Comparing Job Offers by Health Benefits First
Two offers land in the same week: one pays a little more, the other’s health benefits package reads longer on paper. Most people default to the salary number because it’s the easiest thing to compare — a single figure, easy to rank. Getting comparing job offers by health benefits right takes real reading, which is exactly why it’s worth the extra half hour before you decide.
Start with the dental cap
Every Canadian dental plan carries an annual maximum, and that number varies meaningfully between employers. In practice, valuing dental cap in job offer terms means comparing the actual dollar ceiling rather than the label: a lower cap matters little if you rarely need dental work beyond routine cleanings, and a great deal if you’re mid-treatment on something significant, or supporting a family with orthodontic needs on the horizon. Ask for the specific dollar figure rather than settling for “dental coverage included.”
Ask HR the questions the offer letter won’t answer
Good questions to ask HR about benefits rarely spell themselves out from the summary sheet alone: whether coverage starts immediately or after a waiting period, whether it’s a percentage-based plan or a fixed-allocation health spending account, what the family coverage add-on costs if you’re bringing dependants, and whether prescription coverage runs on a formulary that might not include a medication you currently take. None of these are awkward to ask before accepting — a reasonable employer expects them.
The family coverage gap
Single coverage and family coverage are priced very differently, and the employer doesn’t always cover the full cost of extending a plan to a spouse and children — some subsidise it heavily, others pass most of the cost to the employee through payroll deduction. If you’re relocating with family, this line item alone can outweigh a modest salary difference between two offers, so get the actual family premium figure before comparing anything else.
When benefits are worth more than a salary bump
A benefits package can genuinely outweigh a salary gap of a few thousand dollars a year once you account for what you’d otherwise pay out of pocket — particularly for a family with ongoing dental, vision or paramedical needs, where the category maximums on a good plan can cover thousands of dollars a year that a slightly higher salary wouldn’t stretch to cover after tax. It’s not a universal rule; a single person with minimal healthcare needs may reasonably prefer the extra cash. The point is to actually run the comparison rather than assume salary always wins.
Building your own comparison, simply
List each offer’s salary, dental cap, family premium cost, waiting period, and whether coverage is percentage-based or a fixed spending account, side by side on one page. Seeing it laid out flat, rather than buried across two separate PDF benefits booklets, usually makes the real difference obvious in a way that comparing salary figures alone never does.
Cape2Canada’s What It Really Costs guide covers healthcare and insurance costs more broadly, useful context for weighing what a given benefits package is actually worth to your household.