Boca Benefits Consulting Group Inc.

As you may have noticed from experience using the existing Instant Quote function from UnitedHealthOne (i.e., Golden Rule Insurance), it has lacked some degree of user friendliness. Effective Monday, August 30, 2010, there will be an upgraded Instant Quote function via a new link. We will add the new code as soon as it is available to us.

NEW DATE: UnitedHealthOne (i.e., Golden Rule) has decided to keep the below link live as a redirect function to the new web pages for 60 days (i.e., approximately November 1, 2010) at which time it will become a dead link. This is an update to the dates we provided earlier.

For persons who prefer to do business with a long-established insurance carrier in the individual healthcare market, BBCG offers United Healthcare’s “UnitedHealthOne” (f/k/a Golden Rule) products. Various traditional, high deductible, point-of-service and HSA products are available. Please feel free to use this service to explore options that you feel might meet your needs.

Please click on the above Golden Rule icon to open the auto-quoting page. This is a free and non-binding service unless the user actually submits an application.

Please see on the blog page list at right here “Individual Health Policy Quoting Links”. This page has two additional carriers that can be used to benchmark UnitedHealthOne (i.e., Golden Rule) plans. 

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With the summer ending and fall approaching many employers start to think about their January 1st group insurance renewals and what strategy they will ask their brokers to employ. Never in the last 30 years has the broker selection issue been so important. PPACA 2010 (i.e., healthcare reform) has defined brokers in two main categories: (1) those that have kept up and can properly advise; and (2) those that will continue business as usual. BBCG puts itself squarely in the former, not the latter, category.

As you may have noticed from our various types of posts, BBCG is involved in many different types of employee benefits and individual insurance concepts. However, our core competency is group insurance.

I have 30 years of experience in the group insurance business, first starting as a home office underwriter for the largest group insurer in the U.S. at the time (i.e., Prudential prior to selling off its health book of business). That start has given me a technical foundation across all group insurance products that most brokers do not possess. It also gave me an in-depth knowledge of healthcare plan alternative funding and self-insurance concepts (e.g., both ASO approaches with carriers and TPA approaches when using a non-carrier administrator and stand-alone network). Statistics show that the highest rate of broker-related Errors & Omissions events is related to self-funded plan stop-loss insurance due to its complexity and the lack of in-depth understanding by many brokers.

Since my initial career start with Prudential, I have held positions in sales management, product development and brokerage/consulting for three other national companies. Boca Benefits Consulting Group, Inc. was first located in Boca Raton, Florida  where its initial assignment was product development on behalf of an investor group in that area. It was incorporated in the state of Florida in 1996. It was relocated to Clearwater, Florida late in 1999.

BBCG agents are not appointed by every carrier in the market. However, we have access to virtually every one of them (i.e., the de facto standard in the industry is “quote/sell first and appoint after the fact”). For larger companies we will draw up specifications and go to market directly. For smaller/medium sized companies we have access to two general agencies as needed to go to market on our behalf. There is virtually no quality market not available to our clients.

If the economics of a relationship make sense for prospective clients outside Florida or Washington D.C., we will secure the appropriate non-resident licensing in your state. Note: that process has become relatively easy with the centralized on-line based licensing procedures adopted by most states.

Let us help you this fall! You can contact us by clicking here. We prefer not to get into bidding wars with other brokers in order for an orderly approach to the markets on behalf of our clients. However, we will show an alternative quote to those a current broker is showing if we do not feel the market has been fully tested. 

— Bob Murphy, REBC, ChFC, CLU, RHU, MBA

   President/CEO

   BBCG Inc.

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BBCG now offers an automated health care policy quoting service for persons located in Washington D.C. via Assurant Health (Time Insurance). This service is also available to persons in Florida.

Click below to browse/price/apply. This service is FREE unless an application is actually submitted.

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Quick Jump to Presentation

Has group insurance seen its best days? I had to ask myself that today. In 2016 medical underwriting of individual policies will no longer be allowed. There will no longer be uninsurables that get treated differently under group plans than they do under individual policies. Why would an employer continue to stay on the back of a bronco that has been trying to throw it off for 20 years?

If the employer thinks it has a financial incentive to keep the group plan in place, that is likely not true. Changes in the Internal Revenue Code effective in 2009 makes purchase of individual policies with pre-tax HRA salary reduction amounts, as well as pre-tax employer HRA contribution amounts, permissible. The HRA contributions become “defined” in that the employer can fix the amount, if any, per class of employee, often at a level less that group plan levels.  How the employee uses it is entirely employee driven. The employer steps out of the equation for everything except the regulatory framework of a Section 125 HRA approach.  Employees make their own product purchase and just file the required paperwork with the administrator.

This is an exciting new concept about which only a few really knowledgable consultants are assisting employers. Let BBCG show you how this might work for your workforce.  Please click here to open a link to a preseentation from one of our strategic partners which is a nationally recognized leader in the implementation of this concept.

Please note that this concept is not carrier dependent. Employees can buy any healthplan they desire. However, for ease of transition BBCG can make available to the purchasing employees from one up to three individual plan carriers and assist with the purchase process.  For very large employers considering this transition, BBCG would actually put enrollers on site to assist. Note that with 3 carriers, three basic plans, and dozens of variable alternatives within the plans the decision points can exceed 100 for an employee. Using lowest cost as the driver can often be very dangerous for some employees.

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IMG Global has provided BBCG with a Portuguese language translation of its Patriot Travel Medical brochure.  We can now provide native language product information to Portuguese language speakers. We can also provide a live Portuguese speaker to discuss larger group purchases, etcetera. Click here to access Portuguese language brochure.

Rio de Janeiro will host the summer Olympics in 2016, the first time for any South American country. Although six years may seem like a long time to that date, the physical build-out to get Brazil ready will start much sooner. It is highly likely that there will be extensive Brazilian travel where the IMG Global Portuguese support can be key. Please refer any Brazilian related business to BBCG. The travel medical policy linked here is only one of the many offering we can show businesses headed that way or which might be using the U.S. as a staging area prior to the Olympics.

Any questions? Click here to send BBCG an email inquiry.

Access other IMG international product information which can be browsed, priced and for which applications can be made online by clicking the below icon. 

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As you may have noticed from experience using the existing Instant Quote function from UnitedHealthOne (i.e., Golden Rule Insurance), it has lacked some degree of user friendliness. Effective Monday, August 30, 2010, there will be an upgraded Instant Quote function via a new link.  We will add the new code as soon as it is available to us.

Note:  the existing link below will continue to function via a redirect to the new Instant Quote  web pages until approximately September 1, 2010 at which time it will become a dead link.

For persons who prefer to do business with a long-established insurance carrier in the individual healthcare market, BBCG offers United Healthcare’s “UnitedHealthOne” (f/k/a Golden Rule) products. Various traditional, high deductible, point-of-service and HSA products are available. Please feel free to use this service to explore options that you feel might meet your needs.

Please click on the above Golden Rule icon to open the auto-quoting page. This is a free and non-binding service unless the user actually submits an application.


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Click Above Icon To Browse and Price Products

Met with CIGNA individual health product reps today. One new item of value for small/medium employers. If an employer plans to drop an existing employer sponsored group health plan and feels a significant number of its employees will subsequently seek individual health coverage, BBCG can now set up a method whereby individual coverage is purchased with pre-tax dollars.  Employer saves the payroll taxes on the dollars not expended as payroll per se. This can be a very significant number for a moderately sized employer. It also allows a “soft landing” for employees who are losing employer subsidized coverage by lessening the cost by the personal tax liability amount and by showing an on-going concern for the welfare of the workforce. Click here to email BBCG for more information. 

Browsing and pricing products by clicking on the above icon  is a free and non-binding process unless an application is actually submitted by the user.


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BBCG now has available a simplified auto-quote/purchase function for two excellent individual dental products from United Healthcare’s “UnitedHealthOne” family of companies. Just click on the below icon to begin the FREE quoting function. Should you choose to purchase, an application can be submitted via the same link. BBCG is offering this auto-quote/purchase function only in Florida at present. If you are outside of Florida, please give us a call. We are especially interested in developing business in Washington D.C. where BBCG also has a licensed agent.

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BBCG has been asked to comment on “grandfathering” under the 2010 healthcare reform statute and the recent interim final rules issued by HHS. Please see our prior post for the interim final rules discussion (http://bocabenefits.com/blog/?p=840).  Below are some thoughts.

If a healthplan loses its “grandfathered”  status under PPACA, then participants in these plans will gain two additional new and substantial  benefits (i.e., assuming they did not exist prior):

• Coverage of recommended prevention services with no cost sharing; and
• Patient protections such as guaranteed access to OB-GYNs and pediatricians

Clearly, adding no-cost access for preventative services has significant cost implications  (e.g., no co-pay for primary care visits, etc., changes both the cost structure and the frequency of service assumptions).  How that is passed along will be determined by the funding vehicle in place (i.e., fully insured, partially insured, self-funded, etc.). In the case of OB-GYN and PEDS, many plans already cover these as primary care (i.e., service dependent).  Cost implications may be somewhat less for that requirement. Plans must independently evaluate what the requirements will cost. Also should be judicious in accepting “quick and dirty” carrier underwriter/rep estimates which might be biased in the carrier’s favor (e.g., a high estimate to lock a client company into grandfathering, and therefore that carrier,  versus a lower estimate which would allow an employer to change carriers once grandfathering was relinquished). 

The question for employers is the trade-off between the extra costs noted above and the incremental flexibililty to modify the plan and/or carrier. Loss of grandfathering may still be the most efficacious course of action for many employers.

The Affordable Care Act requires all health plans– including grandfathered health plans – to provide certain new protections for plan years on or after September 23, 2010. The reforms that apply include:

• No lifetime limits on coverage for all plans
• No rescissions of coverage when people get sick and have previously made an unintentional mistake on their application
• Extension of parents’ coverage to young adults under 26 years old

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HHS issued rules on what actions would trigger a loss of “grandfathering” status under PPACA Monday, June 14, 2010. Those rules become effective today Thursday, June 17, 2010 concurrent with their publication in the Federal Register. Below is a summary of interpretation of the final interim rules as BBCG understands them. Many employers remain on the fence regarding the trade-off between plan changes flexibility and the accelerated PPACA requirements if “grandfathering” is reqlinquished. HHS esimates indicate that many employers will voluntarily give up “grandfathered” status in return for more control of their plans (versus the additional PPACA compliance requirements).

Changes that will result in loss of grandfathered status:

• Significant cut or reduction in benefits (e.g., elimination of benefits to cover care for a particular condition)
• Increase in co-insurance rates
• Significant increase in cost-sharing co-payment charges (defined as no more than the greater of $5 (indexed annually for medical inflation) or a percentage equal to medical inflation component of CPI plus 15%; estimated to be approximately 19% total currently)
• Significant increase in deductibles (exceeding medical inflation component of CPI plus 15%)
• Significant reduction in employer contributions (exceeding 5% of prior employer contribution)
• Tightening of an existing or adding a new annual dollar limit (unless replacing a lifetime
dollar limit with an annual dollar limit at least as high as the lifetime limit)
• Merger, acquisition or similar business restructuring – if principle purpose is to
cover new individuals under the grandfathered plan
• Switching carriers under an insured plan (unless the insured plan is covered by a collective bargaining agreement. Does not apply to changes in administrators (i.e., TPA’s) for “ASO” (i.e., self-insured Administrative Services Only type plans).
• Moving employees to a grandfathered plan with lesser benefits

Please email us if we can assist with your current brokerage requirements. Note that employers cannot change carrriers under insured plans (including partially self-insured, minimum premium, etc.) without triggering a loss of “grandfathered” status but that the additional PPACA compliance requirements may still be justified if pricing, service, and/or plan provisions under an existing carrier relationship are felt to be inadequate for your needs.

 
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