The same five stages, on every account, every year.
A datum is the fixed reference every other measurement is taken from. Ours is what your plan actually costs once the census is held still — not the headline number on the renewal letter. Everything else we do is measured against it.
Nothing here is improvised.
The same sequence runs on a twelve-life group and a four-hundred-life group. What changes is how long each stage takes, not whether it happens.
Set the Datum
Four documents, six if you are 50 or more. We reprice on a held census, so you compare like with like.
Total premium is the wrong number.
Test the Market
The carrier states its ask in writing. We take it to the market rather than accept it, and price the alternatives.
A carrier move and a negotiation are two different wins. We say which.
Negotiate
Alternates requested in writing, credits asked for, the decision held until the number is right.
We record the refusals too. That is what makes the wins mean something.
Implement
Eligibility files, ID cards, the ben-admin build and open enrollment run as a project with dates on it.
This is why IT is one of the five.
Carry the Year
Claims, billing and compliance come off your desk and onto ours, all year, not just at renewal.
For proper coverage of an account we work in service teams of five.
The same five stages run every year, which is what makes one year comparable to the next.
Why we hold the census still.
One employer, one renewal year. Three different ways of describing the same increase — only one of them tells you anything.
+21%
Total premium. The number most employers are quoted, and the one most likely to start a panic. It rose partly because the group grew and partly because a plan was added. None of that is a price increase. Headcount growth and a new plan are decisions you made, and they belong in the budget conversation, not the renewal negotiation.
+9.55%
Blended per-employee cost. Better, and still wrong. It moves when the mix between plans shifts, even if no rate changed at all. If more employees moved to the richer plan this year, the blend rises even when every rate held flat. That makes it useful for budgeting and misleading as a verdict on the carrier.
+6.80%
Held census. The same people, the same plans, priced a year apart. This is the datum. It is the only one of the three you can put next to last year and mean something by it. It is also the only figure a carrier, a competing quote and your board can all be held to, because nothing in it moved except price.
Taking it to the market is a decision, not a reflex.
The carrier states its ask in writing. What happens next depends on what your file actually says — and there are years when the right answer is not to shop.
The Census Is Held Still
Every quote is priced on the same census we set at stage one. A market test run on a moving census compares nothing, because the differences you are shown have to be the market’s and not your own headcount’s. In practice we fix the census and the plan list before any quote is requested, and every carrier prices from that same file. If a carrier’s number is built on a different count, we send it back rather than compare it.
Sometimes the Work Is Not Marketing
A file carrying a live high-cost claim can be re-underwritten by a competitor who has not already absorbed it. Where that is the case we say so, in writing, and recommend holding. We would rather defend a judgment than produce a quote nobody needed.
Ancillary Is Shopped, Not Negotiated
Dental, vision, life and disability are priced off card rates inside size brackets. Nobody is building a number for you, so the saving comes from finding the carrier whose card and network fit — and from checking whether a bracket crossing, rather than a claims year, is what moved your rate.
What can be moved depends on how much of the number is yours.
Credibility is the weight a carrier gives your own claims against its book rate. It decides which arguments are even available to you — and it is printed on your rate exhibit, beside the pooling point. If you have never been shown it, that is the first question to ask.
Below the Release Threshold
With only a few dozen enrolled contracts, your medical rate is filed and approved before your year begins. Nobody negotiates it, and a broker who says they did is describing something that did not happen. The levers are which book you are in, the ancillary cards, and participation.
Where Your Experience Starts to Count
As enrolled contracts climb, more of the rate is built from your own claims. Now a plan-replicating quote has teeth, a credit can be asked for when the incumbent will not move, and a group whose experience beats the book can argue the charge it is paying for being small.
At the Top of the Scale
When the renewal is essentially your own year priced back to you, shopping weakens — a competitor underwrites the same claims the incumbent just saw. The work becomes the carrier’s own build-up, read line by line: trend applied to a claim that will not recur, the pooling attachment point, rebate treatment, the enrollment basis behind the projection.
The year is won or lost in the eligibility file.
Implementation runs as a project with dates on it — eligibility, ID cards, the ben-admin build and open enrollment. This is why IT is one of the five people on your account.
The Census Is a Pricing Input, Not Paperwork
Carriers state plainly that rates are based on the counts submitted, and that the rates may change if those counts change at submission. An eligibility file that disagrees with the quote is not an administrative detail. It is a repricing.
There Is No Reliable Remedy Afterwards
Retroactive exception requests — a late plan transfer, a correction outside the underwriting window — get refused where the rationale is judged insufficient, and refused again on resubmission. The only dependable fix is not making the error in the first place.
Open Enrollment Is a Build, Not a Meeting
Plan year dates, file feeds to your payroll and HR systems, ID card timing, and the enrollment platform configured and tested before a single employee sees it. The common mistake is treating the employee meeting as the start of enrollment, when the decisions that cause errors, such as deduction codes and which carriers receive a file, are made weeks earlier. We test the setup with sample elections, so a problem shows up in a test file rather than on a paycheck.
The other eleven months are where the promise is actually kept.
Claims, billing and compliance come off your desk and onto ours. And the year ends by setting the baseline the next one will be measured against.
Billing Has a Deadline on It
Some carriers will not adjust a billing error past 120 days. Past that window an error stops being an error and becomes a loss — which is why invoices are reconciled every month rather than looked at once a year.
Compliance Runs on Dates, Not Reminders
Form 5500 and the summary that follows it, the 1095-C furnishing and filing deadlines, the Part D creditable-coverage notices, PCORI where it applies, and the COBRA clocks that start the day somebody leaves. Each has its own trigger: some run off your plan year, some off the calendar year, and COBRA off a qualifying event such as an employee’s termination. We build the calendar from your plan year so the dates are yours, not a generic list.
Next Year’s Baseline Is Set This Year
Every figure recorded as the carrier stated it, at the time, in writing. That is what makes the following renewal a comparison instead of a fresh argument. Without that record, a carrier can describe last year’s increase differently this year, and there is nothing to check the new version against. With it, the opening ask is compared to a documented figure, not to someone’s memory of a phone call.
Four consecutive renewals, one employer.
Each figure as the carrier stated it, in writing, at the time.
+11.98% → +10.91%
The first two years. Double-digit asks, in a market where double digits were normal.
−3.40% → −4.43%
The last two. Below zero, twice running.
Two things worth saying plainly, because we would ask them of anyone else making this claim. There was no renewal in the intervening year, so it is four renewals rather than four calendar years. And the move below zero coincides with a carrier change, not negotiation alone — stage two, not stage three.
Every stage leaves something behind.
A Number You Can Defend
Your renewal on a held census, with the arithmetic shown, so you can take it to a board without being asked a question you cannot answer. Every figure traces back to a carrier document or your own census, so when a CFO or board member asks where a number came from, there is a page to point to rather than a broker’s summary.
The Market, in Writing
What each carrier said, including the ones that said no. A quote you never took is still evidence about the one you did. A carrier that declined to quote, or quoted above the incumbent, tells you whether the renewal you accepted was competitive. We keep every response, including the declines, so the decision can be explained a year later to someone who was not in the room.
A Dated Implementation Plan
Eligibility files, ID cards, the platform build and open enrollment, with names and dates against each. Each item has an owner on our side and, where it needs something from you, a named contact on yours. When a carrier file or ID card slips, the plan shows exactly which date moved and what depends on it, so it gets escalated before employees notice.
A Compliance Calendar
The filings and notices your plan year actually triggers, ahead of the deadline rather than after it. It is built from your plan year and your size, so a small fully insured plan under 100 participants is not chased for a Form 5500 it never owed, and a group of 50 or more gets its 1095-C dates. We can help you with the filings it lists, including late ACA and Form 5500 filings.
Named People
The five who hold your account, and what each of them is for. For proper coverage of an account we work in teams of five: an account executive, an account manager, a plan analyst, customer service and IT. You know who owns the renewal, who owns a claims problem and who owns the eligibility file, so nothing waits on finding the right person.
Next Year’s Baseline
This year’s datum becomes the reference for the next renewal. That is the whole point of doing it the same way every time. It is also how a carrier’s claim about the market gets tested: against what you actually paid last year, not against a headline figure.
Payroll, benefits and COBRA on one connected record.
DATUM is how we run an account, and it is also where the account runs. Enrollment, carrier files, payroll deductions, HR records, ACA tracking and COBRA sit on one employee record, so a change made once reaches every system that needs it.
Enrollment Employees Finish
New hires, open enrollment and life events, online from a phone or a desk, including any benefit allowance or flex credit you offer. Employees compare plans side by side before they choose, and a help line is there when they get stuck, so fewer elections arrive wrong.
Carrier Files That Match Payroll
Elections reach carriers through standard electronic enrollment files and direct carrier connections, and deductions reach payroll through an integration. Where the carrier supports it, evidence of insurability is answered inside enrollment, so an approval updates the deduction instead of waiting on paper.
Onboarding Without the Paper
New-hire forms signed electronically, onboarding checklists that assign themselves by location or life event, and policy acknowledgements with an audit trail, so the file an auditor asks for already exists. The common gap is a new hire who never makes an election because the form sat in an inbox. A checklist that assigns itself makes the missing step visible to HR before the enrollment window closes, not after the employee asks why there is no coverage.
HR Records in the Same Place
Employee records with salary history, emergency contacts and license and certification tracking, an org chart, company equipment assignments, time-off requests with accruals and approvals, performance reviews with self, manager and 360 feedback, and reports on demand. Keeping them on the same record as benefits means a salary change can carry through to salary-based life and disability amounts, and a new address reaches the carriers, without anyone entering it twice.
ACA Tracked, Not Reconstructed
Variable-hour employees measured on look-back periods, affordability tested as the year runs and full-time status tracked month by month, so the 1094-C and 1095-C are built from records rather than rebuilt in February. We can help you with the filing.
COBRA That Starts on Time
A termination recorded once notifies the COBRA administrator automatically, so the election clock starts from the right date instead of from whoever remembered to call. Total compensation statements come from the same record. The COBRA notice deadlines run on federal clocks from the qualifying event or the loss of coverage it causes, and a missed notice creates exposure for the plan and the employer. Getting the date right at the source is the cheapest way to avoid it.
The platform your employees actually touch, not just the one your HR team logs into.
The connected record above is what CFH’s team works from. Here is what it does once a renewal is behind you.
Employees Carry Their Own Card
A digital ID card, plan details and an in-network provider search live on a phone. Nobody is digging through a drawer for a card that expired two plan years ago. It also cuts the calls HR fields in the first weeks of a new plan year, when new cards have not arrived and employees are standing at the pharmacy counter with last year’s.
Contribution Scenarios, Modeled Live
Change the employer contribution, add a tier, move a threshold — see what it does to the employer bill and the employee paycheck deduction together, before anything is signed, instead of waiting on a rebuilt spreadsheet. The usual surprise is what a change does to the employee’s share of the lowest-cost self-only option that meets minimum value, which is the figure ACA affordability is tested against once you have 50 or more full-time employees, including full-time equivalents. Seeing both sides at once keeps a budget decision from quietly becoming an affordability problem.
Bills Checked Against Who Is Actually Enrolled
Every carrier invoice is matched against eligibility as it arrives, so a billing error surfaces while it can still be fixed — not after the correction window most carriers hold to has closed. The usual errors are a terminated employee still billed, a dependent added on the platform but not at the carrier, or a tier change that never reached the invoice. Each one is cheaper to fix in the month it happens.
Or run your own numbers, before you talk to anyone.
Four calculators, and a person if the calculator is not enough.
Renewal Decoder
See how much of your increase is the market and how much is your own claims, weighted by how many contracts you have enrolled. Run the decoder
Compliance Deadline Checker
Answer a few questions about your plan and get back only the obligations that apply to you, with dates calculated from your own plan year. Run the checker
ACA Affordability Calculator
Test your lowest-cost self-only contribution against all three safe harbors for 2026 and 2027, and see your headroom. Test affordability
Large Employer Calculator
Full-time plus full-time-equivalent count, with the seasonal exception and common-ownership rules applied, so you know where fifty actually falls. Count your FTEs
Someone to Ask, Any Time
A live chat sits on every page of this site, day or night, for the question that does not fit a calculator. It is a good first stop for a definition, a deadline or where to find a form. A question about your own plan or a specific claim is better taken to the service team that holds your account, because they know the file.
You do not have to change anything to find out where you stand.
Five steps. The first costs you four documents. The last is a decision you make with better information than you have today.
Send Us What You Already Have
The renewal letter, your current plan summary, the contribution split by tier and enrolled counts by tier. Two more if your group is 50 or more. Missing pieces are the most common reason a review never happens, and the easiest to solve — sign a one-page authorization and we request them from the carrier ourselves.
We Set the Datum
We reprice on a held census, so you are comparing like with like. The increase comes back as the three numbers it actually is, not the single number printed on the letter. The three are what the carrier charged, what your headcount did and what your plan choices did. Seeing them apart is usually enough to tell whether the renewal is a pricing problem, a growth cost or a design question.
You Get a Straight Read, in Writing
Whether it is competitive against the market we work in every day. Where we see opportunity in funding, plan design or contributions. And the five questions we would ask your carrier. About seven days at 2 to 50 employees, fourteen at 51 to 250, up to twenty-one at 250 and above, assuming a complete file.
You Decide, and Nothing Has Changed Yet
No RFP. No broker of record letter. No obligation to move anything. Some employers stop here with a sharper set of questions than they arrived with, and that is a fine outcome. What you keep either way is the held-census figure and the questions it raises, which you can take back to your current broker or carrier. We would rather you hold a sharper renewal than feel pressed into a move.
If You Go Ahead, the Method Runs
We test the market, negotiate with alternates and credits requested in writing, and implement as a project with dates on it. Then we carry the year — claims, billing and compliance off your desk, not just at renewal. The first renewal we run also sets the datum the next one is measured against, so from the second year on you can see whether the method is working rather than take our word for it.
If your plan renews 1 January, rates usually land about sixty days out — early November. The best month to send us last year’s renewal is the one you are in.
Four parts of it, in detail.
The connected record above is the short version. These go further into the parts that decide whether a year runs cleanly.
Payroll Integration
Which of the three flows runs in which direction, what never syncs at all, and the termination setting that fires a COBRA notice on its own.
Open Enrollment
The calendar counted back from the effective date, whether to force active enrollment this year, and the week after the window closes.
Employee Self-Service
What an employee can settle without calling HR, and the life-event clock that closes faster than most people expect.
Onboarding
What a new hire finishes before day one, the ninety-day waiting-period ceiling, and what happens when somebody ignores the window.
What people ask about DATUM.
What does the name mean?
A datum is the fixed reference every other measurement is taken from. Ours is what your plan actually costs once the census is held still, and every other number gets measured against it. In practice we never judge a renewal by the headline premium. The held-census figure is the one number that compares cleanly across carriers and across years.
Is DATUM software we are buying?
No. It is how we run an account — the five stages — and the connected record those stages run on. There is nothing to license separately. Your HR team and employees use the platform day to day, but what you are engaging is the method and the service team that runs it.
Do we have to change payroll systems?
Almost never. The connection is built to the system you already run. What matters is which direction each piece of data travels, not whose logo is on it. The most common setup problem is a deduction code or termination setting configured once and never checked, which is why the connection is tested before the first payroll after enrollment.
Can we keep our current carriers?
Yes. Stage two tests the market and there are years when the right answer is to hold. A carrier move and a negotiated renewal are two different wins, and we say which one you got. Where a live high-cost claim would follow you into a new carrier’s underwriting, holding can be the stronger position, and we put that recommendation in writing.
How long does setup take?
One configuration cycle, usually timed to a renewal, because the plan data is already on the table and the enrollment that follows is the natural first run. The census is the most common cause of delay. A clean census means every enrolled employee and dependent, with dates of birth, tiers and hire dates that match payroll. Sending it early is the easiest way to keep the first run on schedule.
Is there a separate fee for it?
It is part of servicing an account rather than a product sold on its own. Compensation is disclosed either way, and you should ask any broker the same question. Broker compensation can come as commission built into the premium, a flat fee, or a mix, and each should be shown to you in writing. More on how benefits brokers are paid.
What if we already have a benefits platform?
Then the question is whether it is configured correctly and reconciled monthly, which is a different question from whether you have one. Most of what goes wrong is configuration, not absence. We start by checking the carrier files against each carrier’s own enrollment and the invoices against payroll deductions. Where they disagree, the fix is usually a setting, not a new system.
Who do our employees call?
Most questions have a self-service answer, and the ones that do not reach the service team assigned to your account rather than a general queue. During open enrollment employees can also call us for help choosing the plan that fits them, so HR is not the only person expected to explain deductibles and networks.
What happens at renewal each year?
The same five stages run again, which is what makes one year comparable to the next. This year’s datum becomes the reference for the following renewal. The practical benefit is that the renewal conversation starts from a documented figure, so the time goes on whether to hold, shop or change design rather than on arguing about what last year’s increase was.
What do you need from us to start?
The renewal letter, your current plan summary, the contribution split by tier and enrolled counts by tier. Two more if your group is 50 or more. The renewal letter states the carrier’s ask in writing, and the enrolled counts by tier are what let us hold the census still. Send what you have and we will tell you what is outstanding.
General answers. Every plan is written differently, so treat these as a starting point rather than advice on yours.
Send us your renewal.
We’ll tell you whether it looks competitive, where we see opportunity, and the five questions we’d put to your carrier. No cost, and no obligation to move anything.
The renewal letter
Your current plan summary
Contribution split by tier
Enrolled counts by tier
Four documents — two more if your group is 50 or more. Nothing else; every extra one is a reason to postpone.
An independent employee benefits consulting firm. We look at the entire benefits program — cost, plan performance, risk and administration.
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