The more your employees understand about cost-effective health care, the more likely they are to make optimal choices for themselves and your business. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Although your company's benefits plan most directly impacts your employees, many workers are surprisingly uninformed about the details of their own plans. For small businesses, this lack of education can be the difference between big savings and big (and unnecessary) spending. If your advisor doesn't prioritize employee education, however, your workers may continue to be kept in the dark about their own benefits—and the consequences could cost your business thousands of dollars.

When choosing an advisor for your benefits plan, you should always work with one who focuses on educating your employees about their own plan.

Rejecting the norm

Many standards that would be considered outrageous in other industries are perfectly acceptable in the health care industry. For example, not only are annual increases of up to 5 percent considered “good” when applied to benefits, but employers also place their employees in charge of much of that spending. To top it off, those same employees are rarely properly informed about the best way to spend that money.