Group health insurance is one of the most popular employee benefits, with group policies almost always being less expensive than individual policies. It is fairly common to include group life insurance (e.g., a death benefit of two times salary), and in many instances group disability, as part of a comprehensive employee insurance benefit package.

It has become standard practice for employees to pay a portion of insurance premiums, but many group plans allow employees to pay health insurance premiums with pre-tax dollars. The combination of a lower cost group policy and the tax savings resulting from pre-tax premium payments produces a very attractive benefit for employees.

Note that, in this context, insurance provides direct protection to employees, and in so doing provides indirect protection to employers.