What do you say when your insurance agent succeeds in lowering your health insurance costs while increasing benefits for you and your staff?

The Problem

For most organizations, the cost of offering health insurance and other benefits to employees are escalating rapidly.  The Kaiser Family Foundation said that premiums for employer-sponsored health coverage rose by about four percent in 2020 with similar increases expected in 2021. Unfortunately, these increases are often passed on to employees resulting in higher payroll deductions, less coverage, and fewer plan choices.

For Barrow Group’s client, Balance Staffing, it was no exception.  Their ability to offer benefits to all employees covering them and their families was becoming cost prohibitive.  But they were determined to find a solution.  According to Balance Staffing’s Controller, Matthew Klapper, “Our employees are our most important and valuable assets, and we are committed to offering them affordable health insurance.”

Matt worked directly with Barrow Group’s health and benefits administrator, Charlie Stearns, CSFS.  Charlie has been consulting with clients and providing valuable solutions at Barrow Group for more than five years.

The Solution

The solution began with simple goals and a long-term commitment. The first thing Charlie did was to move Balance Staffing to an ACA compliant plan strategy using a self-funded program that included a simple MEC.  He then found ways to improve major medical and ancillary plans. This helped save the organization $100,000 in insurance costs the first year.  By restructuring their plan, Balance Staffing was also able to build up reserves in the amount of $86,000 during the same period.  This cycle repeats itself annually creating true plan assets and reserves that could now be utilized for the benefit of the members.  Using the reserves in the future helped to maintain rates and provide better health insurance coverage options within a robust employee benefits package. Through all of this, Charlie caught an error in ACA-related fines paid to the IRS. Fixing the error resulted in an IRS refund to Balance Staffing of almost $80,000.

What do you say when your insurance agent lowers your health insurance costs while increasing benefits for you and your staff?  Matt commented “It’s absolutely awesome! “

Approximately 90% of Barrow Group’s clients have received refunds this year!  If your benefits administrator is not working hard for your company, you owe it to yourself and your staff to explore other options.

Barrow Group specializes in working with staffing agencies to provide an unsurpassed level of expertise when it comes to assessing and managing the risks associated with the placement of temporary workers.  If you would like to schedule a consultation with Charlie, contact 800-874-4798.