A Guide to Negotiating Your Health Benefits

It’s my favorite time of year! For most, November means the smell of Thanksgiving dinner. What November means to me is benefits, benefits, benefits! Negotiating health benefits is one of my absolutely favorite things to do. It might sound weird, but I’ll explain.

Brokers Are Your Friend

Having a broker to help educate and guide you through the negotiation process is a huge advantage. Experienced brokers have established relationships with insurance carriers to help get you the best rate. Additionally, brokers have seen so many different situations so they can make a variety of recommendations based on a multitude of different things they’ve done for other clients.

While brokers are there to help, they also earn a commission on the premium you pay - they get this regardless of your satisfaction. Be sure to find a broker who is willing to go the extra mile and work for you. It’ll make a world of a difference during the negotiation process, as well as for your employees and what added benefits they could be offered.

What Is Negotiable?

Everything and anything! Let’s discuss some negotiating tactics.

1. First and foremost, make sure you ask your current carrier for a “no market concession” when they hit you with their first renewal percentage. A “no market concession” is saying “give me your best price so I don’t bring my business somewhere else”.

2. If your premium is still not where you want it, evaluate the type of network your current health plans are in. Is it an expansive network? If so, ask about your options to slightly limit the network (a minor downgrade if you will) to see if it makes a difference in your rate. Before considering this, have your carrier pull a disruption report to see what percentage (if any) of your population would be affected by the switch.

3. Consider plan design changes. If your plan design is the Cadillac of all designs, think about switching it up. Does your plan currently carry a deductible? Would adding or increasing a deductible be too much of a burden on your employees?

4. Seek out other carriers. This is the most cringeworthy of all options during any negotiations. Not only is it a huge administrative burden, but it will have the greatest impact (potentially negative) on your employees. Switching carriers may mean employees need to switch doctors, etc. However, if a premium increase is so large and there are significant savings for both the employee (and consequently the employer as well), then sometimes this strategy must be used. This should be the absolute last resort.

So What’s To Love?

Health benefits are SO important to employees and is a large expense in any company’s budget. The process of finding the best benefits for the best price is so rewarding because you are impacting all of your employees with every decision you make. Negotiating health benefits allows you to be the biggest advocate for your employees as well as get creative with ways to help reduce the impact to your company’s bottom line!