Employer Plans

Managing Benefit Plan Costs

Focus on focus on reducing/moderating total plan gross costs

• Clarify current Corporate objectives
• Determining the best value in the market place to meet objectives
• Pressure inforce carriers on costs based on market alternatives
• Review alternate designs to further reduce gross costs
• Review alternate medical plan limited self-insured funding option to potentially reduce costs over fully insured funding
  • Plan reinsured against the risk of abnormally high claims
• Plan design benchmarking (coverage breadth vs. similar employers)
• Review provider network options
  • Broad vs. narrow networks issue
• Provide detailed costs for selected carrier plan design options

Voluntary Benefits for Customization

Focus on multiple coverage/payroll deduction options for Employees to optimize coverage best suited to their coverage needs and their share of costs

• Provide choice of carriers which use competing mythologies for delivering health care
• Provide layered medical care benefit design options/payroll deduction charges
• Provide ancillary benefits buy-up options for further customization options
• Review supplemental accident and sickness policies to lay off risk of high deductible medical plans

Benefit Plan Communications

Many plan sponsors have ineffective benefit plan communications explaining the value of their benefits to employees and how employees can most easily navigate the complex healthcare and insurance bureaucracies.

To fill these voids, CEB creates a customized benefit plan communications designed to both give the employer credit for employer subsidy of costs and provide an easy to read comprehensive summary of the employer benefit package.  The form of the communication can be both:

• print based, and/or
• web based.

Technology Tools

Focus on vendor tools for reducing benefit plan administration costs and enhancing employee communications

• Web based plan communications, enrollment, carrier eligibility feeds and payroll deduction feeds
• COBRA outsourced administration
• Web based onboarding option
• Costs for technology tools subsidized by CEB Insurance

Compliance Process

Compliance laws impacting benefit plans are both complex and often ignored by the corporate plan sponsor usually through a lack of time to focus on the pertinent legal issues.

• CEB has created a 49 point discussion/action check list to both educate clients on key requirements followed by actionable requirements
• CEB provides most of the documents required with client data embedded
• CEB generally includes the cost of compliance within its carrier compensation
• CEB comprehensive compliance audit: over 100 page self assessment audit tool.   Focus on specific topical areas of concern.