Here at New City Insurance, we have years of experience consulting and selecting ideal employee benefits packages for companies in a variety of industries. Our employee benefits consultants have been able to design customized employee benefits plans based on the specific needs and budgets of the organization.
Within this case study, you will get an in-depth look into our methods and processes we implemented for a client in the engineering industry who previously required assistance with the acquisition and administration of their employee benefits. In the fall of 2019, this particular client in the engineering industry was introduced to us through a referral after their previous benefits broker had botched a recent open enrollment.
Client Profile
In order to obtain a full understanding of our methods and processes implemented for this client, we have provided a brief background of their service offerings, target clientele and number of employed full-time staff.
Service/Product Offerings
The engineering and manufacturing of RF amplifiers, switches, and additional hardware which is required to operate under extreme situations and conditions.
Clientele
Their services and products offerings are primarily obtained and utilized by the U.S. Government’s Armed Forces and highly-renowned defense contractors.
Full-Time Employees
400+ employees.
Client Pain Points
In addition to having recently experienced a botched open enrollment with a sizable staff of over 400 employees, our client expressed the need to improve a variety of processes and administrative duties related to their employee benefits. We have outlined the major pain points our client was feeling during our initial consultation below.
Pain Point #1: Employee Onboarding
Prior to working with New City Insurance, our client’s onboarding process was strictly filled out and reviewed on paper. All new employees were provided with over 250 pages of paper onboarding documents, which inevitably led to an unnecessary amount of time spent asking and receiving questions, reviewing information provided and following up with employees who had missed or filled out documents incorrectly.
Pain Point #2: Health Insurance Administration
The administration of their health insurance lacked efficiency, as quite a bit of time was devoted towards educating employees on the specifics of their benefits and requiring employees to complete applications manually, which often led to missing information needed to properly enroll the employee with the carrier.
Pain Point #3: Benefits Renewal
Our client would receive renewal quotes only 2-3 months before the renewal, which did not provide them with enough time to properly analyze their available options. This lack of review time led to our client scrambling to put everything together during open enrollment leading to multiple errors with the carriers, taking countless hours and several months to fix.
Pain Point #4: Enrollment Auditing
Their prior broker did not perform regular enrollment audits, in which the broker should be comparing the invoices against which employees should be included within the clients’ benefits plans. Upon moving over to New City Insurance and performing a complete enrollment audit, our employee benefits consultants found a litany of mistakes including employees who were terminated over 24 months prior that were still covered under our clients’ plan.
This lack of auditing from the prior broker resulted in costing our client $20,000 in overpaid premiums, as the carrier only allowed for retro terminations up to 2 months.
Pain Point #5: Broker Assistance
In addition to the aforementioned mistakes made by our clients’ previous broker, their broker would also take up to 48 hours to respond to their inquiries and was unable to answer employee level questions. The continuation of delayed responses and the broker’s inability to answer employee related benefit inquiries forced our client to handle those issues themselves, stifling their HR departments ability to properly address important tasks and duties in a timely manner.
Pain Point #6: Benefits Compliance
Our client’s previous broker was unable to provide them with any clear guidance or useful resources related to benefits compliance. This lack of assistance left our client vulnerable to the possibility of violating compliance and regulations standards. Areas of benefits compliance they needed assistance with include:
- Wrap Documents
- COBRA Timelines
- Section 125 Plans
- SPDs
- Form 5500
- Form 1094/1095
New City’s Approach:
We put together a game plan to implement technology to seamlessly integrate their benefits systems while also eliminating errors and enhancing service and administration. In addition, we also created an annual benefits timeline, including important compliance filing and distribution dates, quarterly check ins, mid-year renewal check in, and an open enrollment strategy.
- Step 1: Gathered all invoices and roster information, run a full audit on existing existing plan members to look for discrepancies.
- Step 2: Review all benefits compliance including form 5500, 1094/1095 filing, cobra, current notices, and distribution strategy
- Step 3: Implement employee benefits technology for new hires and employees making changes
- Step 4: Load full roster to benefits platform
- Step 5: Set up electronic connections between online benefits platform and cobra, fsa, insurance carriers and payroll vendors to automate administration and eliminate errors
- Step 6: Onboarding call: Introduction to benefits admin team with in depth instruction on FAQ, administration, and technology.
- Step 7: Implemented onboarding function into ben admin system to eliminate extra paperwork and delays when onboarding employees. Very helpful as hired 50 employees in the 3rd quarter.
Personalized Benefits Package
- Benefits plan audit uncovered that they were offering a short term disability plan that offered no benefit to over 90% of the staff in California as W2 employees in CA are covered under the state DI plan through payroll. This meant that a high percentage of employees were paying for insurance that offered no benefit. Replaced with a supplemental STD DI plan to enhance the coverage.
- Enhanced dental plan by offering an unlimited benefit PPO option
- Negotiated renewal prior to release, bringing the scheduled adjustment to a fraction of the proposed carrier renewal increase.
- Initial plan audit (after taking over the plan) uncovered several previously terminated employees that should have no longer been on the plan. Negotiated with the carrier to have them removed from the plan back to the original termination date after a lengthy appeals process. Additionally, we located members that should have been on the pan but were not, and reconciled all differences.
Immensely improved the service that they receive, including an extremely responsive benefits team of 5 specialists to help with all administrative needs, including claims management, technology support, and escalated issues.
Reach Out To Our Experienced Employee Benefits Consultants
We work with agencies across the nation and have produced similar results for each one. Our expertise in insurance ranges from standard policies to customized insurance policies and everything else in between. New City Insurance knows how to get your benefits packages at the right price and at the right coverage. Reach out to New City today to learn more.