A three-point strategy for winning big
By Chris Noffke, GBDS, Director of Group Benefits
“A little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel.”
If Henry V.
Porter, the high school coach who wrote this in 1939, could see how powerfully
March Madness grips our nation today, he might have second thoughts about its
effect on our sanity… not to mention the alignment of our collective keel.
When it comes
to group health insurance, deciding when and how to pivot from one insurance
company to another can be as maddening as filling out your bracket ahead of the
big dance. Anyone who has wagered even the smallest of amounts, knows how
difficult it is to choose the winners among the 68 teams in the tournament.
Despite the countless strategies hyped by all sorts of experts, winning most
often comes down to plain luck.
But, unlike
choosing your March Madness bracket, developing and sustaining a successful
employee benefit plan doesn’t have to be a toss-up. You can tilt the court in
your favor by following this three-point strategy.
Point #1: Always be shopping
When it comes
to staying ahead in the health insurance game, maintaining status quo is the
fast lane to self-defeat. Instead, by carefully shopping around each year and
being prepared to change, you can spot opportunities for significant savings.
That’s because
insurance prices tend to follow a multi-year pattern. Generally speaking,
insurance companies offer better rates to entice new groups to switch plans.
They then gradually bring the premiums for those plans back up to a more
profitable level… this takes between two and four years.
I’m not saying
you should change insurance companies every year. But, by shopping around every
year, you will be able to compare your plan costs to what is available on the
market. At some point, you will see a significant difference between the
renewal you’ve been given and what is available elsewhere in the market.
This strategy
can benefit both small and larger employers and their employees. The difference
maker here is a proactive, knowledgeable insurance advisor. Think of your
advisor as a scout who is always on the lookout for the best talent.
Point #2: Know your benchmarks
Large or small,
your organization is competing for employees against other employers. That’s
why it is essential to constantly monitor the benefits types and benefit levels being offered
in your area by similar companies. You need to know if your benefits are going to
attract the best players to your team.
Here again, a
proactive insurance advisor is your best ally. Speaking from experience, the
ability to provide healthcare-only benchmarking across our entire customer base
gives our clients a big competitive edge in attracting and retaining talent
while controlling costs. Regardless of where you get your benchmarking data, it
is important to drill down as deeply as possible to find the specific data most
relevant to your business.
Point #3: Innovate your game plan
A company with the
right medical plan is a lot like a basketball team with strong fundamentals; no
team wins without excellent dribbling, shooting, passing, and rebounding. But,
these skills alone are not enough to make it to the Final Four. To be the best
takes something special; a secret sauce of team spirit, creative leadership and
great individual talent.
Your success in
attracting and retaining the best possible employees also depends on your
ability to offer a fundamentally sound health plan. Exploring and understanding
all options for how benefits are paid – from medical gap coverage, HSAs, HRAs,
flex spending and many more – and then choosing what is best for your
organization is essential. (E.g.: Recently, by altering how the employees paid
their deductibles, we helped a client with 60 enrolled employees save over $100,000
on their annual insurance premiums.)
But, just like in
basketball where fundamentals are essential but not enough to win the
tournament, to succeed as an employer, you need something special. Truth is,
the vast majority of employees want access to voluntary benefits because they cover
what may otherwise become a personal financial issue that distracts them from
their work.
Renewal madness
Because it never
actually ends (unlike March Madness), playing the employee benefits game isn’t about
winning year-to-year, it’s about playing to the best of your ability. Bob
Knight, one of the winningest coaches of all time said it best: “Discipline is
doing what has to be done, when it has to be done, as well as it can be done,
and doing it that way all the time.”
At WisMed Assure, we
carry out these three points every year, for every client. They simply give us
their employee census and we do the rest. (If you are not – yet – a client of
WisMed Assure, we can do the same for you for free if you provide your census.)
I invite you to contact me to explore how these three points can help make your benefit program a winner.
chris.noffke@wismedassure.org
608.442.3734 –
direct
800.975.3421
