HEALTH INSURANCE Outside the Box
Continued from Page 46
What’s needed is a f lexible plan that allows a gap in coverage and lets the worker
get back on the plan when he returns to
work. The plans of Aetna/SRC, CIGNA/
Starbridge, and Planned Administrators’
underwriter, BCS Insurance, have this
feature; however, the key is in the administration of the missed premium, Nicolai
points out. To create maximum efficiency for your clients, “you really should
connect them with an administrator who
takes care of collecting missed premiums
from workers in order to maintain their
plan eligibility.”
Focus on high-deductible plans
With health-care costs rising, albeit more
slowly than in the past, innovation has
to cut both ways—not only on the product side, but on the agency side as well.
Over the past six months, Holli Quinn,
employee benefits manager at SIA Group,
a multiline agency in New Bern, N.C.,
says she’s received an increasing number
of calls from HR managers complaining
about rising health-insurance costs.
Some employers are looking at high-deductible plans with savings options, such as
health saving accounts (HSAs) and health
reimbursement accounts (HRAs) because
they are being forced to seriously consider
options they would not have thought of in
the past. While some firms have ratcheted
down benefits incrementally and have increased deductibles and copays, others
“have moved all the way to the end of the
totem pole” with plans featuring the highest possible figures for both, Quinn says.
“There’s no room to move, and so some
are moving to HSAs.”
Quinn expects interest in HSA/HRA
plans to increase during the next 12
months as SIA’s clients rotate through
a calendar year of renewal dates. That’s
sparked innovation on the agency side:
In years past, SIA agents servicing clients’ employee-benefit plans might have
offered them one deductible step upward
at renewal time, since clients who are offered rich plans wouldn’t likely make
drastic changes. But times have changed
and so has SIA’s strategy. “Now, I tell our
agents to leave no rock unturned,” Quinn
TIPS FOR SUCCESS
•Be creative.
•Use technology to reach the
young and make it easy for
them to buy.
•Offer limited-ben efit plans.
•Work closely withemployers employers
and go the extra mile.
•Explore HSAs and HRAs. HRAs.
•Keep up with pub lic policy.
says. “Our agents show c lients ev-
erything that’s availab le, in-
cluding every HSA and HRA
option.” That way, SI A”s
bases are covered. If
an employer has been
quietly shopping for cheaper options, another agent won’t be able to come in and
take that business.
Going the extra mile
In another bid to protect its book of business, SIA now offers value-added programs, including one in which its agents
audit clients’ employee manuals and I-9s
for compliance free of charge. SIA sends
its advisors to a Florida company called
Compliance Check for two weeks of
in some cases, for dependents as well, they
are now relying more on employee contributions toward the premium. While many
government employers have stuck mainly
with tradition, private employers are increasingly “backing off and
providing only a fixed-dol-lar contribution toward the
premium,” according to
R on Buffum, a NAIFA-Aus-
t in member.
While advisors may not
f eel a direct impact from
this trend, it is one piece in the
e volving puzzle of helping employ-
e rs continue to provide health insurance
t o their employees. For example, when
d ealing with a government client recent-
l y, Buffum says, health insurance became
a critical part of the agency’s budget process. “Premium dollars really became a
driving factor as far as total cost was concerned,” he says.
Though agency employee-benefits
managers wanted to trim their plan costs,
they did not want their employees to have
to change doctors. Knowing that monetary factors were not the only thing that
might cause the case not to work, Buffum
went the extra mile, using online search
engines to compare the internal details of
For hourly workers, the most useful benefits are
payment for outpatient services, such as a doctor’s
office or a pharmacy’s copay.
training. Then agents offer auditing services that clients would either have to pay
for or, if they choose to hope for the best
on compliance issues, leave themselves
with greater legal exposure.
Quinn believes the program has helped
SIA retain employee-benefit clients and
knows it’s helped secure new ones. “
Sometimes it’s hard to get in the door just by
quoting health insurance because everyone talks the same game,” she says. “This
is a service that provides our agents with a
unique way to get in the door.”
Although employers have traditionally paid premiums not only for a group but
provider directories.
Besides just offering the usual change
in deductible and copays to lower costs,
Robelynn Abadie, CSA, LUTCF, RFC,
with Abadie Financial Services in Baton
Rouge, La., recommends showing prospects many plans and options. “Even
something as simple as a deductible before the prescription card copay can significantly lower the cost,” she says.
Looking holistically at prospects’ entire benefits program can also bring
about ways to cut costs and renegotiate with carriers. “Certainly, it gets to be
