Here's what you need to know about figuring out your business' size and what it means.

Your business' size, also known as group size, affects your choice of health insurance plans that you can offer to your employees. The Affordable Care Act defines business size into two categories, small or large.

Small versus large

The government considers your business a small group if you have 50 or fewer full-time equivalent employees. Your group is considered a large group if you have 51 or more full-time equivalent employees. The Affordable Care Act has different requirements for large groups, and they can choose from a wider selection of plans. 

Tip: You can use your rate sheet from us to check your group size. Under Rating Type, it'll tell you whether your business is a small or large group.

What are full-time equivalent employees?

An employee who works an average of at least 30 hours a week is considered full time. 

It gets a little more complicated if you have part-time or seasonal employees. You can count them so that they add up to full-time equivalents. Here's a simplified formula:

1. Add the total hours worked in a month by all part-time employees.
2. Divide by 120.
3. The result is the number of full-time equivalent employees.

Knowing how many full-time equivalent employees you have is important. You should get legal advice if you need help figuring this out.

Our plan offerings

At Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, we offer a wealth of customized plan options. To better serve you, we split our plans into three size categories, instead of just small and large.

We label your options like this: 

• 2-50 employees
• 51-999 employees 
• 1,000-plus employees

We like to think this makes your options clear and simple, but you can always contact us with questions.