Businesses large and small know high employee turnover is quite the disruption to day-to-day operations no matter the industry. A significant consideration in the minds of employees is the menu of insurance options. Mission Insurance Services will craft a benefit program that gives employees piece of mind and keeps a vigilant eye on premium expenses. A benefit program does not have to consist of only medical insurance. Also available are dental, vision, life insurance, Short Term Disability, Long Term Disability…even Critical Accident, Cancer plans, and Pre-Paid Legal Services. These benefits can be offered either with the employer paying at least some of the premium or they can be offered on a voluntary basis where the employee is responsible for the monthly cost. Also, we recommend employers have a Section 125 POP document to allow pre-taxed dollars to be used for any employee deductions.
Each insurance carrier may offer up to 100 plan options. We sift through all of them whether they be Traditional PPOs, HMOs or High Deductible PPO plans. Some of our clients prefer to offer just one plan option, and others want their employees to have a wide range of choices that include lower-cost plan options with higher Out of Pocket limits, more expensive plans with robust coverage, or somewhere in the middle. Mission Insurance Services will meet with you, confirm what your goals are for your benefit program, analyze your current program and make recommendations whether that includes staying with the same insurance carrier or to possibly move to another insurance company. We are not exclusive to any one insurance carrier. Mission Insurance Services believes in keeping our clients’ options open.
We continually look at how insurance companies price their plans and at times there can be some plan options that provide a real value. It may not make the most sense to offer a plan with a low deductible and out of pocket limit. Every employee enrolled in that rich plan would have a high premium, even those that are healthy and use few medical services in an average year. An viable alternative would be to select a higher deductible, lower cost plan that offers the same network of doctors and hospitals of the more costly plan, but then the employer can take some of those saved dollars to provide a first-dollar benefit to cover some of the employees’ medical expenses. This is known as a Health Reimbursement Arrangement and when implemented correctly with a capable Third Party Administrator, even a small company can save thousands of dollars per year while actually offering better coverage to their employees!
For our current clients we begin the renewal process at least 90 days ahead of time, completing a market analysis as we wait for the renewal rates of the incumbent carrier. Once those are in, we can confirm whether a carrier change could make sense that year. For our clients with over 50 employees, we enjoy negotiating for a lower rate than what the carrier originally offered. Over the years, we have successfully helped our clients stay within their budgets. Please contact us for a “no-obligation, no strings” review of your benefit program.