A corporation which already offers group insurance (life, health and disability) to all its employees with the premiums paid by them, has created a supplementary disability insurance plan for two of its executive employees, one of whom is the majority shareholder. Would this constitute a group insurance plan and would the premium paid by the employer be taxable benefits to the two executives? After noting that there would be no taxable benefit under s. 6(1)(a) from the employer's payment of the premiums if this arrangement qualified as a group plan described in s. 6(1)(a)(i), CRA stated:
[A]n insurance plan can qualify as a group insurance plan if it covers two or more employees. …
[F]or an individual disability insurance policy to be a component of a group insurance plan, it must be determined whether the level of benefits and the ratio of contributions to the plan shared by the employer and the employee are similar to those of the other employees covered by the same plan. For example, if the corporation had taken out an additional disability insurance policy that provided a higher level of benefits for the employee who is the majority shareholder compared to the level of benefits for the other employee in the group, such a policy would probably not be considered a component of a group insurance plan, but rather an individual disability insurance policy.