Other Benefits

Continuing on my previous post, I want to discuss a couple of other non-salary components of the offer.

First, the medical plan. If you are young, single and healthy, you might not care much about medical coverage. If you have a choice you could select the cheapest option (which is always the HMO) and be done with it.

For anyone else, and especially those with families or dependents, I recommend a PPO. Sometimes you might have a choice of two or more PPOs, in which case you should examine the plan details:

• Medical Premiums. Often it’s $X for an individual, 1.5 - 2X with a dependent, and 3X for a family.
• Deductibles – Typically you’ll pay around $250-500 each year before insurance kicks in.
• Coinsurance rate – i.e., the percentage of the insurance covers after the deductible. Typically 80%, or 90% with the better plans.
• Doctor visit co-pays – The better plans have a fixed amount you pay out of pocket for each visit to a doctor for basic outpatient services. Other plans cover at the standard rate (e.g., 80%).
• Prescription Drug Coverage – Some plans charge you a fixed amount, as in $15 for generics and $30 for name brands. Others charge a percentage, as in 10% of the total cost for generic s and 20% for name brands.
• Out of pocket limit – this caps the amount you have to pay out of pocket in a given year; after that the insurance picks up 100% of covered expenses.
  

Dental and vision plans are usually simpler, and you typically won’t have a choice in those plans – although some companies also offer a dental HMO, which I have never tried.

You may also want to check whether the company offers medical coverage for domestic partners. Plans may also have varying coverage for things like mental health and acupuncture.

Secondly, you should examine the company’s Paid Time Off policy. Many companies still provide unlimited sick leave, but some combine vacation days with sick days. For instance, company A might give you two weeks of vacation and unlimited sick days, and company B might give you 15 days of PTO (Paid Time Off) which you can use as either vacation or as sick days. Hence if you exceed 5 days of sick leave, you’d be better off with the unlimited sick leave option; however, if you rarely take sick days, the combined PTO option would let you take the unused days as vacation time.

Finally, a vanishing breed is something called ”Comp Time” or “Time In Lieu Of”. This is more common at non-tech shops, and it means that for each hour (or two) that you work overtime, you’ll get an hour of vacation time. Alas, in the tech world this benefit is now as elusive as the abominable snowman.

In reality you won’t be able to negotiate the details of most of these benefits since it will be the same package for everyone. But in some cases you might be able to negotiate for more vacation or PTO time.