Group Benefits Seminars

brookfieldpartners · 11-03-2009, 01:52 PM

Hello everyone-

Looking to see if anyone does seminars to small group on health and ancillary benefits.

I have a few tax and p&c agencies I work with, and we are looking to do a seminar on HSAs, Section 105, and ways to reduce health insurance costs.

Does anyone do anything like this? Are you willing to share you presentation?

Thanks!!

Full Throttle · 11-03-2009, 06:52 PM

I've done two of them with very mediocre results, both were chamber-like association audiences. Did pull two clients, but not enough to justify the time and effort. I do consider myself a somewhat competent public speaker. If you are talking about speaking to the clients of P&C agents and accounts, I would give it a shot.

Here is what I did, I found an administrator we use for these types of plans who is a good, entertaining speaker. This saved me putting together my own presentation. I introduced him to the audience and then he spoke for 30 minutes. I went on after him, handed out three case studies (an HSA, 105, and 125 plan examples), then quickly went through each one and fielded questions after explaining each case study. This part went over very well.

I could see how this strategy could work, in both cases, the attendance factor was the main reason for the failure. Both associations promised to fill the room, but the results were no where close (one had 8 companies represented, the other about 10). If the audience it their clients, I would find away to take the initiative on filling the room. You may also want to consider doing a webinar after the main seminar on the same topics for those who didn't make it.

brookfieldpartners · 11-03-2009, 08:02 PM

Thanks for the insight...I have a few case studies that I use? Would you be willing in sharing?

I am structuring them as info-sessions and we are going to be doing them twice per month and are looking for about 10 quality people at each event.

Referrals are from people we network with and get referrals from. Some of these people are attorneys, commercial lenders, p&c agencies. The event is primarily put on by a tax firm that I work with, I am the guest speaker on insurance.

You can e-mail me at:

Brad at brookfieldpartners dot com

ABC · 11-04-2009, 02:00 PM

Check with your carriers they will provide you with Demos/power points to put on a presentation.

Actually their marketing info can be really good. You will want to use a comparison of HSA with Co pay plan at some point.
When you can show the over all savings compared to the overall risk that is a good selling point.

As you know most people do not realize they have high out of pockets on a co pay plan. Single $1,000 deductible with a $4,000 out of pocket compared to a $2,500 single out of pocket on HSA.

Full Throttle · 11-04-2009, 02:32 PM

I don't know that I still have anything on file, but I put it together in less than an hour. Like I said, the administrator I use had a good presentation and was a good presentor, I did almost zero work there. For my case study portion, I simply grabbed three one page presentations from my client files, whited out the names, and made copies. The presentation was simply walking the audience through all three options.

The scenerios:

1. A co-pay vs. an HSA plan. I actually used this to tell show my audience how over-hyped HSAs are for group plans (although great for the self employed). I showed the savings created by switching and how most of the savings goes back to the employees in the form of an employer HSA contribution. Great for the employees, sucks for the employer paying the majority of the bill.

I explained how this could be a good concept if you as the employer are not feeling a strain from the benefits, have a relatively healthy group, and simply want to pass on an added benefit to your employees. If you are looking for real cost savings, the other two options may fit better.

2. I then showed an HRA type arrangement compared to a co-pay plan with a $500 deductible. The example showed a $1500 Ded. without office visit co-pays, but with Rx co-pays. I showed in the one page example how the employer could set-up an HRA to reimburse the employees up to "x" amount each year, but unlike the HSA, keep the unused amounts at year end. Most small groups haven't seen this strategy before and it can work magic when it works.

3. There were some small employers in attendance without group plans, so I showed option #3 as simply giving the employees a flat dollar amount allowance and setting up a 125 plan to allow the employees to pre-tax the allowance.

I concluded by saying "none of the three strategies are a magic bullet, but if your current broker hasn't discussed these with you already, you deserve to take a look at them and make your own decision. If you want my help taking a look, let me know."

*As a side note, another broker in town showed up and heckled us with questions to try and make us look stupid. After being called out, he got quiet and looked like the unprofessional one.

brookfieldpartners · 11-04-2009, 02:42 PM

Thanks ABC and Full Throttle, those are some great ideas that will help. The presenting and speaking is no problem as I do it on a regular basis on different topics.

I feel that health is grossly overlooked, and I want to get small businesses thinking CDHC.

Thanks!!

Brookfieldpartners