Designing A Competitive And Scalable Benefits Program For A Growing Company
Case Study
The Request
Build a scalable program that provided competitive benefits, aligned with the customer’s growth strategies and prioritized financial longevity and transparency
Company Profile
Industry: Cybersecurity and Technology
Employees: 650+ U.S. (Growth from 120 U.S. employees in 2020)
Locations: U.S. and Canada
A top cybersecurity company was planning its next phase of growth but was limited by its existing professional employer organization (PEO). The PEO handled the company’s HR, payroll, benefits and worker’s compensation but it did not provide the flexibility or transparency desired by the cybersecurity company. The company needed a benefits program designed to scale and a team that could help upgrade its benefits and simplify its processes. Ultimately, the company wanted to deliver a better employee experience while maintaining long-term financial strength.
The Solution
Worked alongside the company’s HR and finance team to set goals and support the customer’s initiatives through a robust benefits review and comprehensive service model
Brown & Brown worked closely with the customer’s HR team to help it achieve its goals and initiatives through:
- Analyzing plan designs and employer contributions to identify areas of improvement
- Benchmarking and taking inventory of its traditional and non-traditional benefits against companies of similar size, geography, industry and employee groups
- Consulting on the HR technology stack and internal workflows
- Analyzing employee well-being and population health to support the specific needs of employees and dependents
- Conducting a carrier and partnership review, identifying service concerns and gaps in coverage and immediately developing a go-to-market strategy for best-in-class alternatives
These actions provided the foundation for Brown & Brown to create a data-driven approach that identified potential cost savings and supported the customer’s growth, cultural and financial goals.
The Results
Created a multi-faceted approach that included a data-driven strategy and reduced costs by over a million dollars in year one
The customer chose to execute Brown & Brown’s data-driven strategy and, over three years, achieved results in key areas, including benefits, employee experience, the HR team experience and COVID-19 support.
Benefits Highlights:
Brown & Brown assisted in delivering financial savings without sacrificing coverage. With the help of Brown & Brown, the customer saved $919,750 in benefits savings during year one. In addition, it normalized employee contributions for medical, dental and vision, resulting in a $97,750 reduction in employee costs.
The customer continued to improve the plan by increasing coverage, upgrading life and disability benefits for consistency across all employees, launching a global EAP to provide the same level of support to all employees, adding in a high deductible health plan with Health Savings Account (HSA) to support employee choice and adding an employee discount program.
Employee Experience:
The benefits changes helped enhance the overall employee experience by lowering insurance costs and creating a more valuable benefit offering.
An open enrollment (OE) communication strategy was developed to help announce these advantageous changes, which involved email, a benefits guide, on-site OE meetings and enrollment forms. This cohesive strategy helped employees understand the changes and how they benefited from them.
Employees also gained more visibility into their plan through a:
- Digital benefits guidebook
- Benefits portal available 24/7 that provided employees with plan documents, ID cards, contact information and resources
- Mental health resource guide that detailed all tools and services available to employees
HR/Benefit Team Experience:
Brown & Brown worked closely with the HR and Benefits Team to provide a comprehensive and proactive support model, including:
- Full claims and health plan intelligence data to support HR and finance teams in making data-driven decisions
- Leveraged Brown & Brown’s internal Regulatory and Legislative Strategy Group to help support regulatory changes and administrative Q&A
- A holistic approach to well-being management and population health that included a spectrum of solutions across physical, emotional, care and advocacy, engagement and financial well-being verticals
- Outsourced FMLA/ADA due to growing compliance and financial concerns surrounding these administrative tasks
- Secured PFL/State disability insurance in other states to support remote workforce development
- Evaluated, matched and launched an HCM solution that met the customer’s evolving needs
- Full international support and capabilities to assess current and future requirements
COVID-19 Support:
As the COVID-19 pandemic began hitting international headlines, Brown & Brown delivered an initial COVID-19 customer alert on February 28, 2020. In the following weeks and months, bulletins and weekly webinars went out as legislative updates emerged.
Brown & Brown added a COVID-19 alert to the customer’s Digital Benefits Guide so that employees would know:
- The medical carrier’s cost-sharing stance on COVID-19 testing and treatment
- How to access telehealth
- How to mail-order prescriptions
- Additional support was available
Brown & Brown also worked collaboratively to certify the customer received its Medical Premium Rebate since access to most care was unavailable at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This rebate provided the company with an estimated $300,000 in savings.
Delivering Savings and Growth Support
As this customer went through tremendous growth, Brown & Brown supported its financial, cultural and benefits goals. The customer saved more than a million dollars through benefit plan changes and the medical premium rebate. Employees received more robust benefits without facing increases in premiums. Finally, these comprehensive and affordable benefits helped the company retain talent through its 440%+ growth in the employee population.
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