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Dental insurance is an insurance policy that will pay specified amounts of money, usually a portion of the costs, to cover dental and oral hygiene expenses or treatments for covered employees and their dependents. Employer-provided dental insurance policies offer employees many different options for insurance coverage. Employer-provided dental insurance policies vary in their approaches to coverage. Dental insurance is becoming an expected employee benefit from an employer of choice.
Various dental insurance plans are available for employers to offer to employees. Dental insurance plans are designed to help cover the costs employees experience in obtaining necessary dental care. Dental insurance plans generally cover $1000-1350 in dental care costs annually.
Employees can expect that their percentage of the cost of dental services will increase based on the cost of the dental service provided. Dental insurance typically covers the cost of cleaning and other maintenance treatments but only 50-80% of the cost of more expensive services.
Generally, dental insurance plans specify coverage limits on the number of visits to dentists, the number of X-rays taken, and the frequency of general teeth cleaning and problem prevention. Most dental insurance plans specify the type of treatments that are covered; in most dental insurance plans, certain services may be excluded.
Dental insurance plans may allow each employee to select their dentist of choice; other plans require the selection of a dentist from a preferred list of providers. Some dental insurance plans reimburse patients only when the least expensive treatment alternative is selected. The more dental services that are covered, the more providing dental insurance coverage for employees will cost employers.
Increasingly, employers expect employees to pay a portion of the cost of their dental insurance, usually in the form of a payroll deduction. Some employers, while not providing dental insurance as a direct benefit to their employees, do offer the opportunity for the employee to purchase insurance in a dental insurance plan.
These dental insurance plans give the employee the opportunity to join a pool of insured employees for cost reductions in their dental insurance premiums. Purchasing dental insurance as an individual would be more expensive. In these cases, the employee covers all costs of the dental insurance, but at a rate he or she could not obtain on their own.
Dental insurance is an appreciated employee benefit for employees and their eligible family members (dependents).
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Susan Heathfield makes every effort to offer accurate, common-sense, ethical Human Resources management, employer, and workplace advice both on this website, and linked to from this website, but she is not an attorney, and the content on the site, while authoritative, is not guaranteed for accuracy and legality, and is not to be construed as legal advice.
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