Starting up a Small Business

If there is one thing everyone wants it is to make lots of money quickly! An option for many people wishing to start up a small business is to work from home. No boss nagging you as you are the boss and you work the hours around your life without stressing yourself.

Starting a small business from home has great advantages, you're working on something that you enjoy and finally enjoy being at your work, but there’s one problem, you're up against businesses all over the planet and its highly likely these businesses are much bigger than you and have a big reputation. There’s a lot of information to know when you’re starting up a small business and the chances are you will struggle to get to grips with it at the start, that’s why the first chance you get you should pick up a small business opportunity magazine and make sure you study it from back to front.

There’s so much information packed into a small business opportunity magazine that you’ve really got to have a copy you trust. They're full of useful tips and hints to make your small business go further than what you could possibly make on your own and also means your keeping up to date on the small business news.

For starters a small business opportunity magazine is probably the best place to look for small business opportunities that you might be interested in investing in. There are usually pages full of information about several other small businesses and tips on how to make your very own small business successful. It really is a great way to see if you’re taking the right path or not going in to a small home business.

This can be a great way to interact with other small business owners like yourself and see the ups and downs of the job you’re getting into, from things like managing your new employees or general running of the business, and also enquiring into health insurance for small businesses.

Small Businesses Plan to Hire In Next 12 Months

Owners of small companies in the United States have set a plan to start hiring in the next 12 months, even as the country’s rate of unemployment has been at it’s highest in September this year.

Figures from the Intuit Payroll survey claim, nearly 44 per cent of small business owner’s, have planned to take on new employees over the coming next 12 months.

Unemployment rate in US has risen to a 26-year high of 9.8 per cent in September as 263,000 jobs were axed last month due to the recession.

Even though small business’s are prepared to start hiring after crawling out of the current financial problem ,they still find it a major problem  to afford employee benefit schemes.

Almost 90 per cent of the people who replied, said health insurance benefits are extremely important for attracting and retaining good employees. Yet a staggering 58 per cent do not offer healthcare insurance, with nearly 50 per cent stating that they just can’t afford small business health insurance.

As shown by the survey, nearly 60 per cent of small business owners hopefully expect their business to grow in the year ahead.

When it comes to recruiting new employees, small business owners are looking for candidates with a broader skill set for the positions available.

Fifty per cent of the small business respondents said they were looking for a "people person" or "jack of all trades," over a "creative genius" (11 per cent) or "mathematical wizard" (4 per cent).

News like this can only be good for everyone in the country, after so many people looking for work due to the recession it can only bring a glimour of hope to families that in a financial way have been set back over the last few years. Maybe news like this show’s there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Hurricane Health Care surging towards US

Private and Business health insurance premiums causing a stir in the US

The US health care storm is still surging towards the United States of America. Wind speed is gaining momentum and gunning towards the white house and getting ready hit with destruction.

Well – maybe not quite, but it is causing a bit of a stir over there in the States, and now here thanks to one of our very own (Tory member) who has attacked the National Health Service here in the United Kingdom whilst Barack Obama is trying to sell the American public a health service that is in the same mould as our very own – interesting.

I think one of the things president Obama hates the most is the fact that top brass from the private health sector in the US are raking in millions from other peoples misery.

Year after year people and businesses see excessive rises in their medical care premiums and small business health insurance quotes from insurance companies.  

President Obama is planning to make changes that will stop insurance companies from charging exorbitant fees plus stop restrictions on what health insurance customers get cover for.

The Presidents first major mission in his own back yard is to make health insurance available to the 46 million people who are currently uninsured. This number has rocketed over the last five years as insurance premiums have more than doubled since then.

HEALTHCARE IN THE US

•      46 million uninsured, 25 million under-insured

•      Healthcare costs represent 16% of GDP, almost twice OECD average

•      Reform plans would require all Americans to get insurance

•      Some propose public insurance option to compete with private insurers

Latest Survey - Healthy companies more profitable and productive

At the end of March, think tank Reform published its findings on the state of Occupational Health within the UK. The Fit for Recovery survey outlines the basic and essential truth that companies with healthier employees enjoy both higher levels of productivity and profits. Download the PDF of this survey here.

Advantage through health

In these unprecedented economic times, any advantage that a business can achieve could make a huge impact on its success. A companies employees are its most valuable assets, investing in their health and wellbeing makes perfect sense.

NHS to take the lead

Reform suggest that if more employers were to make healthcare a priority, this would have the effect of reducing the strain on the NHS budget. There is also a strong suggestion that the NHS (Britains largest employer) could grasp the baton in this area and set the example by which others could follow. At preset sickness rates within the NHS are almost 50% higher than in the private healthcare sector. It is calculated that if the National Health Service could make improvments to its sickness leveks, then £1 billion pounds a year could be saved.

Incentives

Fit for recovery also spotlights the role that health incentives could play in improving health within the workplace.

Individuals – through creative use of direct payments, of bonuses for healthy living and of charges for healthcare. The most forward looking business health insurance, small and large companies are already providing healthy living bonus schemes for their customers.

Your thoughts

What is your opinion on the Fit for Recovery report? Could businesses be doing more to protect the health of their employees?

Health Insurance for the Self Employed

If you are self employed and are looking for private health insurance then there is plenty of completive deals out there in the current markets.

Sometimes the costs are a little higher but there is many covers specially designed to suit the self employed and their families from the uncertainties in life - and could provide you with much needed finance in the event of an accident.

self employed health insurance specially caters for small businesses and the self employed,  If ever looking for quotes then its best advised to shop around and see what’s out there for your budget and your family requirements.

Private Medical Insurance and Small Business Health Insurance

There are 2 main types: firstly there is small business health insurance, this type is for business and corporate customers who would like to offer their employees with free or discounted private healthcare, It is a good incentive to attract the best employees and can give you an edge over your competitors when recruiting, the second is private health insurance: this type is geared towards, and is very popular among individuals and young professional families.

We will be concentrating on the small business health insurance side of the business and will be going into greater detail in the coming posts so stay tuned, the first of our 15 part series will be “Do I really need private medical insurance”.

Health Insurance and Safety

With health and safety now one of the most important topics that business owners and managers in the workplace need to learn, there is a whole lot of rules and is a bit of a mine field, first up is to get small business health insurance, it is a great way to reward your employees for their hard work, commitment and loyalty and not only does it offer your employees great medical treatment when needed it also covers your company against employee sickness among other things, once you have found the best policies for your business you can move onto appointing a health and safety officer and a first aider, whether you go and hire someone with the skills or appoint one of your employees to learn through attending courses is irrelevant, as long as you have people in place,  whoever I always see it best to give your current employees the chance learn and better themselves, the more measures you take to guard the health and safety of your workforce the better placed you will be to deal with any relating issues.

Mixed Fortunes for Private Health Insurance

2008 was not a great year for Bupa compared to 2007 at least, Investments and big acquisitions of tickets left the private health insurance company with a 53% fall in surplus (profit). In 2007, operations surplus stood at £398m wile in 2007 they stood at £187.1m, down £210.9m on the previous year.  

With the current financial crises it is expected that there will be more loses in the coming years as there is not many businesses immune to the credit crunch.

Please voice your opinion if you have one on this issue.

Small Business Health Insurance - The Benefits

Benefits of small business health insurance in the UK

Anyone looking to get health insurance cover in the United Kingdom for their business and business employees should look into getting small business health insurance UK to cover the cost of any consequences or illnesses and even in the event of death in the work place. The benefits are the for all to see and when an employee can’t work due to illness or injury then that way the company won’t lose out on any revenue and the same goes for employee, When companies are looking to hire the best talent on available it is always a good incentive to be able to offer them Private health insurance.

Healthy Businesses in 2009

In these unprecedented economic times, there are no doubts that small businesses are having to adapt and prioritise their spending activity. Budgets all round are being tightened and focus is being shifted onto those areas that are essential to the efficient day-to-day business operations. We at HISB at concerned with where Private Medical Insurance ranks within this hierarchy of priorities.

Taking into account the current financial climate, what is the outlook of private healthcare insurance within your small business?

• Are you planning to open a new healthcare policy to cover your employees?
• Are you increasing or enhancing any existing cover that you may have?
• Are you going to analyse the climate over the next few months and make a decision from there?

We look forward to hearing from all small businesses within the blogging community with their thoughts on this matter.

Welcome to Health Insurance for Small Business

Welcome to the Health Insurance for Small Business Blog and thanks for reading. Our aim with this blog is to try and provide clarity on this complex subjext area by gathering information from a wide range of sources.

The growth of the internet has been both a blessing and a curse for small businesses. On one hand, there is alot more information and advice out there which is great, conversely however, there is so much data available that so that it can be difficult to get to the core information that you require. This is where we hope to come in, primarily with help the wonderful and knowledgeable blog community.

We will be posting regularly the latest news and information from the small business health insurance sector, we look forward to heariung from you.