Our renewal increase was over 20%. Is that negotiable?

Frequently, yes. Large increases usually trace to a handful of high-cost drug claims, a pooling threshold set too high for your group size, or a trend assumption applied to data too small to be credible. We review three years of experience before accepting any renewal, because the parts of an increase that are genuinely yours and the parts that are block-wide have to be separated before either can be argued.

Should we change carriers to get a better rate?

Sometimes — but first-year quotes can be priced to win business and correct sharply at the first renewal. We look at whether the underlying assumptions are sustainable, what the disruption costs you in administration and employee goodwill, and whether the same result can be reached by renegotiating where you are. Moving should be a decision, not a reflex.

How often should a benefits plan go to market?

There is no fixed schedule that makes sense. Market when your claims experience or your renewal justifies it, when your plan design has drifted from what your workforce needs, or when service has genuinely deteriorated. Marketing a file every single year trains carriers not to sharpen their pencil, because they assume you will move regardless.

Solutions

Renewal Strategy & Marketing

Most brokers do this once a year, by forwarding an email. The renewal is not an administrative event — it is the single largest financial decision your plan makes annually.

Book a benefits review 431-996-1036

What it actually is

The part most brokers do once a year in an email. We do it all year.

Renewal strategy means knowing what your claims are doing long before the carrier tells you, understanding which parts of the increase are genuinely yours and which are block-wide, and having the analysis in hand to push back. When negotiation will not close the gap, it means taking the file to market properly rather than as a threat.

What you get: Renewals you can forecast and defend.

Coverage

What sits inside this benefit

Each of these is a decision, not a default. Most plans inherit them from a template and never revisit them.

Quarterly claims experience review

Three years of paid claims, rebuilt independently, tracked by benefit line. You learn what is happening in month four, not month eleven.

Renewal negotiation

Challenging trend assumptions, credibility weighting, pooling charges and expense loads with the carrier’s own numbers. An increase nobody can decompose is an increase nobody can challenge.

Pooling and stop-loss analysis

Where the pooling threshold sits determines how much a single catastrophic claim hits your rates. For smaller groups this is frequently the most important number in the contract.

Full market survey

A structured request to carriers who genuinely compete for a group your size, returned as one comparison grid with the trade-offs written in English rather than a stack of proposals.

Benchmarking

How your plan compares to comparable employers by size, industry and region — useful for a board conversation and for knowing whether you are actually competitive for talent.

Where the money moves

The levers we actually pull

Get the renewal 90 days out, not 14. Everything else depends on having time.
Separate your own experience from block-wide trend, and negotiate them separately.
Test whether the pooling threshold is set appropriately for your group size before accepting a large-claim-driven increase.
Take the file to market when the numbers justify it — and be honest with yourself that moving carriers has real disruption costs.
Ask for a multi-year rate guarantee when your experience supports it.

What drives the cost

Your renewal is a function of your own claims experience, the carrier’s block-wide trend assumption, how much credibility they assign to your data, and their expense and pooling loads. Only the first is genuinely about you — which is exactly why the other three are negotiable.

Get this reviewed

Straight answers

Questions employers actually ask us

No hedging. If the honest answer is “you do not need us for that,” that is the answer you will get.

Ask us something else

: Frequently, yes. Large increases usually trace to a handful of high-cost drug claims, a pooling threshold set too high for your group size, or a trend assumption applied to data too small to be credible. We review three years of experience before accepting any renewal, because the parts of an increase that are genuinely yours and the parts that are block-wide have to be separated before either can be argued.
: Sometimes — but first-year quotes can be priced to win business and correct sharply at the first renewal. We look at whether the underlying assumptions are sustainable, what the disruption costs you in administration and employee goodwill, and whether the same result can be reached by renegotiating where you are. Moving should be a decision, not a reflex.
: There is no fixed schedule that makes sense. Market when your claims experience or your renewal justifies it, when your plan design has drifted from what your workforce needs, or when service has genuinely deteriorated. Marketing a file every single year trains carriers not to sharpen their pencil, because they assume you will move regardless.