What does CFH Insurance Consultants actually do?

We are an independent employee benefits consulting firm. We advise employers on group health, dental, vision, life, disability and voluntary benefits - plan design, funding, carrier and renewal negotiation, compliance, and the benefits administration that runs underneath all of it. The work is continuous rather than annual: the renewal is where it becomes visible, but most of it happens in the months either side.

How long have you been in business?

CFH has been operating since 2007. The people here have been in insurance considerably longer than the firm has existed, which is a different claim and worth keeping separate - the firm's own track record starts in 2007. The firm’s incorporation date is a matter of public record with the State of Michigan, if you want to check it.

Where are you, and where do you work?

Our main office is at 41000 Woodward Avenue, Suite 350 East, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, with additional offices in Colorado Springs and Houston. Michigan is the home market and where most of the work is, but our licensing follows clients beyond it, which matters when an employer's people are not all in one state.

Are you independent, or owned by a carrier or a national group?

Independent. No carrier owns us and no national brokerage sets what we recommend, which is the whole reason a recommendation from us is worth reading. It is a fair question to ask of anyone advising you on a plan, because the answer determines whether the advice can ever point away from a particular carrier.

What size employers do you work with?

From small groups through the mid-market, and the work looks genuinely different across that range - under fifty the levers are plan design, contributions and carrier; above it your own claims start driving the number and funding becomes a real decision. If you want the version specific to your size, the pages by company size lay out what changes at each band.

What industries do you work in?

A broad mix rather than one niche, with real concentration in a few - manufacturing, health care, professional services, mortgage lending and hospitality among them. Industry matters less than workforce shape: a business with variable-hour staff across several sites has more in common with another business like it than with a competitor in its own sector.

Are you licensed outside Michigan?

Yes. Licensing follows the client rather than the office, which is what allows an employer headquartered here to be served properly when its people are spread across several states. If you have employees somewhere specific, ask us about that state directly - it is a factual question with a factual answer.

What happens in a first conversation?

Twenty to thirty minutes, no proposal. You describe what you have and what the renewal looks like, and we tell you whether the number is in line with what comparable employers are being quoted or whether it is not. If it is fair, we say so. Nothing is sent afterwards unless you ask for it. If you are comparing firms first, how to choose an employee benefits broker in Michigan lists the questions to ask each one.

Do we have to be a client to ask you something?

No. A large part of what we do before anyone signs anything is answering questions from employers who are working something out - a compliance date, a renewal that does not read right, whether an arrangement someone is pitching them is real. If it takes a few minutes, it takes a few minutes.

We are not a third-party administrator. We find, vet and manage the administrators our clients use, which means the administrator answers to somebody on your side of the table rather than to itself. We are licensed insurance brokers, not attorneys or accountants - though CPAs and ERISA attorneys are available to clients through the firm for the questions that need them.

Royal Oak Benefits for Small Firms and Medical Offices

By Company Size What We Do Who We Serve Resources About

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Royal Oak, Michigan, in southeast Oakland County

EMPLOYEE BENEFITS CONSULTING · ROYAL OAK, MI

Royal Oak Benefits Consulting for Small Teams Near a Major Hospital

Royal Oak is a health care and services city wrapped around a walkable downtown. One of Michigan’s largest hospitals sits at its center, pulling a dense ring of physician practices, medical offices and clinical support around it, and the rest of the employment base is several thousand small firms — accountants, lawyers, agencies, restaurants and retailers — rather than a handful of large ones.

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Photo: Lrgjr72, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Small Employers, Serious Benefits Expectations

A ten-person agency in Royal Oak recruits against hospital jobs and against Birmingham and Troy offices. That sets an expectation the group’s size does not naturally support. The answer is rarely a richer medical plan; it is usually a better-constructed package — an HSA contribution, real dental, a disability benefit — funded from the same budget.

Below fifty employees there is no employer mandate, which means the design question is open in a way it is not for larger groups. That freedom is worth using deliberately rather than defaulting to whatever the group had last year.

A Medical Office Is a Benefits Problem of Its Own

Physician practices, dental offices and clinical support businesses cluster around the hospital, and they share a pattern: a small number of high earners, a larger number of clinical and administrative staff, and part-time schedules that shift. Contribution structures built around the owners tend to fail the affordability test at the bottom of the scale.

For the year-round side of benefits cost, read about our health and cost strategy.

They also tend to be under-documented. Pre-tax premium deductions require a written cafeteria plan document, and a practice that has been deducting pre-tax for years without one has an exposure that is cheap to fix and expensive to ignore.

Options for a Royal Oak Group Under Fifty

Small-Group Fully Insured Plans

Rates are community-based, which for a small group with poor experience is protection. It is often the correct answer under twenty-five lives and we will say so.

Level-Funding for a Healthy Small Team

A healthy small group subsidizes others inside a community-rated pool. Level funding gives that group its own experience with a fixed monthly cost and a possible surplus return. Underwriting is required.

HSA Plans for Younger Offices

Pairs a lower premium with a visible, portable employer contribution. Reads well to a professional workforce that uses little care.

A Defined Employer Contribution

For very small employers, funding a fixed monthly amount toward individual coverage is a legitimate structure. It is not right for everyone and we will tell you when it is not.

Rules Royal Oak Offices Should Get Right

Affordability for Clinical Support Wages

If you are at fifty or above, the lowest-cost self-only option has to stay under the annual percentage of the lowest-paid full-time employee’s wage, not the average.

Section 125 Plan Paperwork

Pre-tax premium deductions require a written cafeteria plan document. A great many small practices deduct pre-tax without one.

Linked Practices and Controlled Groups

A practice with an affiliated management company or a second PLLC may be one employer for benefits purposes. That changes the count and the testing.

Part-Time Eligibility in Writing

Write the part-time hours threshold down and apply it every time; uneven eligibility is the error we see most in small Royal Oak offices.

Benefits Questions in the Royal Oak Area

We have twelve people. Is a broker worth it?

For a group that size, most of the value is in design and documentation rather than negotiation — picking the right structure, getting the Section 125 document in place and making sure eligibility is written down. That work does not scale with headcount.

Everyone here uses Beaumont. Does that limit us?

It focuses the question usefully. Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital is in every major Michigan network, so the real comparison is which tier it sits in and what that does to your employees’ cost share.

Who Employs Royal Oak

A City Built Around One Large Hospital

Royal Oak had 58,211 residents at the 2020 census. Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital — roughly eleven hundred beds, a Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center, and the primary teaching affiliate of the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine — is by a wide margin the city’s largest employer and one of the largest hospitals in the state. Royal Oak Schools and the City of Royal Oak follow. The Detroit Zoo, which spans Royal Oak and Huntington Woods, draws around 1.3 million visitors a year and employs several hundred people across its sites. Beyond those, the city counts more than two thousand businesses and organizations, most of them small. Corewell broke ground in September 2025 on a 110,000-square-foot outpatient care center in the city, the centerpiece of a reconstruction effort reported at around $104 million.

The Hospital Sets the Wage Floor

A clinical or administrative hire in Royal Oak has a large, well-benefited employer within walking distance. Small employers compete on flexibility and on package construction, not on premium subsidy.

Dense Small-Employer Market

Thousands of small firms means carriers see a lot of small-group volume here. Quotes are competitive; the differences that matter are in design and documentation.

Check the Tier, Not Just the Network

Nearly every network includes Beaumont Royal Oak. Which cost tier it falls into is what actually changes an employee’s bill.

South Oakland Cities Near Royal Oak

All Detroit metro cities we serve · Every Michigan city we serve

Straight Answers From the Royal Oak Area

Will CFH take on organizations in Royal Oak?

Yes. Royal Oak agencies, medical and dental offices and downtown businesses use us for plan design, funding and carrier comparisons, renewal negotiation, compliance and enrollment. We are licensed insurance brokers, and for proper coverage of an account we work in teams of five. Our first step is reviewing your current plan and renewal.

Will CFH take on a group with fewer than twenty-five people?

Yes, and a good deal of Royal Oak is exactly that size. For a small group the work is mostly design and documentation — choosing between fully insured and level-funded, deciding whether an HSA structure fits, and making sure the cafeteria plan document and eligibility rules exist in writing.

Can CFH review our renewal if we keep our current broker?

Yes. It is free and does not require changing anything. We will show a Royal Oak office what drove its increase and whether the hospital tier in its network is working for employees. If the program is priced correctly, we will say so.

Recruiting against the hospital with a ten-person budget? Learn about switching to CFH.

Share This Year’s Royal Oak Renewal

Send the Royal Oak renewal letter, plan summary, contribution and enrollment by tier, and two more documents at fifty or above. We will explain the increase and whether a different structure fits a small office better. 248.370.8853 or info@cfhic.com.

Start the Review Email info@cfhic.com Call 248.370.8853

An independent employee benefits consulting firm. We look at the entire benefits program — cost, plan performance, risk and administration.

Michigan41000 Woodward Avenue, Suite 350 East
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304
248.370.8853

Colorado13540 Northgate Estates, Suite 100
Colorado Springs, CO 80921
719.425.2649

Texas16365 Park Ten Place, Suite 182
Houston, TX 77084
281.404.5670

Employee Benefits for Royal Oak Small Businesses and Medical Offices