Dallas employers are tired and fed up, but they've come to expect double digit health insurance rate hikes each year.
If there is one thing we hear from practically everyone we talk to in the Dallas, Fort Worth Texas area, it is how much everyone–friends, employees, and employers– all expect a double digit annual group health insurance rate. Group health insurance rates have doubled in the last five years. Employers have cut back on the benefits they offer employees, and passed on more of the increase to employees.
Today the cost to insure a family in DFW with a group health insurance plan is often more than a mortgage payment. And as rates continue to go up, fewer employers can afford to offer group health insurance. Today, less than half of the working people walking around town have health insurance.
Dallas group health insurance brokers usually get the assignment to deliver the bad news of rate increases to their clients. They may check around a little to see if another insurance carrier is cheaper than the present one, but their main job is to go back to the employees at open enrollment period and help the employer explain why the group health insurance plan offered by the employer will cover less than last year and cost employees more than this year. Then they gather up the employee election forms and turn them in to the insurance company and get a pay hike, since they earn more commissions because of the rate hikes.
Sure, employers may switch from one insurance company to another to save a little bit every year or so. And insurance companies may increase the number of high deductible plans to lessen the blow to their customers, or blame the hospitals, lawyers and politicians for the rate increase. And hospitals and doctors may blame the insurance companies, lawyers and the politicians. (And of course, everyone blames the big drug companies.)
In the meantime, another year goes by, the rates go up, fewer employers can afford to offer their employees health benefits at work, and the number of uninsured in Dallas Fort Worth goes up. Group health brokers, of course, get paid on commission by the insurance companies, so even though they may not like delivering bad news, they get paid more as group health insurance rates go up.
Sensing a political issue that grabs headlines and votes, it seems that every state and federal political candidate has their own agenda right now on how the government can "fix" health care and health insurance costs. The thought of the governments in Austin and DC fixing anything is scary.
But a Dallas Fort Worth group health insurance broker has quietly introduced a solution that works for most Dallas Fort Worth employers and actually cuts group health insurance costs. This solution makes use in a new way of a neglected section of the IRS code that dates all the way back to 1955…
Filed under Consumer Driven Health Plans, Dallas Fort Worth Group Health Insurance, Employee Benefits Solutions, Group Benefits Advisors, Group Health Insurance Quote, Group Health Insurance Rate Texas, Group Health Insurance Texas, Health Insurance: Texas Small Group, Texas Group Health Insurance by on Feb 12th, 2007. Comment. 
Greetings!
Group Benefits Advisors mission is to give Texas employers sound advice and affordable solutions on how to protect their bottom line from group health insurance rate inflation, and how to protect the employee benefits that they offer to attract and retain quality employees.
We will report on case studies and show how our strategies control costs, and without cutting the quality out of employee benefits.
We will also report and comment on the latest news items that impacts Dallas Fort Worth and Texas employers in the areas of health care and medical insurance and other employee benefits costs, as well as proposed federal and state government regulation. While politicians offer up sound bytes for new sweeping proposals to "cure" the cost of healthcare to gather votes, we can show clients in one hour how they can control their benefits costs today, right now, using existing insurance companies and plans and with no "help" from Washington or Austin.
Employers deserve solutions from their advisors to control costs. Employers know that cutting back employee benefits plans make it harder to attract and retain the quality employees that they need to grow profitably.
Group health and benefits brokers that routinely pass on rate increases or benefits cutbacks to their clients, and can only compare the rates from "insurance company A" with those from "insurance company B or C" add little value in today's inflationary health care environment. Even if these brokers knew how to help their clients control costs, there isn't much incentive for them to do so, since brokers earn more commission dollars thanks to their clients' cost inflation.
We believe that group health and employee benefits advisors should be compensated according to the value of the advice that they provide their clients. This gives employers a way to tie compensation to performance. As knowledgeable and clever employee benefits and group health insurance advisors, we can save Dallas Fort Worth and Texas employers tremendous amounts of money, often $1,000 per employee per year. And we will show how our strategies can reduce their yearly health insurance rate inflation, often with no impact on the quality of the benefits package offered to employees.
For more information, contact us today, and ask for a free consultation.