BerniePortal Broker Blog

Introducing Brokers' Corner: Our New Non-Medical General Agency

Written by Alex Tolbert | Mar 13, 2025 2:45:53 PM

 

 

 

 

Helping Brokers Help Their Small Business Clients Offer Broader Benefit Packages

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

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.

 

 

BerniePortal’s Solution

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:

  1. Rules-Based Engine: we built a proprietary rules-based engine, in which we continue to invest, that governs a wide array of the different approaches carriers take to coverages like life and disability so that BerniePortal can administer the coverages effectively. 
  2. Build-Out Service: we built, scaled, and continue to invest in an operations team to provide the no-cost service of doing employer build-outs for our broker partners at both implementation and renewal so that our brokers could more effectively help their small business clients get online.
  3. Clean Bill Guarantee: we built a proprietary billing system, backed by our Clean Bill Guarantee, and entered into agreements with leading insurance companies to bill on their behalf so HR clients and broker partners would not have to worry about incorrect bills. 
  4. Automated Premium Collection: we expanded our operational capabilities to allow us to offer automated premium collection alongside our billing capabilities, managed the necessary regulatory requirements, and entered into agreements with leading carriers to allow us to do this on their behalf to streamline the premium collection process.
  5. Real-Time Evidence of Insurability Connections: real-time connections to deliver evidence of insurability determinations seamlessly for coverages like life, voluntary life, short-term disability, and long-term disability.

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.

Benefits of Working With Our General Agency

Brokers who choose to work with Brokers’ Corner will save the time it takes to: 

  1. Put together the required information to get quotes for each small group client
  2. Obtain and negotiate quotes with multiple different carriers for each small group client
  3. Create the side-by-side comparisons of competing carriers that employer clients need to aid in decision-making
  4. Communicate the initial eligibility for new groups to the carrier
  5. Coordinate the new group sold and/or renewal paperwork for each group/carrier
  6. Manage ongoing eligibility

Other benefits that brokers will experience by working with us include:

  1. Getting quotes faster, which will allow clients time to decide to offer more coverages, leading to more revenue for the brokerage
  2. Enhanced offers around BerniePortal’s Carrier Exchange, which includes medical carriers such as UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Kaiser, and more than 25 Blue Cross plans

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.

 

Additional Resources: 

  • Brokers’ Corner Podcast—watch and subscribe to the Brokers’ Corner podcast, which dives into the topics that affect your agency and industry and identifies strategies so you can protect and grow your book of business 
  • BerniePortal Brokers’ Council—a council of benefits brokers from across the country that advises BerniePortal on industry concerns, trends, and the ways technology can best support their agency and employer groups 
  • BerniePortal for Brokers—leveraging technology to increase your agency valuation and support your employer groups is easier than ever with BerniePortal’s software solution, built for brokers by brokers