Papers Please.

August 8, 2013 7:37 AM

When negotiating a job offer, is it permissible to ask to see the company's health insurance policy before the salary range is discussed?

In a recent interview the question of benefits came up. The company stated that their policy was very likely no where near as good as our current one, but they would figure that difference in to the salary. No actual numbers have been thrown out yet (it was the standard how much are you looking for?, how much do you think is fair?, we don't know yet.).

Once an offer is made, can you ask to see their actual policy before discussing salary? Or if they do come back with a range can you tell them you can't give them an honest response/ counter until you have had a chance to go over/ compare the policies?

posted by MayNicholas to Work & Money (23 answers total)

Absolutely. Benefits (especially health insurance) are a huge part of the overall compensation package and are a legitimate part of negotiations (e.g., "I won't use the health insurance, so how about another $X in salary?").
posted by Etrigan at 7:40 AM on August 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

Agreed. Once you get the offer in hand, it is your prerogative to look into every nook and cranny of the benefits package, from retirement planning, to health plan, to gym reimbursement, to telecommuting policy, to whether the janitors put the toilet paper with the loose end on top (right way) or on bottom (devilry).

Good luck!
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:42 AM on August 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

The real answer here is: everything is negotiable and there are no rules.
posted by saeculorum at 7:42 AM on August 8, 2013 [5 favorites]

Without a doubt. A part of *every* offer we make is to hand the candidate the flyers for health, AD&D (har har acronym collision), vision, dental, 401k, etc.

An offer should represent total compensation, no just salary.
posted by colin_l at 7:43 AM on August 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

While I agree generally, employers might hesitate to get into the details of health coverage for risk that it would involve your disclosing health information that their hiring and HR managers are not supposed to have about you for employment non-discrimination and health-care confidentiality reasons. Interestingly, promoting a "high salary, bad benefits" approach could be seen as particularly dangerous as being a triple barreled age, family status, and disability status discriminator.
posted by MattD at 7:43 AM on August 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yes, having recently done this I requested and got a schedule of benefits from the future employer along with detailed information about all the other benefits offered, costs, etc.
posted by iamabot at 7:46 AM on August 8, 2013

Yes, you can ask and negotiate, but I'll caution you that with the ACA going into effect in 2014, whatever is offered now could be radically different starting Jan. 1.
posted by Capri at 7:51 AM on August 8, 2013

These days, especially, absolutely yes. Employers have been trimming their health benefits, largely due to the escalating rate increases on the part of insurers, so it definitely is a good idea to look closely at what you're getting into before you take the job.

One favorite I've seen lately, is not allowing spouses onto the employee's policy, if said spouse is merely eligible for even the worst, crappiest, most useless coverage from his/her employer.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:00 AM on August 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yes. And for that matter, last time I interviewed, all five job offers I had came with benefits packages.
posted by kaszeta at 8:00 AM on August 8, 2013

This is standard stuff to evaluate in an offer. My party line in every career negotiation has been that I evaluate the whole package (salary + benefits) so this requires them to be forthcoming about it.
posted by dgran at 8:05 AM on August 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Actually, I'm not necessarily sure you want to see the policy as such. Or rather, you do, but what you're really interested in is how much the company is paying for it. I think all you're really going to be able to do is get the company to match any difference in health insurance spend between the new job and the old one. You're probably not going to be able to get them to match the policy benefits. They'd have to do that for everyone, and that's just not in the cards.

But if they're already paying more than your old employer and the plan still isn't as good, you may be stuck with that one. Pricing the relative worth of differing benefits is really tricky. So while I think you can definitely get them to make sure that the benefits package is worth the same nominal dollar figure, getting them to match benefits or pay more than other employees' benefits package to make up for some deficiency in the plan offering is going to be a tough sell at best. Might not be possible at all.
posted by valkyryn at 8:08 AM on August 8, 2013

Absolutely. I did this in my job search last year and successfully negotiated a better offer based on the insurance package. Go for it.
posted by Stacey at 8:18 AM on August 8, 2013

Yes, this is absolutely allowed. Don't ask to see the policy, because they may give you the actual policy and that will be inscrutable and unhelpful. Ask them to give you the orientation materials and summary of benefits they would give to a new employee enrolling in benefits. If they don't understand what you're looking for, ask them for anything that will show you a table of co-pays, deductibles, and yearly maximums.

It would be a red flag to me if they balk and say they can't provide these things because of health privacy laws. It means that either the HR people aren't intelligent/experienced enough to realize that this doesn't have to involve receiving or giving out any prohibited health information, or there's something wrong with the plan they don't want you to know about.
posted by Colonel_Chappy at 9:05 AM on August 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

I have made acceptance of a job offer contingent on viewing the health insurance policy first, and nobody batted an eye.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 10:02 AM on August 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, sure. And you can totally use the difference between current vs. offered benefits to negotiate, which is especially handy for you since you have a full comparison at your fingertips, but they only know their own benefits package. I described my approach to a similar conversation in a previous thread, if you're interested.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:22 AM on August 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Completely. One of my interview stops is always with HR to review the existing health benefits package. I would be surprised if any company balked at this
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 11:21 AM on August 8, 2013

I've done this within the last month, and had it in my email inbox before I was off the phone with my HR contact. In addition to the benefit summary, I also make a point of asking for the employee handbook and travel and expense policy document (my line of work involves fairly heavy travel), should one exist - never had someone so much as blink at that request, either.
posted by deadmessenger at 12:38 PM on August 8, 2013

Sure. They have explicitly told you that they can adjust salary, if needed, to make up for any difference.
posted by megatherium at 12:48 PM on August 8, 2013

I worked for an insurance company for five years. I kind of agree with Colonel Chappy. I think there is nothing wrong with asking for the policy but a) it is all written in legalese, so may mean nothing to you and b) they can and do change internal interpretations of what x means when their actuaries decide that benefit is costing the company too much money (they send the policy to their legal department which issues a "clarification" on how they have been doing it wrong for 20 years and the claims department then gets retrained to do it right). Even aside from that detail, there are internal procedures and the like for which you can not get documentaion and which significantly impact how things are done. Those change organically over time for a variety of reasons.

Thus, reading the policy may not be very informative. So it would likely help to ask for other info that will give you some idea of what, in practice, is actually covered and is written in laymen's terms.
posted by Michele in California at 1:30 PM on August 8, 2013

As a data point, my fiance got this information as part of his offer letter at his job.
posted by radioamy at 1:45 PM on August 8, 2013

Yes, definitely ask. My son actually got a prospective employer to add a company health plan (because he wouldn't take the job without it), and then they upped his salary by 5K in order to have him cover his wife on it.

He also put a stop to timeclock fraud at an earlier employer, and asked for and got a higher salary with a third company later on. Turns out he's a pretty good negotiator. Who knew?

Bottom line: it doesn't hurt to ask.
posted by SLC Mom at 2:56 PM on August 8, 2013

At my job, we go through all the benefits on the phone with the candidate before we start negotiating actual salary numbers: it usually helps make our offer look better!
posted by wenestvedt at 7:01 AM on August 9, 2013

Response by poster: Awesome. Thanks everyone!
posted by MayNicholas at 8:06 AM on August 9, 2013