Employers Are Demanding Tailored Benefits
A specialty benefits shop can offer expertise, risk management, analysis, and efficiency to customize solutions in extraordinary ways.
The competitive landscape for retail benefits brokers is shifting.
Product availability and complexity are increasing, contract terms and conditions are challenging, and employers’ expectations are unwavering.
Compounding the challenges, healthcare costs continue to escalate. Rising benefit plan expenses—along with the need for a high-quality benefits offering—create significant pressure on retail brokers as they seek to meet their clients’ demands for affordable yet tailored options for employees.
A strong employee benefits program is critical in attracting and retaining top talent. A comprehensive and cost-effective benefits package can be the deciding factor for many employees when committing to an employer. This dynamic puts pressure on the retail broker to provide more flexibility, ease of administration, and a greater selection of benefits to meet their clients’ evolving needs.
A specialty benefits broker can offer several factors to help retail brokers deliver on these commitments within the complex healthcare landscape:
- Leadership
- Industry expertise
- Market access
- Negotiating power
- Risk mitigation programs
- Segmentation strategies
- Unique capital capacity and solutions.
A strong employee benefits program is critical in attracting and retaining top talent. A comprehensive and cost-effective benefits package can be the deciding factor for many employees when committing to an employer.
Expertise Is Efficiency
Retail brokers face both simple and complex employee benefits issues, and each client has unique needs when determining the right solution for its business. Access to in-house experts and services at the specialty benefits brokerage is crucial for retailers looking to quickly and thoroughly meet their clients’ needs. Whether it’s outsourcing placement of all or select plan coverages or working closely with teams of specialists knowledgeable of the latest trends, regulatory changes, and emerging products across the healthcare landscape, brokers should look for a specialty benefits brokerage that provides access to tailored, cost-effective solutions aligned with their
clients’ objectives.
Maximizing Market Access
Customers also benefit from access to a broad spectrum of employee benefit products, which can be achieved via well established relationships with top-tier insurers and benefits providers. A specialty shop that has wide market access can create customized financial and coverage solutions for retail brokers and their clients.
The goal is to secure a competitive outcome at the intersection of price, terms and conditions, and enhanced coverage options.
Brokers should look for a specialty trading partner that can uniquely analyze, score, and review each client with the retail broker to determine an efficient, custom, and cost-effective strategy. Ryan Specialty Benefits’ underwriters, actuaries, and data scientists can identify which risks are suited for certain markets based on appetite and capacity then match the account to an appropriate insurer.
At Ryan Specialty Benefits, for example, we assist in identifying potential risks associated with different plan options and suggest measures to mitigate costs. We offer claims analytics to better understand the key drivers of rising costs to help the retail broker’s client control its medical spend. This approach helps avoid unforeseen issues and ensure longevity of the benefits plan.
The Full Package
A diverse spectrum of financial and coverage solutions should include traditional stop loss, level-funded plans, and single parent and group captives. At Ryan Specialty Benefits, we feel it’s key to go a step further, offering a proprietary integrated health solution for small and midsize employers with more than 70 unique services across the healthcare value chain. And we have proprietary solutions and underwriting authority for a broad solution suite of ancillary and voluntary benefit products. Lastly, a retail benefits broker should look for a firm that leverages in-house clinicians, pharmacy, and complex claims teams to deliver substantial cost savings.
By maximizing technology investments with an intense focus on serving retail brokers with speed and expertise, a specialty benefits brokerage can help retail brokers deliver a more competitive, in-depth, and tailored benefit package to their clients.
