Annual Employee Benefits Enrollment Review for 2027

Many of you will receive your annual employee benefits enrollment package options for the year 2027 in a few weeks, either in October 2026 or November 2026.

Open enrollment is one of the few times each year when employees can change critical financial, insurance, tax, and retirement benefits. Decisions made during this period can affect your family’s financial security for years to come.

You and your spouse should spend quality time reading all the benefit options offered by your employer and choose the right ones.

Besides 401k and medical insurance plans (medical, dental and vision), check out the following benefits offered by your employer:

1. Basic life insurance (1 time or 2 times of salary)

2. Voluntary or supplemental life insurance (up to 10 times your salary)

3. Basic AD&D insurance

4. Voluntary AD&D insurance (for you and your spouse)

5. Spouse life insurance

6. Short-term disability (STD)

7. Long term disability (LTD)

8. Legal service plan – You can create WILL, POA, Health Care directives for no additional cost

9. Employee stock purchase plan (15% discount)

10. RSUs (Restricted Stock Unit) and ISOs (incentive stock option)

11. Identity Theft Protection

One of the important benefits in the list is supplemental or voluntary life insurance. Please sign-up for the right coverage (which could be up to 10 times your salary) based on your personal finance situation. For those in their 30s or 40s, the premium charged by your employer plan may be cheaper than outside insurance and it mostly does not require any medical examination. It does not matter if you are planning to change your job or currently have outside-term life insurance. This provides better upside risk protection for your family for a small premium.

Also, you MUST have the right term life insurance coverage outside of your employer so you will continue to have coverage during a job change or loss of employment.

Every one of us is always wasting a lot of money in other areas (could be too much Starbucks, drinks, video games, electronic gadgets, trading, movies, clubs, sarees, dresses, etc.). If you track your expenses in a spreadsheet, you can easily find your wasteful or excessive spending. Divert that money towards paying this premium, and it is worth it. Please make sure that your expenses are always lower than your income minus expected savings. Your family will never fall into a financial crisis, and you can easily meet your long-term retirement objective. If you are eligible for a high-deductible medical plan and if it meets your family’s medical needs, sign up for an HSA (Health Savings Account). You could contribute up to $9,000 (married filing jointly) plus a $1,000 catch-up contribution for those above 55 years old for 2027. You will receive a pre-tax and post-tax benefit and can invest the money in index ETFs or funds. Some employers match up to $500, $1,000, or $1,500 towards HSA contributions.

Also you MUST have right term life insurance coverage outside of your employer and you will continue to have coverage during job change or loss of employment.

In addition, sign up for the legal service plan benefit and you can create your WILL, Health Care Medical Directive (Living Will), and POA – Power of Attorney for your finance and living trust.

Please note that you will lose most of your insurance coverage benefits from your current employer as soon as you switch to another company like a smaller consulting firm that may not offer any benefits or if you decide to work as a contractor through 1099 or C2C. It is your responsibility to ensure you enroll in these coverages outside of your employer. For life insurance, all you need is TERM LIFE INSURANCE for the right term and the right coverage amount when you buy it from outside insurance companies, and it is a must for every family.

For many families, term life insurance is often the most cost-effective solution. Complex products may involve significantly higher risks and may not be appropriate for many investors.

Your ability to earn an income is often your largest financial asset. Long-term disability insurance may protect a portion of your income if illness or injury prevents you from working for an extended period.

Every year, review your beneficiaries for :

401(k)
IRA
HSA
Life insurance
Pension plans
Many people forget to update beneficiaries after:

Marriage
Divorce
Birth of children

Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and HSAs generally pass according to beneficiary designations. If no valid beneficiary exists, assets may become subject to probate or default plan provisions.

Add Identity Theft Protection. Many employers now offer:

Identity theft monitoring
Credit monitoring
Cybersecurity benefits
With the advancement of GenAI and Agentic AI, cyber scams are getting more powerful every day. Please use the money transfer lockdown feature offered by Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, etc., select all the eligible accounts and enable the “lock” option which will prevent any money transfer from your investment accounts without your permission.

Always try to maximize your pre-tax or ROTH 401k contribution (currently $24,500 for the year 2026). It does not matter if your employer provides a matching contribution or not. Many of us do not contribute enough to their 401k if the employer does not provide a matching contribution or limit their contribution to 3% to 5% and just match their employer contribution. This is not a good strategy. If you are 100% sure that you plan to relocate to India, choose the ROTH 401k from the start. Also some employers offer after tax 401k contributions (called MEGA ROTH), which you can contribute up to $72,000 excluding the amount you contributed via pre-tax employee contributions and employer matching contributions.

You may end up paying a lot of taxes to the IRS every year. If you could have saved these taxes by using pre-tax contributions and invested the tax savings in the broad-based stock index funds, you could have gained more than $500,000 over 30 years.

Tax-deferred growth is much more powerful than after-tax growth over the long term. If you have decided to move back to India permanently after staying for some years in the USA, you could go with the ROTH401k contribution option so that when you withdraw you will not pay any taxes in the USA. Please take a long-term view before making any of your financial decisions.

Keep your investment strategies very simple (or boring) by investing in broad based index funds and stay away from complex investment products or trading options or leveraged ETFS or day trading. Research clearly shows that people underestimate the actual risks involved with complex investment products, options and day trading and you will lose a huge amount of money in the short term, which will put your family at lifestyle risk and also impact your health very badly. Keeping your investments simple will help you to rebalance them easily when you are getting closer to retirement or manage your post-retirement objectives. You can also transition your investments to your spouse very easily and they can continue to handle them during your absence. Please always involve them and keep them up to date regarding your investments.

Also, I strongly encourage you to consider an umbrella insurance policy if you have recently added your teenage kid to your auto insurance policy. The probability of getting into an accident by a younger driver is higher and this policy will protect your assets if you end up getting sued by the attorney of the affected party and if their intention is to confiscate your assets through litigation.

Please refer to my EBOOK page at www.samatva.us/blogs which gives more details about tax savings and handling RSUs and ISOs tax impacts and diversification strategy.

I hope this helps you and your family.

I wrote this blog for educational purposes only and should not be construed as tax, legal, or investment advice. Consult qualified tax, legal, financial aid, and residency professionals regarding your specific circumstances.

Jeyamariappan (Mari) Ganapathy, CFA Samatva Wealth Management | Registered Investment Advisor. Website: www.samatva.us | Email: Mari@samatva.us | WhatsApp: 301-758-4052. Facebook: www.facebook.com/samatva.us | eBook & Blogs: www.samatva.us/blogs