Month: September 2024

NEW YORK, September 30, 2024 – Marsh McLennan (NYSE: MMC), a global leader in risk, strategy and people, today announced that it has reached an agreement through its Marsh McLennan Agency business to acquire McGriff Insurance Services, LLC, an affiliate of TIH. McGriff is a leading provider of insurance broking and risk management services in the United States, with $1.3 billion of revenue for the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2024. The transaction will enhance Marsh McLennan Agency’s capabilities across commercial property and casualty, employee benefits, management liability and personal lines.  

ICHRA made simple should be……………………….

Old Fashion Wellness Program continues to this day.

At the heart of the Centivo model is a “win-win” for progressive employers and value-based providers dedicated to cost-effectiveness and superior clinical outcomes.

(THIS PICTURE HAS NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THIS ARTICLE)

Breckpoint Enhances Underwriting and Risk Management with Gradient AI

“The picture above is a snapshot of my inbox from yesterday morning alone.”

By Stacy Edgars on Linkedin:

If you haven’t heard from me in a few weeks, this picture explains why. For the last four weeks straight, we’ve been contacted by a new employer every 20 minutes, looking to be onboarded to ICHRA.

By Chris Deacon

TRIGGER WARNING: If You’re Disgusted by Government Secrecy and Corporate Collusion, Brace Yourself

Top insurance providers give massive discounts to good drivers…

Access the Insurance Marketplace Directory

With 1/1 renewals on the horizon, now is the perfect time to reevaluate your stop loss options and ensure your clients are receiving the best protection available.

Primary care visits are getting shorter, meaning less face time with physicians, more referrals to specialists, and more unnecessary procedures that take a mental and financial toll on employees. 

More Americans have come to believe “The Final Solution” to unaffordable, rising health care costs is a single payer government health care system financed by Washington printing presses.

By Bill Hennessey on Linkedin

UT Southwestern Medical Center Violates ACA IRS Nonprofit Requirement and Refuses to Speak with Me or Patient. PURPOSEFUL OBSTRUCTION.

“This market has been disrupted by an entity (PBMs) that really has no value in the healthcare chain…………CVS Health, the conglomerate that also owns the biggest PBM, paid PBMs at 501 different rates for the same drug…………”

IMS Makes Foreign National Placement Easy

With over 20 years of experience underwriting Foreign National Business IMS is your go-to support system for any of your Foreign National cases. 

SOURCE: MMAC

UnitedHealthcare and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) are helping protect Wisconsin businesses like yours from surprise health care costs with a Level Funded health plan.

Marsh McLennan is actively promoting ICHRAs in partnership with Venteur.

Members become a part of the largest health insurance risk pool in the United States.

Vidal Health Insurance TPA, one of the world’s largest TPAs with over 35,000,000 plan members, has turned status quo health care financing upside down………….

Delivering Custom & Cost-Effective Health Insurance Benefits

A one-of-a-kind solution that can reduce health insurance costs by 18%. The Difference Card can often improve employee benefits without increasing costs to the employer.

We get emails every single day about new or amended regulatory requirements employers with 50 or more employees must follow under threat of government sanctions.

Allied National has reduced rates for 2025 of up to 10 percent in select states like Texas, Georgia and Oklahoma.

By Molly Mulebriar

Why wait until May or June of 2025 to find out how much TRS ActiveCare rates will increase and benefits reduce, giving member districts no choice to do anything about it other than accept it? Why be held hostage for another plan year when you can seize control from Austin bureaucrats and review competitive 2025 rates and benefits today?

Texas Childrens Hospital cash pay rate of $4,400 vs Pediatric Cardiology Care rate of $730 for the same services……………..

Plaintiff Attorney Calls Plan Sponsor

Why the heck would an employer want to put themselves at risk of punishing government sanctions and lawsuits? That’s one reason ICHRAs are gaining in popularity – it gets employers out of the health insurance business.

Group coverage available for groups of not more than 250 employees….

In 2021, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that empowered Texas Mutual to create a health coverage-focused subsidiary.

“The Benji Card is a “win-win” for everyone: Health plans save money on healthcare spending as well as administrative costs, providers get paid in full in advance or at point of service, and consumers can focus on receiving great care while stressing less about the cost.”

Claim costs produce a loss ratio but fixed costs never do.

MyHealthGuide Source: Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), 9/19/2024

NEWARK, NJ — Prudential Financial, Inc. has introduced a Stop Loss Insurance product aimed at helping protect companies with self-funded employee medical plans against catastrophic medical claim payouts.

A True Story

The TPA was a well known carrier. Their administration fee was market competitive at $34 pepm. But they were earning much more than that.

Another True Story

A TPA recently gave a client their renewal. “Good news! Your costs are only going up 4% this year!”

A True Story With A Happy Ending

“Why are we getting a 100% rate increase?” asked the incredulous city manager. “Because your loss ratio is more than 100%” replied the BUCA rep. “You’re lucky we didn’t rate you up any higher. Be happy!”

Is Health Club Membership an ERISA Benefit?

SOURCE: Thomson Reuters / EBIA

“While health and fitness clubs and on- site fitness centers promote general good health, they normally are made available without regard to sickness or disability and do not diagnose or treat specific medical conditions, so they typically do not provide medical care, benefits in the event of sickness, or any other ERISA benefit. Absent an ERISA benefit, a policy or program of paying for health club memberships or providing an on-site fitness center would not be an ERISA plan.”  

How can you say NO! to a NO deductible, NO copay, NO coinsurance, wide network access fully-insured plan with competitive market rates with an annual rate cap?

Did you know your Texas health insurance policy has a Body Snatch Clause?

“Dear Family, you may pick up the body now. We’re finished “– Insurance Company

SOURCE: The Future of Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance

by Zach Duden

The landscape of employer-sponsored health insurance is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by regulatory changes, market dynamics, and evolving workforce expectations. One of the most promising developments in this space is the rise of Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRA). Introduced in 2020, ICHRA offers employers a flexible and customizable approach to providing health benefits, and it is poised to reshape the future of employer-sponsored health insurance. In this blog, we delve into industry projections on the growth of ICHRA and explore the factors driving its adoption.

SOURCE: MedAfford Global Mail-Order

Save up to 80% on your brand-name and generic medications and up to 45% on insulin medications.

One day in the 1930’s this newspaper boy noticed a camera recording on the street not knowing almost a century later people on the internet would be looking back at him on their mobile phones.

Issue Ages 18 – 64

100% Death Benefits After 1st Year

Same Rate For All Ages

$42/month for $10,000

$65/month for $25,000

Another Truth Bomb By Dutch Rojas

The United States government
plays a rigged game of Monopoly,
but instead of hotels,
it’s hospitals.

This Product Show is an annual event that brings school districts, governing agencies, vendors, and service providers together to showcase a wide array of products and services tailored to the needs of all agencies.
The audience will be purchasing directors, administrators, and personnel.

With renewals right around the corner, leverage Fundamental Care® to solve your clients’ toughest health plan challenges.

“Just ran an affordability calculation for a 235 life group with employees in several states in less than a minute. Making the complex so easy!” – Lisa Collins

By Brad ONeil

A new way for employers and brokers to think about #ICHRA. Lower the cost, buy your resources for the year. Are you paying too much for ICHRA?

Who controls the prices hospitals and doctors are paid? It’s not consumers. It’s not you. Its someone else.

SOURCE: EHealth

Average requested rate change for Texas in 2025 is 3.38%

SOURCE:  Core Documents

By Gene Ennis

If your group is eligible you can set up and self-administer an ICHRA for just $199 for the required plan documents. The only pressing issue right now would be choosing your future effective date and distributing the required ICHRA 90 Day Notice in advance of that effective date.

SOURCE: ICHRA Administration Software

For many employers, offering a traditional group health insurance plan isn’t feasible. Insurance is often too expensive, too complex, and too restrictive. Yet organizations with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) must offer health insurance to their full-time employees—or be subject to penalties from the IRS.

More Than 500,000 Americans Set to Lose Their Medicare Advantage Plans

Many insurers have been leaving markets after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services decided to lower its Medicare Advantage benchmark rate, leading to reduced profits for insurers across the country.

THE KISS METHOD: “The easiest way to ensure affordability in 2025 is to meet the federal poverty line affordability safe harbor by offering at least one medical plan option (that provides minimum value) for which the monthly employee-share of the premium for employee-only coverage does not exceed $113.20.”

Group health insurance prospecting is an expensive proposition. The sales cycle is long. It can take a year or more to land an account. Nothing happens overnight.

By John Millen III

If you have ever talked with me or interacted with me via email, this is exactly what I’ve been trying to teach you.

The trick has echoes of the approach taken by Griffin in HG Wells’s 1897 novel, The Invisible Man, in which the brilliant but doomed scientist discovers that the secret to invisibility lies in matching an object’s refractive index, or ability to bend light, to that of the surrounding air.

Trust In Doctors and Hospitals Plummets During Covid-19

By Josh Stevenson

A new paper in JAMA analyzes survey respondents in the US over the period of time right after the Covid pandemic started in April 2020 and through early 2024. It reveals a significant decline in trust in physicians and hospitals, dropping from 71.5% in April 2020, to 40.1% in January 2024. Lower trust levels were strongly associated with reduced likelihood of receiving COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters. Total shocker, right?

By Dan Buettner

On the Greek island of Ikaria, people are far more likely to live to 100, and diseases like lung cancer mysteriously disappear.

By D. Andrew Portinga – Experienced Federal Court Litigator at Miller Johnson

“FRONTING” INSURANCE POLICIES. The Sixth Circuit recently issued an interesting opinion on “fronting” policies. The Court ruled that a fronting policy is not “available” insurance for the purposes of an “other insurance” clause. I know, fascinating stuff.

Health care financing masquerading as insurance has become a feeding trough to the benefit of third party intermediaries sucking away 50% and more from a massive web of cross country pipelines fed by working class Americans everywhere.

“Creative destruction is hard in any industry and insurance has a poor history of it, but anyone with a lot of employee benefits revenue not thinking about the ICHRA market could find they are waking up too late.” – Sam Melamed

The Lower Rio Grande Valley in deep South Texas is known throughout the insurance community as a place where business can take one down the wrong road, purposely or not.

Texas BCBSTX individual risk pool 2023 performance – $4.8 billion in revenue, 95% loss ratio, $290.70 pmpm cost……………..

Why are Americans so sick?

MetLife has the best dental insurance plans with no annual maximum benefit. Our research found it offers the lowest premiums and the best coverage for major dental care. 

REGISTER HERE!

OneBridge Benefits administers tax-free health benefit solutions for organizations across the country backed by first-of-its-kind technology, outstanding customer service, and a commitment to shared values.

“They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, data visualization is worth at least that much. Paragon Pic makes health policy easier to see and understand by demonstrating with images what researchers would normally try to explain with a lecture or text.”

Self-funded? Curious about how much it costs to pay a claim?

eHealth offers 1,300 small business health insurance plans from over 70 carriers

“ICHRAs allow businesses to permanently separate their health insurance costs from the health status of their employees.”

Fundamental Care® Value Plan is an innovative Voluntary Health Plan designed specifically for hourly and part-time employees. As healthcare costs continue to rise, this plan offers a budget-friendly alternative that can make a significant impact on your clients’ workforce. 

Win clients with Bavvy.

If you’re not talking to clients about Bavvy, someone else is.
It’s flexible. It’s easy. It’s Bavvy.

Pill or Injection?

Tablet dosing of Semaglutide delivers the medication in a pleasant, easy, mint-flavored dissolving tablet.