Group Health Insurance.
The cheapest way to keep the people you cannot afford to lose. Replacing a good employee costs considerably more than covering one.
Most owners treat benefits as a line item to minimise, which is understandable and expensive. The businesses that get this right treat it as a retention decision with a budget, and they discover something the first quote never shows them: how much you spend is largely your choice, not the carrier's. Plan design, contribution strategy and funding structure are three separate levers, and pulling them properly is the difference between a program you can afford and a renewal you dread.
Three ways to do this, not one
Most small businesses are shown one option, priced once a year, and asked to accept it. There are three genuinely different structures, and which suits you depends on the health of your group, where your staff live, and how much administrative weight you want to carry.
Fully insured
The carrier takes the risk and you pay a fixed premium. Simple, predictable, and the right answer when your group has real claims history or you want no exposure at all. The trade is that you never see your own claims data, so you cannot prove your group is healthier than the rate assumes.
Level-funded
Feels like a fixed monthly cost, but underneath you are partially self-funding with stop-loss insurance capping the downside. If your group's claims come in low, money can come back to you at year end. You also finally see the data. For a healthy group this is frequently the cheapest route, and it is why so many growing businesses move to it.
ICHRA
Rather than buying a plan, you give each employee a defined tax-free allowance and they buy their own individual coverage. You control the budget to the dollar and it does not renew upward with a group rate. It suits businesses with staff across several states, and those for whom a traditional group plan simply does not fit the numbers.
You set the contribution, not the carrier.
A percentage of the employee premium, a fixed amount per head, or a defined monthly budget. The same plan can cost the business very different amounts depending on how the contribution is designed, and this is where most of the savings actually live.
Model this for my business →Cheaper than the invoice suggests
Owners judge benefits by the premium, and the premium is the wrong number. What matters is the net cost after tax treatment and after the contribution you chose, and the gap between those two figures is usually larger than people expect.
Your contribution is deductible
Employer premium contributions are generally a deductible business expense. The money leaves as compensation cost rather than profit, which changes the arithmetic considerably.
Employees pay pre-tax
Through a Section 125 arrangement, the employee share comes out before income and payroll tax. The same coverage costs them meaningfully less than the same money as salary.
Your payroll tax falls too
Because those employee contributions are pre-tax, the wage base they are drawn from is smaller. The employer side of payroll tax follows it down.
HSA and FSA compound it
Contributions to either reduce taxable income on both sides, and an employer contribution to an HSA is deductible while arriving tax-free to the employee.
Put together, a dollar of benefit is generally cheaper to deliver than a dollar of raise, and the employee values it more. That is the whole case, and it is why the businesses that look at the net number rarely go back to offering nothing. What the numbers are for your payroll specifically is a short calculation, and worth doing before you decide it is unaffordable.
What most employers add alongside it
Medical is the anchor, and it is rarely what staff mention first when asked what they value. These sit on top of it, several at no cost to the business, and together they are what makes a package feel generous rather than merely present.
Dental and vision
The two most used and most appreciated benefits in any package, and among the least expensive. Commonly offered employee-paid at group rates, which costs the business nothing.
Group life and AD&D
Usually a small multiple of salary and inexpensive at group rates. Employees rarely ask for it and consistently name it when asked what they would not want to lose.
Disability cover
Short and long term. Protects the income of someone who cannot work, which for most households is the risk they are least prepared for.
Accident and critical illness
Pay a cash benefit directly to the employee on top of any medical coverage. Frequently voluntary, so employee-paid, and they close the gap a deductible leaves.
Hospital indemnity
Pays per day of admission and is often used deliberately to offset a high-deductible medical plan, which lets the business choose a leaner medical design without exposing staff.
HSA and FSA
Not insurance, but part of the same conversation. Both reduce taxable income for the employee and the business, and an HSA pairs naturally with a high-deductible plan.
Many employers who feel priced out of a rich medical plan end up with a leaner medical design plus two or three of these, and their staff rate the result higher than the expensive plan they could not sustain. Which is the point worth taking from this page: the package is designed, not bought.
Your renewal is not a single number
Every year the increase arrives as one figure, and most businesses do one of two things: absorb it, or pass it to staff. Both feel like the only options because only one number was presented.
In practice there are usually four levers. Plan design, meaning deductibles and networks. Contribution strategy, meaning how the cost is shared. Funding structure, meaning whether fully insured still makes sense for a group whose claims have been low. And the market itself, meaning whether another carrier wants your business more than your current one does.
We bring the alternatives before the renewal date, not after it. That timing is the whole value, because once the deadline passes the only remaining option is the one you were handed.
The parts that cause trouble later
The fifty-employee count
Full-time equivalents, not headcount, and part-time hours count in aggregate. Businesses cross the line without realising and discover it when a penalty notice arrives.
Affordability and value
Coverage offered by larger employers must meet defined affordability and minimum-value tests. Offering something is not the same as offering something that counts.
Eligibility and waiting periods
Who is eligible, when coverage begins, and how new hires are handled all need to be written down consistently and applied the same way every time.
Notices and documentation
Required disclosures, summaries of coverage and COBRA administration are unglamorous and they are exactly what gets missed. We keep them in order for you.
We work for the business, not the carrier.
Broker compensation is already inside filed rates, so using us costs the business nothing. What changes is whether you see the whole market, and whether anyone reads the renewal before it becomes your budget.
All three structures priced
Fully insured, level-funded and ICHRA, compared on the same page. If your current structure is still right we will tell you so.
Multi-state handled
We are licensed in all fifty states, so staff spread across state lines is an ordinary case rather than a complication.
Renewal worked early
We start before your renewal date with alternatives in hand. Reacting after the fact is how businesses end up absorbing increases.
Your team can reach us
Employees with questions about their own coverage call us rather than your office manager. That alone is worth the change.
Group health, answered plainly
Am I required to offer health insurance?+
It depends on size. Employers with fifty or more full-time-equivalent staff generally face a federal requirement to offer coverage that meets minimum standards, with penalties for not doing so. Below fifty it is voluntary. What surprises most owners is that the calculation counts part-time hours in aggregate, so a business that feels small can cross the line without noticing.
What does it actually cost me?+
That is largely your decision rather than the carrier's, which is the part most owners do not realise. You set the contribution: a percentage of the employee premium, a fixed dollar amount, or a defined budget per head. The plan design and the contribution strategy together determine your cost, and there is far more room to shape it than a single quoted number suggests.
What is level-funded, and is it risky?+
A level-funded plan looks like a fixed monthly cost to you, but underneath it is partially self-funded, so if your group's claims come in low you can receive money back at the end of the year. Stop-loss insurance caps your downside. For a healthy group it frequently costs less than fully insured coverage and gives you claims data you would otherwise never see. For a group with significant claims history, fully insured is usually the safer structure.
What is an ICHRA?+
Instead of buying a group plan, you give each employee a defined tax-free allowance and they buy their own individual coverage with it. You control the budget precisely and it does not renew upward with a group rate. It suits businesses with staff spread across states, or where a traditional group plan is unaffordable. It is not right for everyone, and the administration matters, but it has become a genuine third option rather than a curiosity.
Can I offer benefits without paying for them?+
Yes, and it is the most underused move in small business. Voluntary benefits such as dental, vision, accident and critical illness can be offered at no employer cost, paid entirely by employees through payroll at group rates they could not obtain alone. Staff value it disproportionately to what it costs you, which is nothing.
How do I stop the annual increase?+
You do not stop it, but you can change what it applies to. Renewals arrive as a single number and most owners either absorb it or pass it on. There are usually three or four other levers: plan design, contribution strategy, a different funding structure, or moving carriers. We bring the alternatives at renewal rather than the increase.
What about part-time and 1099 workers?+
Part-time employees count toward the fifty-employee calculation in aggregate even when they are not individually eligible, which catches people out. Contractors on 1099 generally cannot be covered on a group plan, but there are legitimate structures for including them, and an ICHRA is often the cleanest route.
Does using a broker cost the business anything?+
No. Broker compensation is built into filed carrier rates, so the same plan costs the same whether you go direct or through us. What changes is that you see the whole market rather than one carrier's proposal, and that someone reads the renewal before it becomes your budget.