July/August 2008, Contractor Advantage Magazine
What to look for in a broker
A good one looks at your entire business and not just the benefits and the cost of premiums. It is all about fitting the right pieces together.
By Mark Beckham
The provision of employee benefits accomplishes two important goals for your company in that they attract and retain valuable employees and make a clear statement about you as an employer in that it shows you care about your employees.
Your role is clear, but what is the role of the insurance broker in this relationship? The answer is "it depends on the broker." Some are more like order takers. You tell them what you are prepared to pay and they will find the products and carriers.
At Bencom, we work differently. Our approach is to work closely with company owners to design a benefits package that achieves corporate goals. There is more to corporate goals than saving a few hundred dollars per month on premiums.
Let me give you a hypothetical, but perfectly reasonable example. Suppose your top producer generates $200,000 in revenues annually. Let us also suppose that he has four children, all of whom must wear glasses.
In an attempt to cut your premium cost you might eliminate vision care from your list of benefits. Trust me. Your top sales person will remember your action because employees have long memories. He will be gone at the first opportunity.
Using this example, we would work closely with you to look at all the implications of benefit selection, not just the cost, which is important, but also the ripple effect within your company. You might not realize the effect of eliminating vision care but we will. I have been around long enough to know what is likely to happen. Fortunately, I have found business owners are not afraid of the hard truth, even if it is a hard truth they do not want to hear.
Speaking of hard truths, benefit costs will continue to rise. The federal government has downloaded some of its share of medical services to the provinces and they in turn have downloaded their responsibility to the private sector. I do not like what has happened, but this explains why employer-provided benefits are so important to employees. For many of us, employer-provided benefits are the only safety net we have.
I want to go back to the cost issue because it is the one I hear all the time and I know it is important. We at Bencom, have the advantage of providing a wide range of financial services through the Castlecare program. For example, I have a client who was concerned about the increasing cost of benefits. This client understood the importance of benefits to his company's success so we looked at other areas of the business to cut costs.
In this case, we were able to renegotiate the cost of his mortgage, which more than offset the increase in benefits costs. In other cases we have been able to save our clients thousands of dollars on the preparation of wills or succession plans.
What I am saying is that we take a holistic approach to your business. Think of the vision care example. Can you afford to lose your top producer for a thousand dollars? That is what a good broker does: looks at your entire business, not just the benefits, not just the cost of premiums.
Finally, a good broker works hard to explain why and what is being recommended. That is why our name is Bencom, short for Benefits and Communication. Communication is a huge part of what we do.
Our holistic approach obviously works. We rarely lose a client. Mostly our losses are due to companies that close, merge or are bought. Even in those cases we are able to become the broker for the larger case.
Please information on plans. Let us see how a benefits package can work for you, your company and your employees.
ARCHIVES: Castlecare articles in Contractor Advantage magazine
March/April 2009 How to succeed in tough times
January/February 2009 The Bronze Benefits Plan
November/December 2008 Can you spare 15 minutes?
September/October 2008 It may not be sexy but insurance really matters
July/August 2008 What to look for in a broker
May/June 2008 Benefits can make a difference
March/April 2008 Major expansion plans
January/February 2008 Health Care now available
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