Salary deductions for services I can't opt out of...

Sillychuckie

Hello.
Each month, my employer deducts from my salary:
- £38.29  [Disability Cover] 
- £24.38  [Life Cover]
- £53.22  [Medical Cover]

[I pay tax on these, but not NI].

These are not things they let me 'opt out' of. I can increase the cover so that they pay out larger sums in the event of a disability, death, or illness... (and even cover other family members), but I can not go below these minimum levels of cover for myself.
They also offer other health related benefits we are able to opt out of for some reason (such as 'Accident cover', 'Critical Illness Cover' (for things not covered by 'medical'), Dental Cover etc...), and it is nice to have the flexibility on those items to pick and choose.

However, for the 3 items I first mentioned, we cannot pick, or choose, or opt out.

As a young healthy adult, I have historically begrudged this deduction from my salary for many years now and having worked there for rather a long time, I have calculated that it has cost me approximately 20k in deductions so far. Each year, as I get older (perhaps not so young and healthy anymore), the premiums, understandably, get more expensive.

Put simply, what are my rights here? Can an employer force these products on their employees?
A few years ago they added the option to 'opt out', but you would still be charged.
i.e. I can click:  "No Cover:          Charge: £53.22". So obviously I have just stuck with the lower level 'Silver' cover.

I work for a large, FTSE100 multi-national etc...  so suspect that they must be within their rights. It may well have even been written into my contract, I do not recall. I can check, if that is the relevant point here. Any thoughts? - Apologies if this has been asked before.

I'd just rather have opted out all those years ago and its a bit of a bug bear of mine.
SC.

MattMattMattUK

Sillychuckie said:

Hello.
Each month, my employer deducts from my salary:
- £38.29  [Disability Cover] 
- £24.38  [Life Cover]
- £53.22  [Medical Cover]

[I pay tax on these, but not NI].

These are not things they let me 'opt out' of. I can increase the cover so that they pay out larger sums in the event of a disability, death, or illness... (and even cover other family members), but I can not go below these minimum levels of cover for myself.
They also offer other health related benefits we are able to opt out of for some reason (such as 'Accident cover', 'Critical Illness Cover' (for things not covered by 'medical'), Dental Cover etc...), and it is nice to have the flexibility on those items to pick and choose.

However, for the 3 items I first mentioned, we cannot pick, or choose, or opt out.

As a young healthy adult, I have historically begrudged this deduction from my salary for many years now and having worked there for rather a long time, I have calculated that it has cost me approximately 20k in deductions so far. Each year, as I get older (perhaps not so young and healthy anymore), the premiums, understandably, get more expensive.

Put simply, what are my rights here? Can an employer force these products on their employees?
A few years ago they added the option to 'opt out', but you would still be charged.
i.e. I can click:  "No Cover:          Charge: £53.22". So obviously I have just stuck with the lower level 'Silver' cover.

I work for a large, FTSE100 multi-national etc...  so suspect that they must be within their rights. It may well have even been written into my contract, I do not recall. I can check, if that is the relevant point here. Any thoughts? - Apologies if this has been asked before.

I'd just rather have opted out all those years ago and its a bit of a bug bear of mine.
SC.

They cannot "force" you to have these, they can put them in your employment contract. Some companies will make them mandatory, but they are part of the entire remuneration package and that is made clear to prospective employees before they commence employment. If you do not wish them to be part of your employment contract you have the choice to either renegotiate your contract, which is unlikely, or resign. 

The reason for them being there in the first place is that medical cover likely gets you back to work quicker if you have an illness or injury and disability and life cover will pay out if you are no longer able to do your job, covered by the insurance policy and so will make ending your employment if you can no longer work far easier. There are also usually cost benefits to employers who employ all employees, rather than those who self select as in general a whole company's pool of employees is overall healthier than a self selecting group who take out private cover. 

Sillychuckie

MattMattMattUK said:

choice to either renegotiate your contract, which is unlikely, or resign

Some choice...
But alright, I didn't imagine there was much I could do. I'll continue to lump it.
Perhaps one day I'll be glad I had it, but hopefully not. Still, the costs add up and I'd have rather not had it. I don't think they'll be open to negotiation about it. I could just do with the extra £ really.
Nevermind. Thanks for the reply.

Marcon

Sillychuckie said:

MattMattMattUK said:

choice to either renegotiate your contract, which is unlikely, or resign

Some choice...
But alright, I didn't imagine there was much I could do. I'll continue to lump it.
Perhaps one day I'll be glad I had it, but hopefully not. Still, the costs add up and I'd have rather not had it. I don't think they'll be open to negotiation about it. I could just do with the extra £ really.
Nevermind. Thanks for the reply.

Which is exactly why your employer has made them a condition of employment. All three are types of insurance - and like all policies, we begrudge the 'wasted' premiums when we've not made a claim, but boy are we glad there're there if we ever need to claim. 

TBagpuss

Have you spoken to anyone in HR? I get that you can't opt out using the online system, but I wonder whether there is a way for them to do it manually.

I can understand the benefit to the employer of you having some medical cover but there'd not really any benefit to them in your having life insurance, for example..

Sillychuckie

TBagpuss said:

I can understand the benefit to the employer of you having some medical cover but there'd not really any benefit to them in your having life insurance, for example..

I just dug out my employment contract (which hasn't seen the light of day for 15 years).
It mentions each of the 3 'core' benefits and states: "You are provided with XXX cover as a core benefit. The cost of this is deducted from your salary.". It later says "in relation to these benefits, we reserve the right to withdraw or alter their terms without notice, at any time.".

So you are right - my opportunity to negotiate it was probably about 15 years ago.
It is quite difficult to get meaningful contact with our HR department these days, and it is probably a bit late anyway to be bringing it up.

Its a fair point though TBagpuss. I don't know why they care about whether I have life insurance cover or not. I guess I'll just have to hope I get some benefit from it some day...  (or not). Insurance is a tough one for a money saving fan. On one hand, I want to cash in... on another, I quite like the whole 'staying alive' (not the song) thing.

I guess I'll just have to continue to put up with it, like taxes. It was cheaper when I first joined, but now I'm adding it all up (and it gets more expensive each year), it made me think to ask the question. I may try to 'petition' HR to consider changes to the scheme though, but it seems unlikely they'll do it. I am probably not the first to ask.
Even if I did want such cover, I may get better value-for-money on the open market with other providers... but no point in looking now.

Thanks all. SC.

Annisele

I assume these deductions don't take you below minimum wage - I'd think differently if they did. But I don't see anything unlawful in it.

The way my employer does this (with made-up figures for easy maths) is that it gives us all what it calls a "flex allowance" of £600 on top of salary. That £600 is the same figure regardless of whether your base salary is £20k or £200k. Then it makes us pay for life cover and various other deductions, but the bits we can't opt out of come to less than £50 a month. So, most people end up either keeping a little bit of their "flex allowance" of cash, or choosing to spend more of their salary on other benefits.

Flexible benefit allowances are relatively common, but certainly not universal. Are you absolutely certain your company doesn't have one? If it does, you might do better petitioning for changes to it rather than abolishing it.

Marcon

Sillychuckie said:

TBagpuss said:

I can understand the benefit to the employer of you having some medical cover but there'd not really any benefit to them in your having life insurance, for example..

I just dug out my employment contract (which hasn't seen the light of day for 15 years).
It mentions each of the 3 'core' benefits and states: "You are provided with XXX cover as a core benefit. The cost of this is deducted from your salary.". It later says "in relation to these benefits, we reserve the right to withdraw or alter their terms without notice, at any time.".

So you are right - my opportunity to negotiate it was probably about 15 years ago.
It is quite difficult to get meaningful contact with our HR department these days, and it is probably a bit late anyway to be bringing it up.

I don't think that wording would have given you any opportunity to negotiate, so don't kick yourself for not doing so. A core benefit is just that - a pillar of your employment package (wanted or not!).

Sillychuckie said:

TBagpuss said:

I can understand the benefit to the employer of you having some medical cover but there'd not really any benefit to them in your having life insurance, for example..

Its a fair point though TBagpuss. I don't know why they care about whether I have life insurance cover or not. I guess I'll just have to hope I get some benefit from it some day...  (or not). Insurance is a tough one for a mon

Possibly because too many people in their HR team have had the experience of telling a tearful and newly bereaved spouse, with young children, that no, there won't be any sort of payout in relation to the death of their partner other than a small amount of cash from a DC pension pot.