Offering Coverage for the First Time
You've grown to the point where you need to offer something, and every quote you've seen so far has been a number without an explanation. We'll start with what you can sustain and build backward from there.
I Got Into This
Because of a Bill
I'm Willman. I've worked in health insurance since I was eighteen, and I started for a reason that had nothing to do with wanting a career in insurance.
"Nobody should find out how their health plan works for the first time in an emergency room."
Willman, Founder
The Short Version
Two Thousand Dollars,
Two Thousand Dollars,
Then Nineteen
When I was eleven, I got hurt playing sports.
Both of my parents had health insurance available to them at work. Both of them opted out. Not out of carelessness, and not because they didn't care what happened to their kids. They opted out because opting out meant a little more money in every paycheck, and in that year, at that kitchen table, that was the math that made sense.
Nobody had ever sat down with them and explained what they were giving up. Nobody showed them what the employer was contributing, or what one bad afternoon would cost if they were wrong. They made the decision with the only information they had, which was the number at the bottom of the paycheck.
So the bill came to us. It was around two thousand dollars, and we couldn't pay it. It went to collections, and it sat there gathering interest through my entire adolescence.
By the time I turned eighteen it had grown past nineteen thousand dollars. I was scared to go to college. Not because of tuition or loans, but because of a hospital bill I'd received when I was eleven years old, for an injury I got playing a sport.
I started working in health insurance that same year. I'm still doing it.
What That Taught Me
The Part Most People Get Wrong
My parents weren't irresponsible. They were uninformed, and nobody whose job it was to inform them ever bothered.
Coverage Nobody Understands Isn't Coverage
A benefits package only works if the people it's for know what it does. If your employees can't explain their own deductible, the plan isn't protecting them the way you're paying for it to.
The Employee's Share Is the Whole Decision
Employers look at total premium. Employees look at what leaves their paycheck. When that number gets uncomfortable, people waive coverage, and the plan you bought protects nobody.
Education Is the Job, Not a Favor
We sit with your team, in plain language, and explain what they have before they need it. That is not an add-on service. It is the reason any of this matters.
One Bad Afternoon Is All It Takes
Most families are one injury away from a number they can't absorb. That's not a scare tactic, it's arithmetic, and it's the thing a well-built plan is actually for.
How We Work
Family First, Meant Literally
Plenty of companies say "family first" and mean it as a description of their office culture. We mean it as a description of who is on the other end of the plan.
Every enrollment form represents somebody's household. Somebody's spouse, somebody's kid, somebody's aging parent. When we're deciding between two plan designs, that is the frame: which one holds up when a real family has a real bad year.
Practically, it means we'd rather talk you out of a plan than sell you one you'll resent at renewal. It means we answer the phone after hours, because that's when people have time to ask. And it means we'll tell you when your current setup is already fine, which is a conversation we've had more than once.
Who We Work With
Small Business Is the Whole Practice
Not a segment we also serve. Businesses between two and fifty employees are the only clients we take.
Renewing Into an Increase That Doesn't Add Up
Your rate went up and the explanation was one sentence long. We'll benchmark it, re-shop it, and tell you whether the increase is defensible or just unchallenged.
Losing People to Better Benefits Elsewhere
A competitor is winning your candidates on the benefits page. Frequently the answer isn't more money, it's a different structure that buys more with what you're already spending.
Tired of Not Being Able to Reach Anyone
You have a broker on paper and no one to call in practice. Switching is free, it doesn't disturb your coverage, and it takes one form.
Straight Answer
How We Get Paid
You should never have to guess how your advisor earns. Here it is plainly.
Broker compensation on group benefits is built into the carrier's premium as a commission. Small group rates are filed with the state, which generally means the premium is the same whether you work with a broker, work with us, or go straight to the carrier yourself. There is typically no separate fee for our services and no cost to move your account to us.
The honest tension in that model is this: commission varies between carriers. That is exactly the pressure that pushes a captive agent toward one shelf. Being contracted broadly is what lets us ignore it, and if you ever want to know what a recommendation pays us compared to the alternatives, ask. We'll tell you.