Business Owners Struggle With Insurance Needs, Costs | Insurance.us

by Alaska Journal of Commerce

By Margaret Bauman, Alaska Journal of Commerce, Anchorage

Oct. 23–Downtown Anchorage pub owner Daniel Zivanich is quick to acknowledge that he pays more than $10,000 a month for health insurance for his 16 employees, and that’s the way he thinks it should be.

“It’s about as good a plan as you can get,” said Zivanich, who owns F Street Station and the Cabin Tavern in Anchorage’s Muldoon area with business partner Ed deFapio.

Why does he do it?

“I want to have good employees, and I want to keep the employees,” said Zivanich, whose workers include people who have been with him for 24 years. His average employee has been with him eight to nine years, he said.

“If a business can’t afford to take care of its employees, pay them a decent wage (including health insurance), you don’t have any business being an employer,” he said. “That said, I’m not justifying the cost going up. It’s ridiculous. We pay out close to $130,000 a year at F Street just for health insurance.”

The government should be looking into why health care is so expensive, he said.

Zivanich came to Alaska in 1961 and got his first job working at the Driftwood Lounge, now the Woodshed, in Downtown Anchorage. In 1974, he opened F Street, which has become popular with the business crowd looking for a light meal or appetizers with their drinks.

Zivanich is trying to keep his overhead costs under control, but said he’s feeling the squeeze.

“Right now people have money here in Alaska, and jobs, but there is a limit to how much you can raise prices to cover costs,” he said. “In my case, the only one being hurt (financially) is me.”

Still he is determined to continue with his policy of paying the full cost of medical and dental insurance for everyone who works for him.

Zivanich’s employees are among a lucky few whose employers pay 100 percent of the cost of medical and dental insurance plans.

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