Supporting Canadian Employers · Established 2000
In a traditional plan, the employer purchases insured coverage on behalf of employees, transferring much of the financial risk for eligible claims to the insurance provider.
At Health Risk Services Inc., we look at your corporate benefits through a completely different lens. We look at your Employee Benefits Plan as a vibrant canvas, not a stack of dusty insurance forms. To truly understand your corporate masterpiece, we need to look at all of the various brush strokes or products that are at play.
In a competitive corporate marketplace, a Fully Insured Traditional Benefit Plan remains the gold-standard foundation for employee security and long-term peace of mind. For many organizations, particularly businesses seeking to provide extensive, robust protection for large teams, the traditional model delivers definitive safety nets that spread financial risks over reliable, industry-wide pools.
At Health Risk Services Inc., we seamlessly combine our advanced Insurance Brokerage capabilities with our bespoke Third-Party Administration (TPA) expertise. This dual approach ensures your business accesses premier Canadian risk underwriters with highly optimized premiums, consistent management, and sustainable, long-term pricing.
When your employee benefits packages are thoughtfully engineered, they stop being a cold, premium-draining corporate expense. Instead, they transform into a vibrant, dynamic work of art—a powerful tool for workforce attraction, long-term employee retention, a thriving company culture, and bulletproof balance sheet health.
Step into a new era of employee care built on intentional, creative plan design. Explore the distinct style of brushstrokes we use to paint your customized benefits masterpiece and sit back and enjoy your healthy and happy employees!
In the Canadian corporate marketplace, a Traditional Benefits Plan is a fully insured, employer-sponsored healthcare model structured around a “defined benefit” framework [CRA]. Under this setup, an organization secures a fixed, pre-packaged “square box” of specific medical, dental, and insurance coverages from a commercial insurance carrier. In exchange, the corporation pays a fixed monthly retail premium to the underwriter for every employee on the payroll, regardless of whether those employees actually use the benefits.
Traditional benefit designs are contractually split into two distinct operational engines:
While traditional plans provide absolute peace of mind against catastrophic medical crises, they carry significant financial inefficiencies for modern businesses:
or physiotherapy is stuck with the exact same dental and vision restrictions as a parent with a large family, resulting in underutilized capital and frustration.
At Health Risk Services Inc., we believe in taking a creative approach to traditional benefits planning. We don’t believe in forcing your business into a dull, cookie-cutter template. Instead of letting a passive insurance company simply administer your plan, we help you manage and optimize it like a true work of art—your corporate “Mona Lisa.”
When painting your corporate benefits masterpiece, the first and most critical brushstrokes we lay down are your Core Insured Benefits. These are your non-deferrable risk pools—the heavy-duty financial shields engineered to transfer extreme, unpredictable liabilities entirely away from your company’s balance sheet and pass them to a third-party risk underwriter.
In the traditional insurance market, standard out-of-the-box brokers treat these products like fixed, unyielding items on a generic checklist. At Health Risk Services Inc., we look beneath the surface.
We unbundle these catastrophic layers so your business can swap volatile financial exposure for a stable, 100% tax-deductible operational expense, all while securing an ironclad safety net for your workforce.
A detailed look at the core insured products we use to frame your corporate security:
Group Life Insurance provides a foundational financial safety net, delivering tax-free lump-sum capital to an employee’s designated beneficiaries in the event of their passing.
In the traditional insurance market, standard out-of-the-box brokers treat these products like fixed, unyielding items on a generic checklist. At Health Risk Services Inc., we look beneath the surface.
We unbundle these catastrophic layers so your business can swap volatile financial exposure for a stable, 100% tax-deductible operational expense, all while securing an ironclad safety net for your workforce.
Benefit Structure Options
Flat Amount: Every employee receives an identical benefit ceiling (e.g., $50,000 or $100,000).
Salary-Linked Multiplier: Calculated as a direct multiple of earnings (e.g., 1x or 2x annual salary) up to an overall policy cap (e.g., $250,000).
The Non-Evidence Limit (NEL)
This is a critical contractual threshold. Underwriters approve a set volume of coverage (e.g., $150,000) automatically without requiring medical underwriting or health questionnaires. Staff requiring amounts exceeding the NEL must submit a Statement of Health for approval.
Tax Framework
Under Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) guidelines, employer-paid premiums for group life insurance constitute a taxable benefit to the employee under Section 6(1)(a). The premium value must be added to year-end T4 earnings (Box 14) and is subject to provincial premium taxes [CRA].
This rider extends basic life insurance protection to an employee’s immediate family unit, covering spontaneous funeral, legal, and final transition overhead.
It provides employees with an additional financial safety net when the unexpected loss of a spouse or dependent child creates immediate expenses for the family.
Coverage is typically structured as a straightforward, flat benefit that applies consistently across the workforce.
Benefit Structure Options
Typically issued as a modest, flat-rate structure across the entire workforce (e.g., $10,000 for a legal spouse and $5,000 flat per dependent child).
Insured Risk Isolation
Coverage automatically maps to all eligible dependents without requiring individual names or health reporting metrics on the day-to-day corporate census.
Tax Framework
Similar to employee life coverage, employer-funded premiums for dependent life insurance are categorized as a taxable personal benefit for the employee, tracked through standard payroll deduction logs.
AD&D acts as a vital financial shield alongside standard life policies, supplying specialized benefit payouts if an employee experiences an accidental loss of life, limbs, speech, hearing, or sight. It provides an additional layer of financial protection when a serious accident results in death or a life-altering physical loss.
Benefits are paid according to the severity of the covered loss, helping provide financial support for the employee or their beneficiaries during an unexpected and difficult transition.
The Principal Sum
AD&D benefits typically mirror the Group Life Insurance volume. If an employee has $100,000 in Life Insurance, they carry a $100,000 AD&D Principal Sum.
The Loss Schedule
Payouts are governed by a strict contractual percentage grid:
Accidental Loss of Life: Pays 100% of the Principal Sum (doubling the total payout to the beneficiary if combined with standard Life coverage).
Loss of Multiple Limbs or Total Blindness: Pays 100% of the Principal Sum to the surviving employee to fund immediate home modifications or rehabilitation.
Loss of One Arm/Leg or Single EyeSight: Pays a partitioned percentage (e.g., 50% or 75%).
Tax Framework
Unlike core life insurance, premium payments made by an employer for a standard group AD&D policy do not constitute a taxable benefit to the employee, making them highly tax efficient.
STD bridges the immediate income gap if a non-occupational injury, mental health crisis, or significant illness temporarily prevents an employee from performing their core duties.
It provides employees with continued financial support during shorter periods away from work, helping them manage essential household expenses while they focus on recovery.
This coverage also creates a structured bridge between an employee’s last day worked and either their return to work or, when necessary, the transition to Long-Term Disability benefits.
Benefit Scale
Designed to replace a percentage of gross weekly earnings (typically 60% to 66.67%) up to a specified maximum cap (e.g., $1,000 per week), ensuring basic family liquidity is preserved.
The Elimination Period
A brief waiting window before cash disbursements activate, discouraging casual absenteeism while protecting the pool (e.g., 0 days for an accident, 7 days for a sudden illness).
Duration Cap
Standard contracts limit the active payout window to 15, 17, or 26 weeks, at which point a long-term claims engine must take over.
Tax Framework
The taxability of the payout checks matches who funds the plan:
Taxable Payouts: If the employer pays any portion of the premium, the weekly benefit checks received by the employee are fully taxable income.
Tax-Free Payouts: If the plan is structured so that employees pay 100% of the premium out of after-tax payroll deductions, the benefit checks are 100% tax-free.
LTD secures critical, extended income replacement for individuals facing prolonged, multi-year medical absences from the workforce due to injury, severe illness, mental health conditions, or catastrophic accidents.
It provides an ongoing financial lifeline when an employee is unable to return to work for an extended period, helping protect their ability to meet everyday financial obligations.
Unlike Short-Term Disability, LTD is designed for longer and potentially life-changing absences, with coverage that can continue for several years or, depending on the plan design, to age 65.
Benefit Scale
Replaces a compressed percentage of baseline monthly income (typically 60% or 66.67%) up to a hard contract ceiling (e.g., $5,000 or $10,000 per month).
Definition of Disability Window
Own Occupation (First 24 Months): Benefits are paid if the individual cannot perform the exact duties of their current specific role.
Any Occupation (Post-24 Months): Payouts continue past 2 years only if the medical evidence proves the individual cannot work in any job that reasonably matches their education, training, and experience levels.
Duration Limit
Payout reserves are engineered to maintain ongoing monthly distributions until the employee reaches 2 years, 5 years or age 65, passes away, or successfully completes rehabilitation.
Tax Framework
To maximize employee protection, it is recommended to structure LTD as a 100% employee-paid benefit. This ensures that if a catastrophic life event occurs, the multi-year income checks arrive in the employee’s bank account completely tax-free.
A mandatory catastrophic rider attached to Extended Health Care (EHC) systems to insulate an organization against massive international healthcare tracking overhead.
It provides employees with critical protection when a sudden illness or medical emergency occurs while travelling outside their home province or country.
With international medical costs potentially reaching significant levels, this coverage helps protect employees from substantial unexpected expenses while providing access to emergency hospital care, medical treatment and, when required, transportation back to Canada.
Coverage Ceiling
Typically, structurally capped at a massive, multi-million-dollar lifetime or per-incident ceiling (e.g., $5,000,000 per individual).
Operational Parameters
Covers sudden, unexpected emergency medical care arising during temporary personal or business travel outside of an employee’s home province or country. It handles immediate hospital clearings, physician fees, intensive care room tracking, and high-cost emergency air ambulance evacuations back to a Canadian clinical environment.
Duration Limits
Restricted by trip length parameters (e.g., individual trips must not exceed 30, 60, or 90 consecutive days).
Tax Framework
Employer premium allocations for emergency travel medical riders are integrated directly into the standard EHC line item, remaining completely tax-free to the employee across all provinces except Quebec.
| Rank | Benefit Coverage Line | Corporate Tax Treatment (Employer) | Employee Premium Tax Status (Federal CRA) | Employee Payout Tax Status (Reimbursements/Checks) | Tax Efficiency Classification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Emergency Out-of-Country Travel Medical | 100% Deductible as a Business Operating Expense | Tax-Free Benefit (Exempt under CRA guidelines)* | 100% Tax-Free Payout | Tier 1: Maximum Efficiency (Completely tax-free corporate asset) |
| 2 | Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D) | 100% Deductible as a Business Operating Expense | Tax-Free Benefit (Exempt under CRA guidelines) | 100% Tax-Free Payout to employee or beneficiary | Tier 1: Maximum Efficiency (Completely tax-free corporate asset) |
| 3 | Long-Term Disability (LTD) (Employee-Paid Structure) | Not Applicable (Funded 100% via payroll deduction) | Tax-Free Benefit (Paid out of employee's after-tax income) | 100% Tax-Free Monthly Check | Tier 2: Optimized Protected Structure (Protects long-term income from taxes) |
| 4 | Short-Term Disability (STD) (Employee-Paid Structure) | Not Applicable (Funded 100% via payroll deduction) | Tax-Free Benefit (Paid out of employee's after-tax income) | 100% Tax-Free Weekly Check | Tier 2: Optimized Protected Structure (Protects short-term income from taxes) |
| 5 | Short-Term Disability (STD) (Employer-Paid Structure) | 100% Deductible as a Business Operating Expense | Tax-Free Benefit while employed | Fully Taxable Income (Subject to standard income tax deductions) | Tier 3: Deferred Tax Exposure (Tax-free today, but payouts are heavily taxed) |
| 6 | Group Life Insurance | 100% Deductible as a Business Operating Expense | Taxable Benefit under Section 6(1)(a) (Must report on T4 Box 14/Code 42) | 100% Tax-Free Lump-Sum paid to the beneficiary | Tier 4: Sub-Optimized Structure (Creates an annual personal tax footprint) |
| 7 | Dependent Life Insurance | 100% Deductible as a Business Operating Expense | Taxable Benefit under Section 6(1)(a) (Must report on T4 Box 14) | 100% Tax-Free Lump-Sum paid to the employee | Tier 4: Sub-Optimized Structure (Creates an annual personal tax footprint) |
| 8 | Critical Illness Insurance | 100% Deductible as a Business Operating Expense | Taxable Benefit under Section 6(1)(a) (Must report on T4 Box 14) | 100% Tax-Free Lump-Sum paid to the living employee | Tier 4: Sub-Optimized Structure (Creates an annual personal tax footprint) |
*Note on Provincial Variations: While Emergency Out-of-Country Travel Medical premiums are exempt from federal income tax across Canada, the province of Quebec treats employer-paid health premiums as a provincial taxable benefit on the year-end Relevé 1 slip.
While our core Insured Benefits (like Life Insurance and Long-Term Disability) act as your ultimate financial shield—transferring catastrophic, worst-case risks entirely away from your balance sheet—Experience-Based Benefits are the living, breathing lines that handle every day, high-probability healthcare maintenance.
Here in Canada, these everyday lines—specifically Prescription Drugs, Extended Health Care (EHC), and Dental Services—operate on a highly reactive engine. They are priced strictly on your workforce’s real-time, actual usage metrics. It’s simple arithmetic that traditional carriers love to hide behind: the more your employees claim, the more your future premiums escalate. If you aren’t paying attention, you’ll slide right into the standard retail renewal trap!
But don’t worry, we don’t do “cookie-cutter” templates here unless you want us to. We take pride in thinking “outside of the box” to put the control back in your hands. Let’s look beneath the surface with a detailed operational, architectural, and financial breakdown of each Experience-Based line, so you can see exactly how to turn everyday claims into a capital-efficient work of art.
A detailed look at the core insured products we use to frame your corporate security:
Prescription drug coverage absorbs the costs of medications required to treat acute illnesses or manage chronic health conditions. In the Canadian benefits market, this line is the single largest cost driver and experiences the highest claim velocity.
Co-Insurance and Copay Structures
Plans rarely cover 100% of drug costs out-of-the-box. Instead, cost-sharing mechanics are put in place to manage utilization:
Formularies and Cost Containment Engines
Carriers use structured lists, or formularies, to dictate which drugs are eligible for reimbursement:
Tax Framework
Under federal CRA regulations, employer-paid premiums for prescription drug coverage are a 100% tax-free benefit to the employee. Reimbursements received at the pharmacy are completely untaxed.
Extended Health Care acts as a broad safety net designed to absorb the costs of diagnostic, therapeutic, and medical devices that are not funded by provincial government healthcare plans (such as AHCIP in Alberta or MSP in BC).
Paramedical Specialist Matrix
This module allocates fixed, annual maximum allowances per registered practitioner classification. Standard EHC templates allocate allowances in one of two ways:
Per-Specialist Cap: A flat limit per practitioner type (e.g., up to $500 per calendar year for a Registered Massage Therapist [RMT], $500 for a Chiropractor, and $500 for a Physiotherapist).
Combined Paramedical Pool: A unified maximum pool (e.g., $1,200 total per year) that the employee can split across any combination of eligible therapists based on their personal physical recovery needs.
Vision Care Modules
Covers routine vision maintenance and correction. This is typically structured as a flat maximum amount available once every 24 consecutive months for adults (or every 12 months for dependent children):
Medical Equipment & Supplies (Durable Medical Equipment)
Insulates employees from the heavy out-of-pocket costs of medically necessary assistive devices. Reimbursement requires a formal physician’s prescription and is bound to strict frequency limits (e.g., once every 3 to 5 years):
Tax Framework
Federal treatment matches prescription drugs: employer-paid premiums are a 100% tax-deductible operational expense for the business and remain 100% tax-free income to the employee.
A structural dental framework ensures employees maintain regular diagnostic and therapeutic oral health practices. Corporate claims are heavily governed by Provincial Dental Association Fee Guides, which set the standardized maximum cost for individual procedure codes each year.
Basic & Preventative Services
Focuses on routine maintenance and early intervention to keep oral health stable.
Major Restorative Services
Covers high-tier, complex structural work required when tooth enamel or internal structures break down heavily.
Orthodontic Services
Specialized alignment treatments for structural jaw and teeth corrections.
Tax Framework
Employer-paid dental premiums are 100% tax-free to the employee across all provinces (except Quebec provincial income tax) and completely tax-deductible for the corporation.
Because Prescription Drugs, EHC, and Dental are Experience-Based, traditional insurance underwriters execute an Experience Rating Audit during your annual renewal cycle.
For example,if your 50 employees pay $100,000 in traditional health premiums, but an employee’s child requires a high-cost biologic drug and your total claims velocity reaches $130,000, your Loss Ratio hits 130%. Because standard commercial carriers target a loss ratio of roughly 70%, they will issue an aggressive, compounding premium hike (often 20% to 40%+) for the upcoming contract year to recoup their losses.
This experience-rated volatility is exactly why forward-thinking Canadian corporations look to Health Risk Services Inc. to unbundle these lines.
By moving routine dental cleanings, paramedical care, and vision checks out of the traditional insurance pool and placing them into a defined-contribution Health Spending Account (HSA), or an ASO Plan, you eliminate insurer administrative premium markups. You cap your maximum exposure to a fixed dollar amount, pay only for what your staff actually claims, and completely protect your business from compounding renewal traps.
See how a traditional fully insured plan compares with a self-directed ASO/HSA model through both a low-claims year and a high-claims year.
At Health Risk Services, we believe your employee benefits plan shouldn’t just be an off-the-shelf insurance package—it should be an absolute masterpiece. While our core Insured Benefits insulate your business from catastrophic risks and our Experience-Based lines handle routine family medical care, Optional Benefits are the vibrant brushstrokes that transform a basic “square box” template into your corporate “Mona Lisa.”
By designing a highly customized, multi-layered benefit architecture, you step outside the traditional box and unlock extraordinary creative freedom. Introducing these optional modules does more than elevate your compensation package into an exceptional talent magnet—it grants your workforce exclusive access to high-value financial, wellness, and lifestyle tools. Your team gains the immense power of corporate group volume discounts that they simply cannot secure on the open retail market, all while your business retains flawless control over its budget. Let’s start sketching your masterpiece by integrating some of the top Canadian Optional Benefits:
Extend your traditional benefits plan with added options that give employees more choice, greater flexibility and additional support for their health, finances and everyday well-being.
An EFAP is a proactive, short-term counseling and referral service designed to support employees facing personal, mental health, or work-related challenges before they escalate into costly disability leaves.
What It Contains
Direct, 24/7 confidential access to registered clinical psychologists, marriage and family counselors, financial advisors, and legal experts.
The Operational Value
It focuses heavily on early intervention. Employees can access text-based, virtual, or in-person mental health counseling completely bypassed from management visibility.
Tax Framework
Employer-paid premiums for an EFAP are completely tax-free to the employee under CRA guidelines and are a 100% deductible business expense.
This module allows individual employees to purchase additional life insurance coverage on top of the standard corporate group baseline, using the employer’s discounted corporate group volume rates.
What It Contains
Staff members can buy coverage increments (typically in blocks of $10,000 up to a maximum cap like $500,000) for themselves or their legal spouses.
The Key Distinction
Unlike the basic plan’s Non-Evidence Limit (NEL), Optional Life almost always requires the employee to complete a full medical Statement of Health questionnaire for the underwriter’s review before coverage is bound.
Tax Framework
This is typically structured as an employee-paid benefit via after-tax payroll deductions, creating zero personal tax footprint or tracking burden for the corporate payroll clerk.
Like optional life insurance, this allows employees to scale up their catastrophic lump-sum cash protection to insulate their personal finances against specific life-altering medical diagnoses.
What It Contains
Gives employees the option to secure an additional $25,000 to $100,000+ in living-benefit lump-sum coverage. If an employee suffers a stroke or heart attack, surviving the 30-day contract window triggers a tax-free cash payout.
The Operational Value
Employees secure robust protection at group rates that are significantly lower than private individual retail policies, with simplified medical screening questionnaires.
Adding a capital-wealth accumulation engine directly alongside your health benefits creates a holistic compensation package that addresses long-term financial well-being.
What It Contains
Employees authorize automatic payroll deductions to fund a Group RRSP or a Group Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA).
The Corporate Matching Mechanism
Employers maximize engagement by introducing a matching incentive (e.g., the company matches 100% of employee contributions up to 3% to 5% of their base salary).
Tax Framework
Group RRSP payroll contributions immediately lower the employee’s gross taxable income at the source on each pay cycle, meaning they realize their tax refund on every paycheck rather than waiting until spring tax filing. Employer matches constitute a taxable benefit but are offset immediately by the corresponding RRSP contribution receipt.
A high-utility digital optional add-on that reduces workplace absenteeism by granting staff members instant, mobile-app access to Canadian healthcare practitioners.
What It Contains
On-demand, 24/7 text and video consultations with nurse practitioners, family physicians, and care coordinators.
The Operational Value
Employees can text a doctor from their desk to secure a routine prescription refill, review a minor pediatric issue, or obtain a medical note, completely eliminating the need to take a half-day off work to sit in a physical local walk-in clinic.
Tax Framework
Treated as an extension of the Extended Health Care (EHC) framework, meaning it is a 100% tax-free benefit to the employee.
If a company chooses to keep their traditional fully insured package, they can add a lean Health Spending Account as an optional “top-up” rider to inject flexibility into the plan.
What It Contains
The employer deposits a modest, fixed defined-contribution amount (e.g., $500/year) into a digital HSA wrapper for each employee.
The Operational Value
This acts as a financial release valve. If an employee burns through their traditional plan’s $500 massage therapy cap or faces a costly dental co-payment, they can use their HSA top-up to pay the remaining balance completely tax-free, eliminating out-of-pocket friction.
Why limit your corporate vision to a black-and-white photocopy when you can hand your team a vibrant palette to paint their own path?
At Health Risk Services Inc., we think way “outside the box” to give your business the ultimate financial leverage. Adding these optional modules allows you to engineer a highly competitive compensation profile without trapping your organization into massive, non-evidence fixed premium costs. Think of it as adding custom layers to your benefits masterpiece: by structuring smart options like Optional Life or Group RRSP engines, you pass premier corporate volume discounts straight down to your workforce.
This creative architecture lets employers fund, scale, and tailor their benefit packages to match their employees stages of life—whether they are young and healthy, families that are growing or aged employees whose vision is on retirement. HRS provides the high-value canvas and you the employer, designs the coverage – your bottom line stays perfectly framed. Let’s make your plan a true “Mona Lisa”!
We’ll walk you through how it works, what it costs, and how it can be structured for your team.
A traditional group benefits plan provides employees with a defined package of insured benefits, which may include life insurance, disability coverage, prescription drugs, extended health care, dental care and other forms of protection. The employer pays premiums to an insurance carrier, which assumes responsibility for eligible claims according to the terms of the policy.
Plans can include Group Life Insurance, Dependent Life, AD&D, Short- and Long-Term Disability, Critical Illness, prescription drugs, Extended Health Care, dental coverage and emergency out-of-country medical insurance. Employers can also add options such as an EFAP, virtual care, Optional Life, retirement savings programs and Health Spending Accounts.
No. Premium costs can generally be shared between the employer and employees. How those costs are divided can also have important tax implications, particularly for disability benefits, so the contribution structure should be considered as part of the overall plan design.
It depends on the benefit and how it is funded. Many employer-paid health and dental benefits are generally tax-free to employees outside Quebec, while employer-paid Group Life premiums are generally considered a taxable benefit. Disability benefits have additional tax considerations based on who pays the premiums.
Yes. Coverage levels, deductibles, co-insurance, maximums, eligibility rules and optional benefits can all be used to shape a plan around the needs of the organization and its employees. A traditional plan does not have to be an off-the-shelf package.
Yes. An existing plan can be reviewed for coverage design, costs, claims experience, funding structure and areas where the plan may be unnecessarily expensive or restrictive. This can also identify opportunities to restructure specific benefits rather than replacing the entire plan.
We CARE about insisting that your plan stays current with CRA guidelines.
We CARE about providing you with all the proper plan implementation documents for your corporation to ensure compliance with CRA.
We CARE about ensuring quick turnaround times for your claims.
We CARE about providing you with the convenience of direct deposit for your reimbursements.
We CARE about ensuring you are kept up to date on any legislation changes that may affect your Health Spending Accounts.
