Note that as small business owner you can deduct your own / your family health insurance on the front page of 1040 (at least on the current version of the form). So, yes it still costs a lot, but at least you're not taxed on that.
Look into "association" coverage groups. Get an insurance broker who will do the digging for you. A former firm of which I was director / shareholder / employee joined a construction-related association and thus had access to their plans; much larger total pool, many of those covered were younger construction workers and thus helped bring the costs down. Company policy was to pay 90% of the individual coverage amount; to add family members came out of the paycheck, pre-tax, but at least at the rate of the greater pool.
Do you make any contribution toward anyone's health insurance costs, as an action by the firm? If yes, does the person covered by their spouse's insurance get the difference in cash?
We were able to offer two tiers of plans; one that was fairly loaded, the other a Health Savings Account plan. Everyone with spouses covered by other insurance took the "better" plan, which was the one that the 90% was calculated on. Everyone else, mostly, took the HSA because they could stretch that 90% amount to cover part of spouse or dependents.
The time to have the broker start researching plans for you is about August ... may not have the final premium amounts then, but they can see which way the wind is blowing.
And you will look on in disbelief when they tell you "such a deal we found for you - your rates are only going up 12% when the average in this state is 17%".
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Joel Niemi AIA
Joel Niemi Architect
Snohomish, WA
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-01-2017 17:55
From: Michael Waechter
Subject: Health Insurance
So, how is everyone set for health insurance for 2018? I have a three person firm in Chicago and for the past several years we've bought individual plans through the market. One of us has insurance through their spouse's company plan, but the rest of us are freaking out over the costs coming next year. What are the creative ways in which people are obtaining health insurance (other than by simply throwing money at it)?
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Michael Waechter
Architect
Waechter Architects, PC
Chicago IL
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