Who Offers a Benefits Admin System to Their Clients?

[Sam]

We have just started offering a benefits admin system to some of our clients and I would like to know what other agencies do. Our primary motivation is to offer a better experience to our insured firms and to make it simpler for them to handle ons and offs, but also to give enough value in the system, that they are inputting everything there, so that we can pull the reports we need to market their coverage without needing to go back and forth for an updated census at renewal time.

We focus on the construction market, so the Zenefits, Gusto, and SimplyInsured of the world have not had much impact on our group business thus far. However, we expect that to change in the next couple of years and want to make sure to be ready.

We looked at a lot of systems and are still trying to figure out if one will do, or if we might need a second system for custom situations.

What system to you use and how has it helped your agency?

 

[Botboy141]

As a recently registered user I'm digging up ancient posts today.

Sam - My agency utilizes Employee Navigator. We partnered with them starting in 2013 to ensure our ability to compete with Zenefits, Namely, etc.

We have roughly 35 of our 150 benefit clients utilizing thr platform on a daily basis. It has been a major retention tool and greatly assisted our clients and ourselves when it comes to group administration.

The biggest word of caution I'll throw out there, don't expect to buy it and just be able to turn it on for a client. We have in house personnel who's sole responsibility it is to manage this system, build out new clients, update plans at renewal, etc.

There are a number of players out there, however, we refused to pay a PEPM fee and didn't like a lot of the minimums associated with platforms like Maxwell Health. Employee Navigator has allowed us to offer a system to our clients that is low cost to us ($10,000 annually) and no cost to our clients regardless of size. We also spun off a white label to handle ACA reporting from the 2015 calendar year and brought in nearly $100,000 in revenue from that service when other providers were falling on their face.

I would be happy to discuss in more detail if you are still evaluating potential solutions or to get some feedback from you regarding any system you may have implemented.

Last item of note, we wanted a system we controlled, not a platform where we send out the needed updates for our groups to a third party and they drop into line and we'd have to wa it 3-6 weeks for the update. We can have clients make a final decision Monday morning regarding renewal and be ready for Open enrollment Tuesday morning. It also provided a streamlined avenue for those clients for whom we handle eligibility and enrollments, simplifying our process and ensuring we always have complete and accurate information when an enrollment comes across our desk.