I’m no stranger to sales. I’ve been in this business for over 20 years, and I know that businesses like yours get solicited all the time about their group health program.
And I’m familiar with the spiel that you hear from Employee Benefits Advisors wanting a shot at quoting your account. We all make claims about how you would benefit from our services. How we’re the best at what we do. How we have solutions for all your employee benefits problems.
And if you’re like many of the businesses I’ve met with you might even be a little bit jaded about the whole process.
You’ve trusted more than one Employee Benefits Advisor, and they didn’t provide what they promised.
Unfortunately, it’s true that many peers in my industry over promise and under deliver!
The other unfortunate reality is that you often find out that they’ve over promised after giving them hours of your time providing them with information during the quoting promise.
At Baily Insurance, we could be just like those “other guys.” We could solicit your business, convince you to give us a shot, and use your time collecting information, and hand you a proposal for your group health insurance.
But that’s not what we do!
Instead, we’ve developed a time effective process to determine if we can help you with your employee benefits issues. We don’t start by quoting your insurance or asking you to provide your group health info.
We start our process with you!
Assessing what you want from your group health program, what your long-term goals are, and how you want to approach your benefits program.
Going to market is the last step we take. And we do this only after we can both agree that our agency would be a good fit for working with you.
At Baily Insurance, we don’t want to waste your time! And we certainly don’t want to over promise or under deliver!
The Baily Employee Benefits Blueprint
To maximize your time and assess if we can make a difference in your insurance program, we schedule three meetings with you – our Baily Risk Management Blueprint Process. In this process, we create an Employee Benefits “blueprint” specifically for your business.
This “blueprint” is customized to your goals and objectives and analyzes the group health insurance coverage and practices you already have in place. Through this process, you will gain a clear picture of what we can offer your business before deciding to move forward with us in the insurance quoting process.
And throughout this series of meetings, if at any point it becomes clear that we do not have the tools, resources, or expertise to help your business, you can stop the process.
For those who complete our process, you will walk away with a thorough assessment of your current benefits program, outlining both its strengths and weaknesses, along with a recommended course of action to begin a long-term strategy to control these volatile costs. This analysis is free to you.
Let’s look at what those three meetings entail.
#1 Exploratory Meeting
The goal of this first 15-minute meeting is to listen to you. We know that every business is different, and that no two employee benefits programs are exactly alike.
You have specific goals and desires for your group health program. Whether it’s providing local care for your employees, encouraging wellness, offering extra benefits, or using tax-advantaged vehicles, your employee benefits program needs to reflect you.
In addition to offering the benefits you want, you are probably concerned about the rising costs associated with group health plans.
In this first meeting, we want to hear from you what your experience has been in terms of your renewals. We’ll ask some questions like:
- Have your group health costs increased slowly?
- Have then been all over the place? 5% increase one year? 30% increase the next?
- Have you had to decrease benefits to lower your costs?
- Does your current program implement practices that help you control those costs?
Through this conversation, we can quickly assess if we are equipped to help you meet your goals for your program.
We recognize that not every Employee Benefits Advisor will be a good match for you.
And this meeting also serves a secondary purpose. By discussing issues related to your current group health program, we act as a second pair of eyes to make sure you are getting the service and coverage you are paying for.
Our priority is to take an honest look at your current Employee Benefits program before anyone has skin in the game.
What will you gain from this meeting?
At this meeting, you can expect:
- An opportunity to express any concerns you have about your current Employee Benefits program
- A thorough explanation of our process and philosophy
- Examples of other businesses similar to yours that have benefitted from our help
Who should be present at this meeting?
Ideally, anyone who will be involved in making your Employee Benefits decisions should be present at this meeting and especially any business owners or board members who could be ultimately impacted by these insurance decisions.
How long will this meeting last?
Because this first meeting is only a brief introduction, it typically lasts between 15 and 30 minutes.
When will you schedule the next meeting?
We usually plan to get together again 1-2 weeks after this initial meeting. This gives us enough time to coordinate with all those who need to be present for an effective Discovery Meeting.
#2 Discovery Meeting
If you decide you want to proceed with our process, we will schedule a second meeting, usually one to two weeks after our initial meeting. We will only schedule this meeting if it is clear that our agency has the tools to help you with your Employee Benefits program.
During this second meeting, we will take time to talk more specifically about your program.
What will you gain from this meeting?
Through this meeting, we will try to discover:
- Your goals, objectives, values
- Areas your current Employee Benefits program could be improved
- Compare the best practices for your industry with your current benefits program
- Uncover any landmines in your current Employee Benefits program – look for factors that could lead to large cost increases in your program
Who should be present at this meeting?
Any key decision-makers about your insurance program – CEO, CFO, President, HR leaders, anyone who will help with the final decision about your insurance program
How long will this meeting take?
You can expect this meeting to take between one and two hours.
What will you need before the next meeting?
To assess your current Employee Benefits program and create a robust plan for your future, we will need some information about your business, your current employees, your current group health policy, etc. We will provide you with a checklist that outlines what information will best help us prepare an Employee Benefits blueprint for you.
When will you schedule our next meeting?
Typically, it takes us about two weeks to gather all the information we need to give you a complete analysis or your current program. We commit to meeting with you about two weeks after the Discovery Meeting.
#3 Blueprint Meeting
After thoroughly examining your goals and values along with your current benefits needs, we will create a recommended course of action for you.
What will you gain from this meeting?
- An evaluation of strengths and weaknesses in your current Employee Benefits program
- An analysis of the effects your current program might have on your long-term benefits goals
- A blueprint of steps you can take to strengthen your current program – steps that will help control your rates and lead to higher employee and employer satisfaction
Who should be present at this meeting?
Again, it’s good to have all those present who help make decisions about your Employee Benefits program. Employee Benefits is a complicated business, and we know that your decision makers will have questions. We want the opportunity to thoroughly answer everyone’s questions.
We also know that it may be hard to relay second-hand what you learn from this meeting. Having all the decision-makers present will help guarantee that everyone understands what is communicated and stays on the same page.
How long will this meeting take?
To give you a thorough explanation of our findings and recommendations, you can expect this meeting to take one hour.
What happens after this meeting?
After this meeting, you will have a complete analysis of your benefits program along with a recommended course of action to begin a long-term Employee Benefits plan. The information you receive from this meeting is yours to keep.
After the meeting, if you would like to engage with us to work on your benefits program, we will team with you to start the quoting process and engage in controlling your group health costs and creating a robust benefits program.
Ready to dive in and analyze your current Employee Benefits program?
For 3 to 4 hours of your time, your organization will walk away with an in-depth analysis of your current benefits program. By digging in deep into your current group health policy and your company’s practices, we will identify red flags – potential practices that leave your company open to increases in your Employee Benefits costs.
As an agency, we value transparency. Working through our process, we will also show you where you “stack up” among others in your industry.
At Baily, we effectively work with our clients to control their premium rates, manage their claims, evaluate various funding methods, and improve employee education. We are enthusiastic about partnering with businesses that want to take an active role in their Employee Benefits program.
While we work with clients of all sizes, the clients who get the most from working with us have:
- At least $250,000 in Employee Benefits premiums
If this describes your business, we are confident that we can help you. We are ready to partner with you to create a customized Employee Benefits plan for your business!
