Category: News

You’ll be aware of the announcement to increase National Insurance contributions from April next year.

You are possibly also aware that all our corporate clients use salary exchange, however, there are still thousands of companies out there that don’t.

Simply put, salary exchange could help employers offset the additional cost they will face from April 2022 and help reduce, or negate completely, the increase in tax their employees will face.

If you, or any business owners you know, are not using it, we would be more than happy to help.  See the attached article for more info.

NIC 1.25% Increase

Car schemes have always been popular as options for salary sacrifice schemes; allowing people to choose vehicles that they may not ordinarily have been able to afford in return for a payment from their pre-tax salary.

The latest car schemes also allow participants to fulfil a moral and environmental obligation as, from the 6th April 2020, the UK Government introduced huge tax savings (30% – 60%) for people to lease an electric vehicle through company salary sacrifice schemes. This has made owning an electric vehicle even more of an attractive proposition.

Whilst the vehicles may be more environmentally responsible, the structure of the scheme is still fundamentally the same as traditional salary sacrifice schemes. In the first instance the company rents an electric car from a supplier and the employee can then rent the car in exchange for their monthly payment from their gross salary (income before tax or net salary + employees’ national insurance + income tax).

Regular maintenance of the car is usually dealt with by a third party.

Operating an electric car scheme does not just benefit your employees; as an employer you will benefit from:

• An attractive benefit proposition for new and existing employees
• Savings on Class 1A National Insurance contributions (NIC)
• Achieving corporate social responsibility goals
• A way to support employee’s commitment to ‘green’ lifestyles

Whilst employees can enjoy savings on their tax and National Insurance, fixed tax-free payments, no initial up-front costs and savings on fuel and running costs.

Here are some tips, as listed in a recent article from the website Employee Benefits, on how you can implement a company car scheme in your business:

1. Find out what staff want – are your staff interested in electric cars and using the salary sacrifice scheme.
2. Involve people from all areas of your business in the decision – HR, procurement, and finance.
3. Review the local Electric Vehicle infrastructure – are there charging points easily accessible for your employees – on their journey to and from work and at your workplace

We would love to talk to you via phone, video call or face to face, depending on your preference, to answer your questions. Please contact us at [email protected] Tel: 0208 189 6100

Please see the attached article which is good news for Bursars to pass onto their current or former Teachers Pension Scheme (TPS) members.

McCloud Update for TPS Members

What are health cash plans?

Health cash plans are schemes that allow you to pay a monthly fee and in return you are entitled to have your routine medical and dental expenses covered. For example, you might pay £10 a month and that could cover up to £100 of dental costs, £100 of physio appointments and £100 of opticians’ appointments.

While it may sound similar to health insurance, they are not the same thing and you may even have both at the same time. This is because health insurance will only cover conditions that develop after you take out a plan, whereas a cash plan can be used to cover ongoing and routine appointments.

Many employees enjoy health cash plans as a perk of their job, and they use them to help with the costs of routine health appointments. However, with the Covid-19 outbreak and the initial lockdown in the UK in March 2020, routine dental and optical appointments were put on hold.

Now, a year into the pandemic, routine appointments are available, however are cash plans still a useful employee benefit?

Are health cash plans still a useful employee benefit?

Despite the multiple lockdowns, which resulted in some routine services being put on hold, cash plan claims for dental and optical appointments have continued throughout the year. This suggests that employees are still benefiting from cash plans, and it makes sense – the Covid-19 pandemic has put a strain on people’s mental and physical health, as well as a strain on their finances.

Many cash plans include telephone helplines for stress, debt management, and addiction, as well as legal and financial information, and this support has been invaluable for people throughout the pandemic.

Another important factor to note, is that the pandemic has required many services to be delivered virtually. Cash plans can offer access to virtual GP helplines, which has meant people have been able to speak to their GP without fear of the virus.

Health cash plans and wellbeing

Another way that cash plans have come into play, is in supporting mental health. Almost half of employees feel like the pandemic has made their job more stressful, and 42% of employers have lost an employee due to inadequate wellbeing support at work. Cash plans are a way to offer support whilst employees are working remotely.

One way to make sure cash plans can continue to offer support for employees is to extend the claim period, offer payment holidays, and to pay claims in the correct benefit year, when they were rescheduled due to the pandemic.

Cash plans in a virtual world

The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have meant many healthcare providers had to rapidly transition to an online space. By December 2020, 89% of GP consultations were delivered online using video technology.

Online counselling calls have also increased by 903% and counselling services have seen a 44% increase in anxiety calls.

With stress and anxiety at an all-time high, cash plans can provide a vital bridge to counsellors and preventative healthcare. This on demand approach to healthcare will likely remain in the future and health cash plans have the potential to enable a proactive solution to looking after employee’s health and wellbeing.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of health cash plans and what they are and how to use them.

As we are operating primarily remotely right now, we can offer a telephone call, or virtual video call to answer your questions. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.

According to the Association of British Insurers, around 1.6 million pension pots worth £19.4 billion are unclaimed due to savers failing to contact their pension provider when they move house.

Only 1 in 25 people contact their pension provider when they move house which causes many people to lose significant amounts of money which they have simply forgotten about.

Now is a good time to start thinking of which employers you have worked for and start checking if some of the £19.4 billion is yours.

The Government even have a website to help you trace lost pensions, why not give it a try: https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details