Progress Report

8.18.23

We are excited to share with you the progress we are making towards the roll-out of our 2024 employee benefits offering through Advisor Benefit Solutions (ABS).

Please review the updates below and respond to the action items AT THE BOTTOM as requested by Friday, August 25th.

Health Insurance

We have two excellent vendors working on the health insurance program and will select a vendor based on product and pricing. Both medical vendors are working to provide the most preferred underwriting to ABS. As such, they are not presenting “illustrative” rates and will rather provide fully underwritten rates after IMQs are completed. As an FYI, just this morning, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported, “Health care insurers are proposing a median 6% increase for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plan premiums in 2024.” We are anticipating ABS premiums to be 12-18% below ACA plan rates.

Underwriters from both have agreed to 120-day underwriting. This means that any applications completed in September will not need to be updated for the January 1 effective date. As such, we are delaying collection of Individual Medical Questionnaires (IMQs) until September 1. This will reduce the burden on you and your employees having to provide information twice. Electronic IMQ collection will take place September 1 – 15 with emails being sent out to everyone on September 1 with a link to access the IMQs. FAs/Employees will complete one IMQ which will include information on themselves and any spouse/partner/dependents to be considered for coverage on the health insurance.

About the Health Plan Designs – Traditional Gold Co-Pay; High-Use & Low-Use HSA. All plans will utilize a national PPO provider network (Aetna or Cigna).

Ancillary Benefits – Basic Life, Dental, Vision, STD, LTD, Voluntary Life

Principal will be our partner for all ancillary benefits and will have two tiers of benefits available: Tier 1 is for organizations with 5 or more eligible members; Tier 2 is for organizations with 1 – 4 eligible members.

Basic Life:

Tier 1 – $100,000 Guaranteed Issue up to $500,000 with evidence of insurability (EOI)

Tier 2 – Minimum $50,000 up to $200,000 with evidence of insurability (EOI)

Dental:

Tier 1 – Basic & Enhanced Plan Options including child orthodontics

Tier 2 – Basic & Enhanced Plan Options, child orthodontics not available

Long Term Disability (LTD):

Tier 1 – Up to $15,000 monthly max benefit based on top 3 salaries; no EOI

Tier 2 – up to $6,000 Guaranteed Issue up to monthly max $10,000 with EOI

Short Term Disability (STD):

Tier 1 – Up to $1,500 weekly max benefit, Top 3 salaries can qualify up to $2,500 weekly max. No EOI

Tier 2 – Up to $1,500 weekly max benefit with EOI

Voluntary Life – Employee, Spouse & Children:

Tier 1 – $100,000 Guaranteed Issue up to $300,000 with EOI for employee; $20,000 guaranteed issue for spouses

Tier 2 – Not available (see Voluntary Benefit section below)

Additionally, Principal will be providing all members an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) which includes in-person and virtual counseling services; access to ARAG’s Will & Legal Document Center; and AXA’s Travel Assistance program at no additional cost.

Voluntary Benefits

We have partnered with Colonial Life to offer a full array of additional voluntary benefits to all employees and family members including Accident, Critical Illness, Term Life, Whole Life with Critical Care Rider (for LTC related expenses). Additionally, Colonial Life will have enrollment counselors available to meet with employees individually during open enrollment as well as with new hires throughout the year. Enrollment counselor will be able to answer questions related to all Medical, Ancillary & Voluntary Benefits.

Action Items

If you have hired any new staff since submitting census information, please provide update information including employee name, DOB, home zip, email, job title and salary.
Inform your team that they will be receiving an email to complete the IMQ information on September 1 (we will send out a screenshot of what the email will look like to share with everyone).
Strongly encourage team members to complete the IMQ information in a timely manner (no later than September 15) so that we can finalize the medical premiums and begin open enrollment.

Thanks for your patience! As always, please let me know if you have any questions!