Why Small Businesses Keep Getting Crushed by Health Insurance Costs

[00:00:00]If your company has between 5 and 200 employees and you have a health plan or health insurance or health coverage, there's something that most of the time small business owners don't know about.

[00:00:10]Or it's shocking to me how often they don't know about it. This costs them buku bucks in many situations year over year over year.

[00:00:19]And that cost takes away from their ability to give raises, takes away from their ability to invest in new products or trucks or things that improve the lives and the health of the business writ large.

[00:00:30]If this sounds familiar, then you're probably in this boat. Every year renewal arrives. The broker says, "Hey, I've got donuts in the back and there's a 20% increase. The market's real tough right now. Claims are going up. Costs are going up. Yada yada yada. And did I tell you I've got donuts in the back?"

[00:00:48]Folks, that's a recipe for you to continue to accept one of the biggest expenses in your business as a growing extortion or pull or necessary expense, whatever you want to say, from the future of your company.

[00:01:01]This has been going on for decades. But there's been a solution out there that's been sticking around for decades. Now, it's not for everybody. It's a lot more work for the broker and not all groups qualify.

[00:01:13]But if you don't know about this yet, then you should really sit down with your broker or get another broker that brings it to you and explore how it might fit for your group. My name's Tom.

[00:01:25]I'm with American Trust Administrators.

[00:01:27]I wrote the book on level funding. We've been doing this for decades. This is not a brand new thing. I'm not here talking about some newfangled piece. But from our family or from my family, we've been doing this for generations. Now, why is it that you haven't heard about this?

[00:01:41]I'm assuming that you may have heard about it and you just don't remember it or your broker is very happy playing golf on a Tuesday afternoon and just wants you to renew and not put any more work on their plate.

[00:01:55]This is a recipe for continued reduction of growth for small companies and frankly, it's why I get out of bed in the morning. This is a massive opportunity that America can clean up if we do the work. Now, with that in mind, it's not for everybody. There is a very simple tool that we put together. It takes about 2 minutes. You don't We'll give you the results. You don't need to send us anything. It just shows you if your group has the ability or maybe an opportunity to explore one of these type of plans.

[00:02:22]Now, you don't have to do it with ATA.

[00:02:24]I'm very proud of us, but it has a number of competitors on there as well that I think do it fairly well to very well. And it'll give you an opportunity to explore this for your family of employees.

[00:02:36]We as Americans can either wake up, see more data, and make better decisions based on that data, or we can keep our heads in the sand. And we can ignore this additional cost and just keep carrying the pain.

[00:02:48]Look, I am not opposed to knowing that as a business owner I have certain responsibilities. But what I really really am appalled by is if someone tells me there's nothing I can do about it and there's another resource. If someone tells me it's just the way it is, but there's another solution. This is the American way. We don't take being told there's no other way very easily.

[00:03:09]We go out and we try to find another solution. Sometimes they don't exist.

[00:03:13]But I'll promise you this.

[00:03:15]If you put in a couple of minutes, I'll give you our best guess on a solution that may or may not be available for you. And if it is talk to your broker, explore and try to get your group benefits on a plan that protects your long term and gives you more information. Because if you don't know, you can't manage it. And if you can't manage it, you can't actually change it.

[00:03:37]So, take the next step, take a quick look and see if level funding or self-funding might be a fit for your group.

[00:03:44]And if your broker is turned off entirely by it realize level funding and self-funding is a lot more work. So, with that, if you have the number of employees in your group, when your renewal is, how long you're looking to be in business, those simple types of questions will give you the results without you even having to put in your email address. It will give you these results. If you want to talk to us, we can, but in general, we're trying to expand and help small business America make better decisions. Because if we don't work for each other, someone else is going to come in here and take from us. So, fight for your future, fight for your people, and get out there and see if level funding and self-funding is a little bit of a solution for your people long-term.

[00:04:25]We'll see you in a bit.