What if your benefit plan could work as hard, and as smart, as your business strategy? Most group benefit plans don’t. Employers, especially those with under 100 employees, often assume every team member must have the same coverage. But compensation isn’t one-size-fits-all, and your benefits strategy shouldn’t be either.
By recognizing and supporting the groups within your group, you can align your benefit plan with your compensation philosophy, enhance retention, and deliver higher perceived value without increasing costs.
Customized benefit plans start with asking the right question
The most important question you can ask your clients or yourself is:
“What are the groups within your group?”
Whether it’s ownership, long-service employees, sales teams, or seasonal staff, each subgroup has distinct roles, value contributions, and needs. Yet many benefit plans treat everyone the same.
Why? Misconceptions. Employers may believe that customized benefits require large headcounts or added complexity. In reality, you can build flexible plan designs for as few as two employees. That’s the power of The Benefits Trust model—small numbers don’t limit big thinking.
Group segmentation lets your plan match how people are paid
Your business already compensates employees differently, and your benefits plan can reflect that. A segmented plan can mirror the compensation structure you’ve carefully built, reinforcing the promise you’ve made to each role in your organization.
The most effective way to reframe the value of a benefits plan is to stop thinking of it as a collection of coverage percentages, and start treating it as a promise between an employer and their employees.
That one word—promise—has emotional weight. It shifts the conversation from transactions to trust. When employers think in those terms, they begin to design benefits that are not only functional, but also aligned with how they value and support their team.
Why owners need a different plan, and how to do it right
Traditional defined benefit plans often frustrate owners. Coverage limits, claim denials, and administrative work feel restrictive. Owners should never pay out of pocket for CRA-eligible expenses, but they often do.
The solution? A 100% unlimited, fully budgeted ASO plan that lets owners “touch it once.” It’s easy to use, tax-efficient, and eliminates the need for juggling cost-plus arrangements, capped HSAs, or redundant receipts. Once business owners experience this model, they quickly realize the value and rarely want to return to traditional structures.
This structure also works for multi-owner businesses, partnerships, and families running multiple companies. Equalization reports, separate invoicing by division, and utilization summaries make it easy to manage on paper and powerful in practice.
Matching benefits to roles, tenure, or contribution
Let’s go beyond owners. Here’s how plan segmentation can align with common business realities:
Management and key employees
These groups often benefit from enhanced dental, broader drug coverage, or adult orthodontics. One employer even created a retention strategy using tiered health care spending accounts that grew with tenure—an idea that’s difficult for competitors to replicate, making it a powerful loyalty tool.
Sales and commissioned staff
Sales teams operate under different incentive structures, and so should their benefits. Tailoring coverage levels, adding paramedical flexibility, or including out-of-country options can align with their value and expectations.
Seasonal and part-time employees
In high-turnover sectors like hospitality or tourism, benefits can be designed to support seasonal workers who return each year. This reduces training costs and improves retention.
Performance-based plan structures
One creative employer tied HCSA allocations to company profitability. In strong years, the plan became richer, reinforcing the company’s shared success model. In year one alone, HCSA deposits grew to $1,400 per employee, and the plan finally felt like it matched the company culture.
Why this matters: the strategic opportunity
Customized plan design isn’t about spending more, but it’s about spending smarter.
- Retention: Employees stay longer when benefits reflect their value.
- Recruitment: Customized plans support competitive employer branding.
- Tax efficiency: Especially for owners, smart design translates to savings.
- Plan satisfaction: A plan designed for real-life usage is one that gets used.
Organizations that build custom plans are less likely to answer the door for competitors offering to “save 10%.” When your plan actually works for you, you’re not looking elsewhere.
Tailored benefits. Simplified administration. Competitive edge.
The Benefits Trust specializes in creating fully customizable group benefit plans. As an independent third-party administrator, we help employers, ranging from 1 to 100+ employees, build flexible plans that align with their business structure, compensation, and growth.
Whether you’re a solo business owner looking for simplicity, a growing firm trying to keep top talent, or a multi-division organization seeking structure across entities, we can build a plan that works for your reality—not someone else’s template.
Schedule a consultation to explore your options.
