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Cassandra is a huge advocate for employees and wants them to get the most out of their benefits. One way she does this is by encouraging people who get a new job, to ask their new employer for a ‘Summary Plan Description’ or SPD. 

She says employees should also get into the habit of looking at their pay stubs and compare how much will be deducted from their new job, as compared to their old job. She explains in more detail:

“So let’s say you took that job, you’re super excited, you got everything you need, you’ve elected your benefits. And what I usually see is that people turn the light off. 

Once they’re at that company, and they made that first election, they never look at their benefits again, until they experience a life event. They get married, they have a baby, they have to go out on leave. That’s when they start asking all the questions that you were probably told on day one when you were trying to figure out where the bathrooms were.

And so what I would encourage you to do is every year by law, we have to do an open enrollment. You’ve probably heard those words before like okay, open enrollment’s coming I have a few days, I have to look at my benefits. Be an active participant. Be a consumer of your benefits the same way that you would take time to plan a vacation and try to figure out the best airline. Do the same thing and it doesn’t take a ton of time. 

It’s probably 30 minutes of your time, once a year to go, am I really in the right medical plan? Do I go to the doctor that often and need to have the most expensive insurance? That may not be the right fit for you. Hey, my company offers pet insurance, I think he’s saving 15% and have it be taken out of my paycheck so I don’t have to worry about paying it monthly. Take advantage of that benefit. 

So it’s really seeing what is my company offering? And how can I leverage that to gain more value?”