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So let’s take a look at the types of health insurance plans that are available for employers to purchase. Of course we know what an HMO is, but there are different variations of an HMO. So for example, HMO we all know stands for Health Maintenance Organization. And the idea behind an HMO is that Read More

So unlike the under-50 market in this over-50 market, your broker can work to get proposals from the marketplace and then have those carriers compete for your business. And that’s where prices can come down a little bit. In that community rated under 50, we can’t do that. We can’t have carriers compete for your Read More

So when a health insurance carrier underwrites your account, it’s different based on the size of your group. So let’s take a look, for example, at a group between 50 and 100 employees. In this size group, actually most, most companies still are fully insured. But unlike the under 50 marketplace, once you hit 50 Read More

Level funding simply means that you’re dividing your premiums into a couple of different buckets. So you’re taking, let’s say, 60 percent of your health insurance premium and over to the left, you’re purchasing what we call stop-loss coverage. So you’re buying insurance for claims, over a specific dollar amount, like $20,000. And then you’re Read More

Now, something that’s a new and emerging trend in the small group marketplace under 50 lives is what we call level-funded plans. So unlike the fully insured market under 50, that’s community rated level funded plans are medically underwritten. So an insurance carrier will take a look at your employee census and they put it Read More

When an insurance carrier evaluates your organization to provide a price for you, a rate, it’s going to be different for each company based on the size of their organization. So let’s just take under 50, for example. If you have under 50 employees your company is going to be what we call community-rated. So Read More

So every year employers struggle with their increasing health care costs. So if they get a rate increase of 10 percent and their budget is tight this year, they’re going to have to make decisions about how much of that 10 percent rate increase they can absorb for themselves. And how much they might have Read More

I’m a big advocate of employee wellness programs. So when we talk about behavioral and lifestyle choices, I mean, if you are a diabetic and you can reverse some of those healthcare cost concerns, maybe by choosing a healthier lifestyle, getting some help that will bring costs down overall. So in employer wellness programs, we Read More

Healthcare costs go up every year. Health insurance costs go up every year. And when people ask me why, I can list off several things. First of all, our aging population. Our cost of pharmaceuticals. We always complain about the cost of our pharmacy. But we have some of the best innovative pharmacy programs in Read More

The average cost of a single premium right now in this country is $8,400. That’s up 7% from last year. Five years ago, the average cost was $6,890. So from five years to today, it’s gone up 22%. If you go back 10 years ago, it was $5,800. That’s a 44% increase in 10 years. Read More