At age 33, Gordon Benzer is enjoying health insurance benefits for the first time since he was a college student covered under his parents’ policy. And he didn’t have to find a corporate job to gain that perk.

Benzer is the catering manager for El Sancho Taco Shop, which employs 35 people between the small Dekalb Avenue restaurant and a food truck. The restaurant is one of a few in Bend that in the past year have bought group insurance or awarded a health-insurance stipend in order to keep people around — and to keep them happy. Benzer said El Sancho earned his loyalty.

“Hands-down, the best employer I’ve had in Bend,” he said.

All kinds of companies are shopping for group health insurance plans to help recruit and retain employees, said Jerry Jackson, owner of Jackson Insurance and Financial Services in Bend. “The tighter the labor market is, the more benefits become important,” he said. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Deschutes County has been under 5 percent since fall 2016 and was 4.1 percent in December.

But employer-paid health insurance is still a rarity among restaurants. Garth B. Rouse, a longtime insurance broker for the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association, estimates that less than 15 percent of association members offer health insurance. Of the 494 companies that participate in the Bend Chamber of Commerce’s discount program for members, just four are restaurants, said membership adviser Shelley Junker.

The latest restaurant to join the Bend Chamber’s plan is Barrio. “It’s been almost two years now since we’ve grown as a business,” General Manager Shayla Clements said. The downtown restaurant moved into a space twice its previous size, and in the meantime the labor market has gotten tighter, and turnover worsened, she said.

The tight labor market played a role in El Sancho’s decision to add group health insurance in 2017, co-owner Jon Barvels said. He and co-owner Joel Cordes have always tried to offer as many benefits as they can afford, including a 401(k) retirement savings plan and paid vacation, Barvels said.

“If you’re making money, and you’re able to put the employee right behind making money, they notice that,” he said. “It shows in people’s attitudes and work performance too.”

El Sancho’s health insurance bill is a little more than $7,000 a month, and employees pay half of it, Barvels said. The plans, which he and Cordes also use, can cover children, but not spouses. “They’re solid plans,” Barvels said. Deductibles range from $2,000 to $5,500, and they include a health-savings account, which can be used to pay out-of-pocket costs with pre-tax dollars, he said.

Until El Sancho added Benzer to the company plan last year, he would pay for care out-of-pocket and “try not to get sick.” Recently he went to an orthopedist for custom-made insoles, which he hopes will help him avoid the ankle, knee and hip problems that tend to befall veteran restaurant workers. If it weren’t for the insurance coverage and the health-savings account, he said, he would have bought something off the shelf.

Restaurant employees tend to be young, which means cheaper insurance premiums, Jackson said, but one hurdle for restaurants could be convincing those employees to buy into the plan. That can be difficult if employees aren’t earning high enough wages and the employer doesn’t cover enough of the premium, he said.

Barrio has 20 employees who are eligible for health insurance by working more than 30 hours a week, and 16 of them participate in the plan, which started Jan. 1, Clements said. She previously bought insurance on the individual marketplace, but this is the first time she’s been part of a group plan.

“It feels amazing,” she said.

Recognizing that most restaurants don’t have the profit margin to offer full insurance, the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association came up with what’s known as a “minimum essential coverage” plan, Rouse said. Those plans are cheap, and they help both employer and employee avoid tax penalties under the Affordable Care Act.

Only about 15 restaurants are using the minimum-essential coverage plan, Rouse said, and most of them aren’t large enough that they would be subject to a tax penalty in the first place. The plans cover preventive care, but they don’t cover hospitalization or surgery.

Rouse said he’s seeing more restaurant owners buy full coverage because they want it for themselves and their employees.

Since 2014, the individual marketplace in Oregon shrank to just a few carriers, and the most affordable plans have high deductibles with narrow coverage. Often those owners are drawn initially to the minimum essential plan. “When they understand what these MEC plans do, they don’t necessarily like them,” he said.

The Sparrow Bakery in Bend spent more than a year figuring out how to offer health insurance to its employees and finally decided to go with a stipend, which people can spend on individual plans, co-owner Whitney Keatman said. She declined to say how much each eligible employee will receive, but she said the stipend covers 50 percent of an employee’s premium.

“It’s a baby step toward providing an actual company plan,” she said.

Sparrow announced last fall that the stipend would be available this year and encouraged employees to enroll in coverage through healthcare.gov, Keatman said. Many of them signed up and are covered for the first time, she said.

“We want the best people,” Keatman said. “We want to keep them happy.”

Sparrow recruited David Boyer, a former barista, to work as general manager of its NorthWest Crossing restaurant and bakery on the promise of benefits. Boyer, 39, said he hasn’t regretted moving back to Bend from Albany, New York, after finishing his master’s degree.

“Working for them was tempting,” he said. “Knowing we were going to have benefits sealed the deal.”

—Reporter: 541-617-7860, kmclaughlin@bendbulletin.com