Benefits & Pension Plans

Employee Benefits Plans

The Step Benefits Group offers specialized consulting services, as it pertains to all your employee benefits plan needs.

Designing a truly effective benefits plan calls for a full understanding of your organization, creative thinking and knowledge of all the alternatives that are available. The Step Process™ allows our consultants to understand all factors internal and external to your company that help us arrive at the optimal benefit plan design.

Designing and reviewing a plan need not be invasive or time consuming but it can reap tremendous benefits to your organization.

The key to a successful benefits plan starts with gaining an understanding of the current program. The Step Benefits Group will identify all areas of your plan that could contribute to future unexpected costs and also provide for future savings opportunities.

Services:

• Creating benefit plans that are cost-effective and sustainable
• Full market reviews
• Annual renewal negotiations
• Plan design and cost containment strategies to minimize financial risk
• Developing managed care programs to manage health, dental, short and long-term disability claims
• Proactive claims reporting
• Solutions to meet regulatory, governance and administrative objectives
• Assisting in union environments with collective agreements and negotiations
• Health Care Spending Accounts
• Health and Welfare Trusts
• Employee Assistance Plans
• Wellness Plans
• Sick Leave policy and procedure development

Employee Pension Plans

The pension environment has certainly changed. It will continue to shift rather dramatically in years to come. Traditional Defined Benefit plans are being replaced with less costly Defined Contribution, Deferred Profit Sharing and Group Registered Retirement Savings Plans.

Finding “best value” solutions can be a challenge for any employer facing choices around: plan design, providers of group retirement products, contribution formulae, investment fund “menu” etc. By balancing employee and employer requirements, we create plans that are both robust and flexible in nature.

We believe that continuous dialogue, innovation and evaluation are paramount to the continued success of any Group Retirement Savings Plan.

Services:

• Competitive analyses
• Managing the development and introduction of pension programs to your employees or members
• Establishing plan governance criteria
• Monitoring investments and assisting with investment manager searches
• Presentations to senior management, plan trustees and employees/members
• Developing employee/member communications including printed, electronic, web-based and one-on-one communications programs
• Providing individual financial services including personal retirement income planning, life insurance, estate planning or other needs

Executive Benefits Plans & Services

Key employees and in particular executives are integral to the success of your organization. Good ones are hard to find and even harder to keep. The Step Benefits Group will work with you in conjunction with some of the finest tax and legal minds available to develop a specialized executive retention package that understands the requirements of your key employees, aligns them with the best interests of your company and ensures tax effectiveness for both the company and the executive.

Services:

• Key Person Protection
• Buy-Sell Funding
• Business Loan Protection
• Succession Planning
• Executive Disability Programs
• Supplementary Retirement Compensation Arrangements
• Extended Group Coverage
• Executive Medical Programs
• Investment Counselling
• Retirement and Estate Planning

Individual Insurance Plans

The Step Benefits Group specializes in Individual Financial Services that are exactly that – individual in approach. People have busy professional and personal lives, and they need help with understanding and addressing their personal or family’s financial needs.

We work to analyze each unique situation, and to design a customized strategy to help our clients achieve their financial goals often times exceeding expectations. All of plans guarantee the most tax-efficient approach.

We select the best products from a wide variety of financial institutions and this comes as a result of our guarantee that we are an independent organization, advocating for you and building long lasting client relationships.

Services:

• Cash Value Participating Life Insurance
• Universal Life Insurance
• Term Life Insurance
• Critical Illness Insurance
• Long-Term Care Insurance
• Disability Income Replacement Insurance
• Mortgage Insurance
• Out of Canada Travel Plans
• Individual Health and Dental Care Plans