The Way You Buy Benefits Has Just Changed Forever. And It’s All Because of a Small Canadian Company You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.

There’s been a problem for Small Businesses in Canada.

That problem is trying to get Health & Dental benefit coverage for their employees. Cultivating a successful employee base that attracts and retains top talent means providing those people with insurance.  But it’s not easy.

According to a PaymentEvolution study in 2018, 79% of Canadian small businesses do not provide any kind of health, dental or other kinds of insurance benefits to their staff. The reason why? A lengthy and confusing buying process *.

Brokers just don’t want to spend their time with Small Businesses. It takes more time with far less reward for the broker. On top of that, there is so much data required to even begin the selection process, that most business owners just don’t bother.

You may be wondering—rightfully so—why can’t we just compare prices and plans online? Well, now for the first time in Canada, you can do just that. In an unprecedented announcement this month, PaymentEvolution has signed deals with the biggest Insurance providers in Canada—Empire Life, Great-West Life and Manulife—in order to offer a real-time Benefits quoting tool directly available to their clients.

PaymentEvolution is the largest cloud-based payroll company in Canada. They’ve quietly become market leaders over the past ten years by implementing industry-disrupting technological initiatives just like this one. The benefits quoting tool is available to any of their Payroll clients. Once you use the tool, the only question that comes to mind is how did this not already exist?

As Sam Vassa, CEO and Co-founder of PaymentEvolution puts it, “Real-time benefits quoting was born out of our own frustration getting benefits for our staff. No more multi-page forms, no week-long waits for quotes – it’s all digital and instant. By making benefits more accessible, we are empowering Canadian small businesses to create amazing employee experiences”.

This tool ensures accurate quoting without unnecessary data entry. Most firms receive an instant digital quote without needing to enter additional data.

This is the first time that instant quoting is available in Canada (and online) with multiple insurers. This is how Canadians expect to do all their shopping. From buying airline tickets to purchasing electronics- there’s an expectation that instant comparable quotes will be an easy to use option. Now that’s finally true for Employee Benefits.

At its core this about getting Canadian employees the coverage they deserve.

“Canadians have been online comparison shopping for years, and they expect to get answers quickly,” said Michael Perry, Senior Vice-President, Group Solutions at Empire Life. “With PaymentEvolution, we make it simple, fast and easy for business owners to shop group benefits in the same way they already shop for a holiday or hotel. Empire Life focuses on small to medium sized business—we’re highly attuned to their needs and get that convenience is key. We’re excited to be with working with PaymentEvolution to offer this outstanding service.”

* Results compiled from a PaymentEvolution survey of 429 Canadian small businesses with under 20 employees from June 5 to June 12, 2018. Respondents were business owners and/or those who performed payroll functions for the organization.