtime laws, which dictate who will receive overtime pay and in what circumstances. 

Straight off the bat, employees are listed in two different categories: exempt and non-exempt. Exempt employees are not eligible for overtime pay. To be exempt, a worker must be a white-collar worker (unless they fall under the list below). In other words, their job needs to fit into an administrative, executive, or professional position. Additionally, they must make at least $684 weekly, and this salary may not be docked unless special criteria is met. 

Employers who are covered by FLSA and/or conduct their work in “interstate commerce” are required by law to provide overtime pay to non-exempt workers. There may also be a state-specific law that governs overtime pay. 

As you can see, most people will be eligible to receive overtime pay. The following workers, however, are not eligible. 

• Professional, administrative, and executive level employees paid on a salary basis
• Volunteers 
• Independent contractors 
• Some computer specialists who make at least $27.63 per hour 
• Employees of a seasonal business 
• Employees of religious, nonprofit, or an organized camp that operates for less than seven months per year 
• Employees of certain small newspapers
• Newspaper deliverers 
• Employees who work in a fishing operation 
• Small farm employees
• Seaman
• Some switchboard operators 
• Criminal investigators 
• People who provide companionship to another (nursing care, personal aide, and home aides are an exception)
• Domestic babysitters 

Making sure you pay overtime correctly is a very big deal. Failure to do so can result in a $1,000 fine per day. When you consider the usual cost of overtime pay, it makes much more sense to simply pay your employees what they’ve earned. 

If you find that you are unable to cover the cost of overtime pay, it is up to you to institute a no-overtime policy and be sure to stick with it. Remember: if a non-exempt worker goes over 40 hours by even as little 15 minutes, you must pay overtime. 

Fraud and Email Hacking: Is Your Company Protected?

In 2018, US businesses suffered tremendously due to email hacks. The total combined money that was lost to this insidious practice was almost $1.3 billion. Even worse, this represented almost double what was lost in 2017. This means that email hackers have placed a major emphasis on their crimes, and there’s no end in sight. 

There have been thousands and thousands of email hacks. None hit quite as badly as the top 15, though. Sitting firmly in spot number one is Yahoo. With 3 billion accounts compromised back in 2013, it’s easy to see how this particular hack could have completely ruined Yahoo’s reputation. Fortunately, the hackers were unable to access the passwords, payment card, and bank data information. Still, it cost Yahoo a lot of money when Verizon took over. 

Protecting your company against an insidious attack should be security priority number one. There are several different methods you should put into place, including: 

• Don’t share information about your employees, customers, or business processes online 
• Provide regular training and updates about phishing and other email scams
• Introduce multi factor authentication for remote and cloud-based email access
• Financial transactions should have dual authorization policies 
• Best practices and social media policies that feature up to the minute security protocols

Aside from compromising your business and potentially costing tons of money, there’s also the human side of email hacks. If cybercriminals are successful, they’ll steal money from anyone’s information they were able to steal. This could cause significant damage to your company’s reputation, especially if the hackers cause identity theft alerts for several people. 

To make sure you’re truly protected, you’ll want to consider purchasing cyber insurance for your company. Although this can’t protect your reputation, it can help minimize the damage caused by cybercriminals. Additionally, put all the tips above in place to make these criminals less likely to succeed in the first place. 

Are Employees Entitled to Vacation Time?

It may be surprising, but there’s no law that mandates any type of vacation pay. The vast majority of full-time workers receive vacation time, but there’s a lot of leeway regarding how this time accrues, who is eligible, and when employees can use vacation time. For instance, unless you’re a full-time worker, there is absolutely no legal provision that requires you to earn vacation days.

Vacation accruals and caps are largely determined by each individual company. Whether an employer provides 10 days of vacation time at the start of each year or requires you to put in a certain amount of work to earn them is entirely up to the company you work for.

There are some states that don’t allow employers to institute a “use it or lose it” policy. Therefore, unused vacation time must be paid out to the employee. Any type of policy that takes away vacation time is considered wage theft in these states.

Does your company put restrictions in place regarding when people may use their vacation time? This is extremely common and is not illegal. It doesn’t matter if you don’t allow people to take a vacation during your busy season or if you require a month’s notice to get a paid break. After all, the fact that you’re offering vacation time at all is considered to be a win for your employees.

About half of all states require that unused vacation time be paid out if an employee quits or is fired. Check with your state’s labor department to ensure you know exactly what the rules are when you offer vacation time.