Principal group dental, vision, life, and disability benefits

It is not tax, legal, or insurance advice, and it is not an offer of coverage. Availability and plan features vary by state and by group size. Ares is not appointed by or endorsed by Principal. We help employers compare the designs that are available for the census, and we will not invent premiums, network sizes, or typical savings. Insurance on this official page is issued by Principal Life Insurance Company, a member of the Principal Financial Group, as the page's legal notices state.

What Principal officially offers employers

Principal's official group-insurance page lists the following employer products, among others:

• Group dental insurance, which Principal describes as benefits the employer can tailor, with a network of dentists.
• Group vision insurance, which Principal describes as simple to administer.
• Group life insurance, which Principal describes as flexible products for employees and their families.
• Group disability insurance, including short-term disability, long-term disability, or both.
• Additional limited-benefit products such as group accident insurance and group hospital indemnity insurance, which Principal describes as cash benefits that help with expenses after a covered event. Principal also lists a specified-disease / critical illness product; we will describe any such product on a quote as a limited cash benefit, not as major medical coverage, and we will not target a condition in our copy or our ads.

Principal also describes group insurance services around implementation, employee education and enrollment, and administration, and says every benefits package from Principal also includes access, for employees and dependents, to either an employee assistance program or an emotional-health support line, with the footnote that the service is not part of the insurance contract, may be changed or discontinued, and is not available with group life policies issued in New York. We will confirm what is actually included on the quote rather than assume an EAP is part of every case.

The same page says the employer can customize coverage, choose to pay all, part, or none of the premium, and tailor benefits to the business size, and then administer benefits online. That contribution flexibility is one reason employers look at Principal next to Guardian, MetLife, Sun Life, and Ameritas. We will not name a winner.

Principal also points employers to paid-family-and-medical-leave and state disability insurance as rules they should understand. Those are statutory programs in some states, not a Principal product we will invent here. We will flag a state leave or disability-insurance requirement when the worksite states make it relevant.

Who these benefits are for

Ancillary benefits can sit next to a fully insured small-group or large-group medical plan, a level-funded plan, a self-funded plan, an ICHRA, or a QSEHRA. A Florida medical plan from Florida Blue, UnitedHealthcare, or AvMed can be paired with Principal dental, vision, life, or disability when the contracts allow it. Ares's practical core remains companies with 2 to 50 employees, and Principal's official page says benefits can be tailored to business size, including mid-size and larger groups. Minimum participation rules are contract questions.

How to think about networks and enrollment

For dental and vision, employees should check the official Principal directory, or the vision network named on the quote, for the providers they actually use. We will not publish provider counts or repeat a "large network" marketing claim as an Ares fact. Life and disability coverage follows the contract. These benefits are often enrolled with the medical plan or at renewal, and premiums can be deducted under a Section 125 plan when the rules allow it.

What we need for a proposal

Principal's official page also invites employers to compare their benefits with what other organizations of similar size and industry offer. We will not invent a benchmark from that tool, and we will not publish a typical Principal premium or participation rate. The comparison we will run is the one you asked for: Principal next to other official ancillary carriers, and next to the medical structure you already have or are considering, using the actual bids.