Life and Absence Management Solutions

What is Life and Absence Management Insurance?

Our life and absence management solutions deliver an end-to-end offering that help make it easier for companies to manage their employee absences while also helping align with federal and state leave laws and quickly adapt as new laws are passed.

Zurich American Life Insurance Company of New York and Zurich American Life Insurance Company’s (Zurich) 100-plus years of insurance experience and Benefit Harbor Insurance Services’ track record of technology solutions can help deliver a meaningful difference for our customers. We provide industry-leading knowledge and experience you can rely on for an employee benefits-management solution that helps meet your employee benefits strategies and fulfills your business objectives.

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Learn more about benefits and claims handling related to COVID-19

Solutions

Absence Management

Employees are your most valuable asset. Protecting their well-being is a complicated business. We’ve created an end-to-end solution to help make it easier to manage your employees’ absences related to:

Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA) administration
Bereavement leaves
Company paid and unpaid leaves
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
Jury duty
Military leaves
State Paid Family Leave (PFL)

Long-Term Disability (LTD) Income Insurance, insured and self-insured

Financial security is critical to your employees’ health and well-being. Illness or injury can interrupt the work and income of your employees. Being able to provide a safety net for employees is a key element of your benefit program. Zurich can help you identify the right coverage options.

Life premium waiver administration
Flexible monthly maximums
Vocational rehabilitation and Social Security application assistance
Work incentive provision and survivor benefit

Short-Term Disability (STD) Income Insurance, insured or self-insured

Whether you choose to self-insure or provide short-term disability income insurance with Zurich for your employees, we can help you meet your STD benefit goals.

Available on a fully insured or administrative services-only (self-insured) platform
Clinical case management process designed to help employees return to work
Market-competitive programs with flexible weekly maximums
Multiple waiting periods and benefit durations available
Residual disability provides covered benefits if a person is able to work, but earnings are reduced as a result of a covered disability
Own job definition of short-term disability is available to provide coverage for the duties of a person’s specific job in their employer’s location

If you choose to self-insure, we can help simplify your STD administration and integration with FMLA and ADAAA regulations.

Group Life and Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D) insurance

Group life and accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance helps strengthen your employee benefits package and can provide essential insurance protection to employees during their time of need. Our benefit plans can help to provide a foundation of financial security and help replace the financial gap for families in the event of a death or covered accidental injury.

Plans are available at an affordable cost to you and your employees. We work with you to help identify options and services that will help meet the needs of your workforce in the U.S. and abroad, such as:

Accelerated death benefit (ADB) options up to 80% that can extend beyond terminal illness to include non-terminal chronic illness and chronically confined conditions. The ADB provision also lets us define terminal illness as “up to 24 months.” Receipt of the accelerated death benefits may affect eligibility for public assistance programs and may be taxable.
Accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) provides the following benefits:
- Child care to help pay for state-licensed child care centers
- Educational benefits to assist with higher education costs for dependent children and employment training, including higher education for spouses or domestic partners
- Passenger restraint and airbag benefit paid in the event of death of the insured when proper use of restraint devices at time of accident
- Repatriation of remains benefit in the event a covered employee or dependent dies while at least 200 miles from home
Flexible plan options to help meet the needs of various size businesses
Multiple-year rate guarantees
Portability and Conversion options available to suit your employee needs
Premium Waiver options for qualified disabled employees
Seamless transition to Premium Waiver coordinated when you have long-term disability (LTD) coverage with Zurich
Streamlined Evidence of Insurability process through our portal that allows for auto-adjudication of decisions

Value-added services

All benefit plans include the funeral concierge services of Everest Funeral Concierge to help members save $3,500 to $5,500 on average off a full funeral service. Everest can make all arrangements by reserving halls, limos, caterers, musicians and houses of worship. Arrangements can be made with one call. With Everest and a Funeral Home Assignment, we can pay the funeral home directly in as little as 24 to 48 hours, saving the family from having to extend credit or pay out of pocket.

The online will preparation tool is provided at no cost, so members can create, edit and execute wills, power of attorney documents, healthcare directives and more for all family members in the employee's household.

We believe in independent financial advice and literacy, so we work with Gateway Financial Partners to answer member questions, and with The Society for Financial Awareness (SOFA) to conduct SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management)-certified group classes on a variety of topics, from the basics of checking accounts and credit cards to saving for college, retirement or taxes in a non-selling, no-pressure environment.

All plans enjoy the added benefit of our Care Managers, a team of master's-level licensed social workers who collaborate with our disability case managers to provide assistance with federal benefits for which an employee may be eligible (e.g., Medicare, Veterans Affairs benefits), community-based resources (e.g., Dial-a-Ride), your own company medical benefits, and to educate those who are terminally ill or facing end-of-life issues on the Accelerated Benefits, and to help them determine what is right for them to consider.

We offer service and technology designed to streamline the administration process of our policies:

Concierge philosophy to enhance one-call resolutions for employers and employees
Dedicated marketing consultants to support enrollment
Expedited claims review and payments
Portability and Conversion fulfillment service options available
Seamless member experience during enrollment, including experience working with major third-party administrators (TPAs)
Self-service website with the tools and information employers need for real-time reporting and employee lookups

Expatriates and international coverage options

U.S. corporations are increasingly seeking ways to consolidate and provide cost-effective benefits programs to satisfy the diverse needs of their local and global workforce, from both a human resource and risk-management perspective.

Policies are available to groups with two or more employees and offer expatriate (expat) benefits and services, including:

Competitively priced group life insurance and long-term disability income insurance for U.S. expatriate, third-country national, inpatriate, and key local national (KLN)* employees
Insurance coverage for U.S.-based employees (U.S. citizens) on the same group policy to eliminate coverage gaps for employees coming on and off expat assignments
Flexible benefit designs with high benefit maximums and guaranteed issue amounts for larger groups
A broad range of AD&D benefit options
Life insurance coverage options for dependent spouse and children
The option to waive the war-risk exclusion on group life insurance policies
A single point of contact for all service and administrative needs
Dedicated account management and 24/7/365 customer service center access
Online administration for billing and enrollment ease
International claims payment and management expertise

Other options may include:

Business travel accident and other specialty Accident and Health coverages
Travel concierge services
Expatriate medical/dental/vision services**
International employee assistance programs**
Pooling and global employee benefit programs at the local county level

* KLN coverage availability is subject to compliance review and approval on a case-by-case basis
** Products offered through a third-party arrangement

Captive solutions

U.S. companies are increasingly seeking ways to diversify and add third-party risk to their single-parent captive to maximize underwriting gain. This can be accomplished by assuming risk on the company’s life and disability benefits programs.

With over 25 years of experience in the captive management space, Zurich is among a select group of U.S. insurance providers with the appetite and experience to underwrite employee benefits within a captive. Zurich may be one of the few insurance providers with the capability to support a Captives Employee Benefit and Liability and Property risk simultaneously, helping achieve underwriting gain and protect the captive from major losses across all lines through a unique basket aggregate policy approach. Access to Zurich’s wholly owned captive and participation in a captive cell is also an alternative not easily available in the general market.

Zurich will work with an organization and their captive consultant to set appropriate mortality and morbidity pricing, harmonize and improve benefits where necessary and provide consultative support throughout the Department of Labor approval process. Our competitive fronting/administrative fees and collateral requirements, along with the addition of aggregate stop loss policies to mitigate catastrophic risk, are market leaders.