Contractors, janitorial crews, fleets, restaurants, retail floors and clinics all buy the same product and run into completely different problems doing it. Pick your trade below, or start with the thing most owners get wrong.
Owners in high-hazard trades routinely assume group health is priced out of reach for them, because that is exactly how workers’ compensation works — class code, claims history, experience mod. Small-group health insurance does not work that way. Under the ACA, a plan for a group of 1 to 50 in Florida can be priced on five things only: employee age, geographic rating area, family size, tobacco use, and the plan selected. Industry, injury rate and prior claims are not permitted rating factors. An excavation crew and an accounting office of the same ages in the same county pay the same rate for the same plan.
What genuinely does change by trade is eligibility — who counts, when they count, and how you handle people who are not W-2. That is where the money and the compliance risk actually sit, and it is what each page below covers.
Four questions decide almost every small-group design, whatever the industry:
No. For a group of 1 to 50 employees, the ACA allows premiums to vary only by employee age, geographic rating area, family size, tobacco use and the plan selected. Industry, injury rate and prior claims are not permitted rating factors. This is the opposite of workers' compensation, which is priced on your class code and claims history.
In 2027 a typical employee-only group plan runs roughly $350 to $650 per month, usually split between employer and employee. Level-funded plans often come in 10 to 30 percent below that for a healthier group. Your actual number depends on the ages of your team, your county and the plan you choose.
In Florida the small-group market covers employers with 1 to 50 employees, so you can set up a group plan with as few as one W-2 employee besides the owner. Carriers generally require that a minimum share of eligible employees participate and that the employer contribute at least half of the employee-only premium.
No. Group plans cover W-2 employees. 1099 subcontractors buy individual coverage, though they can deduct premiums against net self-employment income. Some employers use an ICHRA to reimburse individual premiums tax-free instead, which reaches people a group plan cannot.
Yes. Bona fide health insurance contributions count toward the fringe obligation on federally funded work rather than being paid out as cash. Credit is subject to annualization, meaning it is based on the effective annual rate of contributions across all hours worked, both Davis-Bacon and non-Davis-Bacon.
Only if you average 50 or more full-time equivalent employees. Below that threshold there is no federal mandate and no Florida state mandate. Most small employers offer coverage because of hiring and retention, not because they have to.
Send your employee count and ages and we come back with real numbers from every major carrier — not a range, your range. Carriers pay our commission, so this costs you nothing either way. Licensed in 40+ states, based in Miami, bilingual.