The war for talent in Ireland is intense. Unemployment remains low, skilled candidates have options, and employers who treat benefits as an afterthought are losing people to competitors who don’t. In this environment, your employee benefits package is a talent acquisition and retention tool — not simply a compliance matter.
Group Risk benefits — Group Life Insurance, Income Protection, and Critical Illness Cover — are among the highest-impact, most cost-effective components of any Irish employer’s benefits programme. Yet many Irish companies have never reviewed their Group Risk arrangements since inception, leaving significant value on the table.
What the Irish Market Looks Like
While comprehensive published benchmarking data for Irish SMEs is limited, the following patterns are well-established in the Group Risk market:
Group Life Insurance is the most widely adopted Group Risk benefit in Ireland. A significant majority of employers with 20 or more employees offer some form of Death-in-Service benefit. Typical benefit levels range from two to four times annual salary.
Group Income Protection is less universally adopted than life insurance, but uptake has been growing — particularly since the pandemic highlighted the financial fragility of employees during extended absence. In the professional services sector, income protection is increasingly considered a baseline expectation.
Critical Illness Cover remains the least common of the three core Group Risk products in Ireland, though it is more commonly offered as an optional voluntary benefit (where employees self-select into cover) than as a core employer-funded scheme.
The Five Questions That Matter
If you want to assess whether your current Group Risk programme is competitive, start with these questions:
1. Do you offer Group Life Insurance at all?
If the answer is no, this is the highest-priority gap. Group Life Insurance costs relatively little, delivers very significant tax efficiency, and is the benefit employees most consistently value. The absence of Death-in-Service benefit sends a message — one that competes with the story you tell in recruitment.
2. What multiple of salary are you offering?
A benefit of one times annual salary was once considered acceptable. The market has moved. Most competitive Irish employers now offer between two and four times salary. If you are offering one times, you may be falling below the market standard.
3. When was your policy last tendered?
Group Risk policies are typically renewed annually, but premiums can drift upward over time if the scheme is not actively managed. If your policy hasn’t been competitively tendered in the past two years, you may be paying a premium that isn’t reflective of the current market — particularly if your workforce has changed in size or age profile.
4. Are your Income Protection deferred periods optimised?
Many employers set a deferred period at inception and never revisit it — even as their sick pay policy changes. An Income Protection deferred period that is misaligned with your sick pay provisions creates gaps in protection (or wasteful overlaps in coverage). Regular review prevents this.
5. Are you missing the talent signal?
Critical Illness Cover, in particular, is increasingly used as a voluntary benefit — meaning employees can choose to join the scheme at their own expense (usually at group rates, which are meaningfully cheaper than individual policies). Offering this access costs the employer very little but demonstrates a sophisticated approach to employee wellbeing.
The Review Process
A Group Risk review with GroupRisk.ie involves:
- Audit of your current arrangements (policy terms, premiums, benefit levels)
- Benchmarking against current market standards for your sector and headcount
- Market tender where appropriate — approaching every insurer simultaneously
- Recommendation on any changes to benefit levels, deferred periods, or insurer
- Implementation — we handle all the paperwork
The process is typically completed within four to six weeks and requires minimal time from your HR team.
GroupRisk.ie offers a free Group Risk review for Irish employers. We have no tied insurer arrangements — and our only objective is to get you the best outcome. Get in touch today.