Going to market every year is not automatically in your interest.
Marketing a plan is easy to sell because it looks like work. Sometimes it is the right move. Sometimes it invites a fresh underwriting review, disrupts people mid-treatment and lands you where you started. Telling you which year is which — before the requests go out — is the part of the job you are actually paying for.
The signs that say test the market.
A market test earns its disruption when the renewal is out of line with anything your own file can explain.
The Increase Outruns the Build-Up
When the renewal sits well above the number built from trend, credibility and census, the gap is the carrier’s pricing decision — and pricing decisions are what competition moves.
Your Experience Beats the Book
A group whose claims run better than the carrier’s manual rate can be taxed for being small. That is a case to put to other carriers, with the numbers attached.
Service Has Already Failed
Repeated billing errors, eligibility mistakes or claims that should have paid are reasons to move that no rate concession fixes.
The signs that say renegotiate instead.
Not marketing is sometimes the most valuable recommendation in the file, and it is the one a broker paid on activity has least reason to make.
A Large Claim Is Still Open
A new carrier underwrites the same claims your incumbent has already absorbed. Marketing in a year with a live high-cost claimant can invite a worse number, not a better one.
The Carrier Is Pricing You Fairly
A plan with credible experience and a renewal close to its build-up is often better renegotiated than moved. The saving from a switch has to beat the cost of the switch.
Disruption Has a Price
Network changes, prior authorizations restarting, new ID cards and a new service team all land on your employees. None of it appears on a rate sheet.
A recommendation, with the reasons written down.
Whichever way it goes, you get the reasoning in writing before anything is sent to a carrier.
The Case for Going Out
What the renewal should have been, how far it missed, and which part of the miss competition can plausibly move.
The Case for Staying
What a switch would cost in disruption and underwriting risk, and what the incumbent is likely to concede without one.
The Ancillary Lines Separately
Dental, vision, life and disability are often priced on brackets and cards rather than your experience. They can be shopped in a year the medical plan should stay put.
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.
Cookies on This Site
We use cookies to keep the site working properly and to understand how it is used. You can decline anything that is not essential. See our Privacy Policy for the detail.
- Essential — needed for the site to load and for you to move around it. These cannot be switched off.
- Analytics — tell us which pages get read, so we know what is worth writing more of.
- Advertising — set by third parties such as ad and social platforms to measure and target campaigns.