Group benefits for your Northwest Territories employees
The Northwest Territories combines a territorial payroll tax with some of the highest medical travel exposure in the country. Both belong in the benefits conversation from the start.
We are not licensed in Northwest Territories. Placing business for a Northwest Territories-headquartered employer requires licensing recognised by the NWT Superintendent of Insurance. This page is written for employers headquartered elsewhere who have staff living in Northwest Territories — a situation we handle constantly. If you need a locally licensed broker, tell us and we will say so rather than stretch.
What is different about a benefits plan in Northwest Territories
Four things vary by province, and all four change what your plan should look like.
Public plan — NWT Health Care Plan
Drug program — NWT extended health benefits programs
Employer payroll tax — NWT Payroll Tax
Taxable benefit treatment
Payroll tax thresholds, rates and drug program details are set in provincial budgets and change. The summary above reflects our 2026 review and is general information, not tax advice — confirm current-year figures with the Northwest Territories finance ministry or your accountant before you budget from them.
Designing for Northwest Territories, not for a template
Two things separate a competent NWT plan from a copied one: how it coordinates with Non-Insured Health Benefits for employees eligible under NIHB, so you are not paying twice or leaving members caught between two payers, and how it funds the real, uncovered costs of travelling south for care.
Talk it throughWhere Northwest Territories employees are
- Yellowknife
- Hay River
- Inuvik
- Fort Smith
- Behchokǫ̀
- Norman Wells
- Regulator
- NWT Superintendent of Insurance
- Public health plan
- NWT Health Care Plan
- Employer payroll tax
- NWT Payroll Tax
Coverage for Northwest Territories employees
The same eight practice areas, tuned to what the public plan here does and does not do.
Extended Health & Dental
The core of every plan — and where most of the money goes.
Learn moreDisability, Life & Critical Illness
The coverage nobody thinks about until the worst week of their life.
Learn moreHealth & Wellness Spending Accounts
Flexible dollars for a workforce that wants different things.
Learn moreMental Health & EAP
The fastest-growing line of claims in the country.
Learn moreGroup Retirement & Savings
Group RRSP, DPSP, TFSA and pension — coordinated with the benefits plan.
Learn moreRenewal Strategy & Marketing
The part most brokers do once a year in an email. We do it all year.
Learn moreAdministration & Compliance Support
We take the plan admin off your HR team’s desk.
Learn moreExecutive & Owner Benefits
For the people whose departure would change the business.
Learn moreQuestions employers actually ask us
No hedging. If the honest answer is “you do not need us for that,” that is the answer you will get.
NIHB covers a range of drug, dental, vision and medical transport benefits for eligible First Nations and Inuit members, and coordination rules determine which payer goes first. Set up properly it means better coverage and no double payment; set up carelessly it means members bounced between two administrators. It is worth getting explicitly right at implementation.
It is levied on the employee and withheld by the employer, so it is not an employer-borne tax in the way British Columbia’s or Ontario’s employer health tax is. It is still an administrative obligation with filing requirements, and it belongs on the same checklist as your benefits remittances.
Medical travel gap funding, out-of-territory emergency and referral coverage, virtual mental health access, and clean NIHB coordination. Those four decide whether the plan is genuinely useful in Yellowknife or Inuvik.
Employees in more than one province?
Multi-provincial groups are routine for us. Here is what changes everywhere else:
Send us your renewal. We will tell you the truth about it.
A 30-minute call and a look at your last statement is usually enough for us to say whether you are being well served in Northwest Territories. If you are, we will say so.
An advisor reads it and replies personally — it does not go to a call centre.