I vividly remember sitting at my kitchen table, explaining to our software development team in India how group voluntary life insurance works. It was 2010, and we knew small employer clients would offer voluntary life to their employees if BerniePortal could administer it.
That was 15 years ago, and marks my first memory of connecting the fact that small employers generally offer smaller benefit packages than large employers to the fact that many lines of coverage are simply harder to offer.
Ever since then, BerniePortal has worked tirelessly to level the benefits playing field between small and large employers in the war for talent by helping small employers offer broader benefits packages.
Today I’m proud to announce the next step in this effort, which is that we have created a non-medical general agency focused on small employers. We’ve named it Brokers’ Corner, to reflect our ongoing commitment to always be all-in with our broker partners.
The problem with small employer benefit packages, to put it simply, is that they are too small. At a minimum, I’d suggest that any employer with more than 10 employees that offers group health insurance should also offer dental, vision, life, voluntary life, short term disability and long term disability coverage to its employees. Add it up, and that is seven lines of coverage.
So why do small businesses only offer an average of 2.8 lines of coverage? Furthermore, the seven I suggested as a minimum are just that - a minimum. Many large employers go far beyond seven lines of coverage by including benefits like critical illness, accident, hospital indemnity, cancer, legal, pet, identity theft protection and more.
Offering a small benefits package not only puts small employers at a disadvantage in the war for talent, but it means employees do not have access to important coverages. Brokers and carriers lose out, too, as these coverages represent important sources of revenue they can use to invest in their businesses and augment the services they provide their small business clients.
Over the last 15 years, BerniePortal has made tremendous strides to address the problem of small benefits packages by making it easier for brokers to help their small business clients offer more benefits. Those strides include:
When we asked our broker partners last year what additional hurdles existed to helping their small employer clients expand their benefit packages, the answer was quoting.
Our partners pointed out that everything we had built addressed the challenges small employers face after the small employer has decided to offer the additional benefits. They said they needed help on the front-end, though - they needed help getting the quotes for these coverages for small employers to be able to evaluate in the first place.
We did additional research including in-depth conversations with leading insurance companies. All agreed - quoting was a challenge for small business and one that BerniePortal was well-positioned to address. By doing so, we are now addressing the “front-end” challenges brokers have in getting quotes in addition to the “back-end” challenges we’ve invested and worked to address over the last fifteen years.
Brokers who choose to work with Brokers’ Corner will save the time it takes to:
Other benefits that brokers will experience by working with us include:
Reach out to your BerniePortal Account Manager if you would like to learn more. We look forward to serving you. As always, we appreciate our partnership.