Employee Benefits

The age discrimination legislation has specific (and potentially costly) implications for companies offering their employees any of the following benefits:

• group income protection (also referred to as permanent health insurance)
• life assurance (death in service benefit)
• critical illness cover
• private medical insurance (both voluntary and company-paid arrangements)

There are three main areas to consider:

1. If any of your policies include a ‘terminal age’ (the age at which the policy expires), you will need to talk to your Employee Benefits specialist about extending cover to the new ‘default’ retirement age of 65.


2. You can no longer restrict membership of an employee benefits scheme on the basis of age. If you do, you will need to change your minimum and maximum entry ages to 16 and 65 respectively to comply.


3. You can no longer restrict membership of a scheme on the basis of length of service after five years. You are still allowed to restrict entry to staff who have worked between one and five years. However, if you want to set the membership entry requirement at more than five years service, you will need to justify this as a proven aid to the business, otherwise it may be deemed to be discriminatory.

Such changes could have a significant impact on the cost of your employee benefit provision. PMI Health Group has specialist consultants who are able to review your current policies, recommend changes to ensure compliance with the new legislation and source the most cost-effective options to meet the needs of your business.

Call Nick Cosh on 01606 352035 for specialist advice and assistance.