If you want to give your star employees a little extra, but a pay rise would weigh too heavily on the budget, there are options through an individual pension scheme. The savings compared to a pay rise could be up to 25% and your employee will keep twice as much. You choose the amount of the annual premium (the tax deductibility is limited to 2 860 euros for income year 2023).

There are also tax-friendly alternatives if you want to grant an extra bonus. This is possible with a supplementary bonus group insurance (on top of the company basic scheme and/or the sectoral scheme) or in the form of options or warrants. Although a bonus group insurance gives the best gross-to-net ratio, it is intended to supplement the state retirement pension. Option or warrant plans, on the other hand, provide tax and social security benefits, and can be converted into cash in the shorter term. However, your employees will be exposed to stock market risk for a certain period of time.

By the way, did you know that a company pension scheme generally allows your employee to withdraw part of the saved reserves for investments in real estate? This includes renovation works to make a house more energy efficient. A pension scheme in the form of group insurance can be for as little as 50 euros per employee per month.

To supplement a pension scheme, you can also take out guaranteed income insurance for your employees. If an employee falls ill or is involved in an accident outside working hours, they do receive a replacement income from the mutual insurance company after 30 days but it is significantly lower than their pay. In this case too: keep it affordable by opting for a fixed interest payment of, for example, 6 000 euros per year or a limited supplement of 10% of pay up to the wage ceiling. 200 euros per employee per year will go a long way.

Group health insurance is also in the same order of budget. For about 200 euros per year, your employee is insured for hospitalisation and for the costs associated with this in the two months before and the six months after hospitalisation. And there’s more: this insurance also covers just about all serious illnesses that do not always require hospitalisation. Family members can take out this insurance at the advantageous group rate, but have to pay the premium themselves. This will quickly save your employee a few hundred euros per year.

If you’d prefer to discuss this with an expert, you can do that too, of course. Feel free to make an appointment and we will work out a proposal tailored to your business.