# Health Insurance paid by Employer



## Dinny (8 Nov 2011)

Can anybody make any suggestions here.

My wife who is employed currently pays for our family health Insurance with Quinn Healthcare.

I am involved in a very small limited company as a partner and could therefore get the company to pay for our family health insurance and I would pay the BIK. This works out cheaper when you work everything back to gross.

When I contacted Quinn to ask if it was possible to put the insurance in my company's name they stated that I would need at least 5 employers to set up a company group scheme. They could change the policy into my name instead of my wife's but could only quote me the Net amount after tax relief.

According to the Revenue guidelines if a company pays your heath insurance , it has to pay the gross amount and the employee then has to claim back the tax relief at a later stage.

The only partial solution I can see is to transfer the policy into my name , let the company pay the premium and then pay the BIK myself,  as the result is effectively the same. Theoretically however I have not applied revenue guidlines and for all I know they could determine that I have received a payment from my company and would be liable to PAYE etc on the payment.

Can anybody suggest a way of solving this problem or do I just have to accept that an employer without a company group scheme cannot pay health insurance for its employees.


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## onq (8 Nov 2011)

Dinny said:


> Theoretically however I have not applied revenue guidlines and for all I know they could determine that I have received a payment from my company and would be liable to PAYE etc on the payment.



Why not contact the Revenue directly and ask them?


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## pj111 (8 Nov 2011)

Try a different insurer to Quinn to get a group scheme.

_Patrick_


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## NovaFlare77 (13 Nov 2011)

Dinny, if you haven't done so already, check with Revenue how a company has to pay the gross premium.

It used to that a company would pay the net premium to the insurer and then pay the balance to Revenue with their annual tax returns.

If that's still the case, then you can do as you suggest and have the company pay your policy directly, with them then charging BIK on the gross premium. Your membership certificate shows the total gross premium as well as the final net cost so the company should have all the figures they need from that.

There may be a small complication if anyone on the policy is over 60, because of the way that age bracket gets additional tax relief, but that may not apply in your case.

One other thing to consider if you go ahead as you propose is that there will be no direct communication between your insurer and your employer. So if a payment is missed for some reason, the reminder will go to you and so on. You won't be swamped with stuff, but just bear it in mind, especially if the price increases at renewal or the like.


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