Question:
Does anyone know of health or dental insurance for small businesses,
particularly consultants?
I have a small but healthy consulting business with a partner. We are
incorporated as an S corp.
Both of us have health and dental coverage under our wives employeers.
Now my wife is ready to quit work to raise our children.
So our business is thinking of picking up the cost of insurance. Or
maybe I will just get insurance separate from the business.
Answer:
While you can write off your benefits from the company's return in a C-corp,
you can't in an S.
You can still take the self-employed health insurance deduction on your 1040
and itemize the rest of the premiums. Not great, but better than nothing.
You might try Costco. They proposed membership based health and dental
insurance about two years ago. I haven't dropped by since so I can't confirm
whether this insurance is still available.
My co. is an S corp. I have had Chamber of Commerce insurance (not HMO
- they will probably offer some of those too). The intro rate was
pretty good, but had almost doubled in a year. I called my local
insurance agent and she got me a good plan (United Healthcare) at a good
price (about what I started at for the chamber of commerce plan). So
you might want to call your insurance agent (or a couple of them) and
ask around.
As has been mentioned, your corp. wouldn't be able to deduct the
insurance as a business expense (though if you hired other people,
theirs would be deductible). The self-employed insurance deduction is
(I think) going up for the next few years until it gets to 100% - I'm
not an expert here, though, so check it out if that's an important
consideration.
Having recently joined the ranks of the "small business", that is a good
question. Although I do not have answer about health coverage. But I do have
information on a dental plan. I have used for the past year and have
recommended it to many acquaintances. I will kindly mail you information if you
like.
