{"id":18099,"date":"2020-04-17T09:05:35","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T13:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/news\/canada-life-cutting-group-health-premiums-to-support-canadians-smes-145181"},"modified":"2020-04-17T09:05:35","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T13:05:35","slug":"canada-life-cutting-group-health-premiums-to-support-canadians-smes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2020\/04\/17\/canada-life-cutting-group-health-premiums-to-support-canadians-smes\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada Life cutting group health premiums to support Canadians, SMEs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"alignleft clearfix\">\n<div class=\"wp-caption feature-image alignleft\"> <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"316\" height=\"190\" src=\"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/HealthInsurance-32224272_l-123RF.jpg\" class=\"attachment-feature size-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"123RF.com\/Andriy Popov\" title=\"Canada Life cutting group health premiums to support Canadians, SMEs\"> <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"byline\"> <span>Staff<\/span>&nbsp;|&nbsp;April 17, 2020 <\/p>\n<p>The Canada Life Assurance Co. is cutting its health insurance premiums for its employer-sponsored benefits plans to support small- and medium-sized businesses facing hardship as a result of the&nbsp;coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">\u201cWe recognize that many businesses are challenged right now and we are wholeheartedly committed to supporting them however we can,\u201d said Jeff Macoun, president and chief operating officer at Canada Life, in a press release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">\u201cOver one million Canadians were laid off in March alone and financial insecurity is growing. These premium reductions will give more than 26,000 of our business customers some much-needed financial relief, both to their business and to maintaining valued coverage for their employees. Unlike premium deferrals, these savings do not need to be repaid later and reflect that some health-care service providers have shifted to virtual treatment, while others are offering more limited services.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><strong>Read:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/news\/should-plan-sponsors-shift-their-benefits-plan-spend-during-coronavirus-144870\">Should plan sponsors shift their benefits plan spend during coronavirus?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">The insurer&nbsp;is providing eligible plan sponsors with a 50 per cent reduction in dental premiums and a 20 per cent reduction in vision and extended health-care premiums. The reductions will be applied in May for the month of April and are retroactive to April 1.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Prescription&nbsp;drugs are excluded from the cuts because the services are \u201cessential\u201d and claims numbers haven\u2019t dropped. However, Canada Life said it would continue to reassess those factors on a monthly basis until the pandemic and its impact on claims has ended.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/news\/canada-life-cutting-group-health-premiums-to-support-canadians-smes-145181\">Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Staff&nbsp;|&nbsp;April 17, 2020 The Canada Life Assurance Co. is cutting its health insurance premiums for its employer-sponsored benefits plans to support small- and medium-sized businesses facing hardship as a result of the&nbsp;coronavirus pandemic. \u201cWe&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}