Your renewal increase is an opening offer, not a verdict. Learn the 3 signs your number is soft and how to negotiate a health insurance renewal increase.
Why Your Renewal Increase Might Be a Negotiating Tactic, Not a Fact
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HR Strategy
Is Your Company Ready for Self-Funding? A Feasibility Guide
A self-funded plan feasibility study covers claims data, stop-loss modeling, and breakeven math. Here’s how to run it and what the results actually mean.
How to Choose the Best Employee Benefits Strategy Consultant for Your Mid-Sized Company
How to Choose the Best Employee Benefits Strategy Consultant for Your Mid-Sized Company Most mid-sized companies select a benefits consultant the same way they pick a vendor at a trade show: whoever made the most confident pitch. That tendency is understandable....
Broker-of-Record Letter Explained: The Timing Mistake That Costs You a Full Renewal Cycle
A BOR letter is one page and six fields. Signing it too close to renewal costs a full cycle. Here’s the calendar math, the rejections, and the countermand.
What to Look for When Replacing Your Benefits Broker
If you're asking what you should look for when replacing a large national benefits brokerage, the answer usually starts not with a dramatic failure but with a slow, grinding absence of value. Most employers don't fire their benefits broker because something went...
How to Pay a Fair Price for Healthcare
Spoiler Alert......You Can Just Pay a Fair Price Direct contracting is easier than people make it sound. Most employers think the price of health care is set for them. The network picks the rates. The insurance carrier gives you a discount off a price you can't really...
For ESOPs, Health Plan Spend Isn’t a Benefit Line — It’s a Shareholder Decision.
Most ESOPs treat health insurance the same way every other employer does. They renew it. They negotiate it down a point or two. They tell HR to “shop the market” if last year’s increase stung. Then they move on. That’s a $500K-to-$5M-a-year line item being managed...
The PPO Discount Is a Story. Direct Contracting Exposes the Math.
Networks who brag about their network discount are bragging about how much they over charge clients. That sounds harsh. It's also true. And once you understand how the pricing actually works, you stop defending the number on your renewal and start asking better...
The Blind Spot That’s Costing You Millions
Too often companies that obsess over supply chains ignore the most expensive one they have You already know how to run a supply chain If you’re in manufacturing, construction, or logistics, this isn’t new territory. You manage: Raw material sourcing Vendor contracts...
Three Prescriptions Nearly Forced a 135-Life Manufacturer to Reconsider Offering Health Benefits — Instead, They Cut RX Spend 53% in One Year
In early 2025, the leadership team at a 135-life manufacturing company in St. Louis sat down to review their group health insurance performance. What they saw wasn’t routine volatility. It was concentration risk. Out of 206 total members on the plan, three specialty...