Group Benefit Services

Hallier Benefit Advisors (HBA) – Service Sets Us Apart

While it may seem simplistic, HBA is comfortable in saying the additional service that will set us apart is the direct involvement you will find available to you all the way from the agency owner to the account manager assistant.

Mentioned before, but worth repeating as it’s no longer the norm (especially in larger agencies) is that the agency principal is not just involved at the “sales” stage of the process, but remains directly involved in every aspect throughout the years in making sure the expectations of our clients are being exceeded. That ensures no turnover in the direction of your account. While we have many outlets that are important to assist our clients in areas of technology, compliance, communication, benchmarking, etc., none of these is as important to our overall approach of “all in” agency involvement and instantaneous contact to our staff.

We firmly believe that one of our greatest strengths is the responsiveness that we show on a daily basis responding to questions, concerns or problems. This is the HBA difference. Currently we field many questions on a daily or weekly basis from clients and we are confident that your staff will feel that those situations are handled with a sense of urgency, care and concern. Our goal is that your designated account manager essentially becomes a small part of your HR department as a knowledgeable resource. We feel that we regularly accomplish that and will always continue to work toward that goal.

Annual Marketing

The process that we use to negotiate, analyze and present the renewal and/or marketing data from carriers is very straight forward. When working on the renewal of the benefits, we typically will begin the process six (6) months in advance. This time frame allows us to have competitive insurer data and numbers ready and available when the renewal becomes available from the current carrier. As the renewal and optional quotes are prepared, we provide an analysis of all options to our clients for their review with us walking them through the data. We show our clients all responses from the insurance marketplace whether the option is competitive or not.

Annual Enrollment

Once a carrier is chosen, our firm, in conjunction with the insurance carriers and with input from the employer, prepares all of the necessary communication material that will be used during the enrollment period for all employees of the organization. We work with our clients to arrange employee meetings and facilitate those meetings explaining the benefit program.

Online Services

HBA is firm believer in using technology to enhance the effectiveness and overall experience of your employee benefit program. Through either our website and/or links to our carriers, we will provide you and your employees with resources to view benefits online; download forms; view physicians and hospital directories; order insurance cards; access COBRA and HIPAA guidelines along with other capabilities.

As an additional value–added service, we have partnered with HR360 to deliver a state-of-the-art human resources library to all of our clients at no additional cost. In many ways, HR360 acts as an ‘online HR department’. HR360 covers key areas such as Employee Benefits, Human Resources Issues, Employment Law, and Hiring and Termination. The web site also provides hundreds of downloadable HR forms and posters as well as online HR tools and interactive step-by-step guides for doing performance reviews, hiring and termination, in addition to help with COBRA and FMLA.

Claims Advocacy

As soon as something doesn’t seem correct with a claim we want you to let us know and we’ll take it from there. The earlier we can get involved in claim issues the more advantageous it is. While client HR staffs are certainly capable of the general knowledge of working through these, we know the people that need to make the decision personally and know what they will be looking for to support their decision. It’s not always the same depending on who we are dealing with, so knowledge of what they will be looking for is critical. We are able to put together a detailed summary of claim issues with supporting documentation that leads to a strong track record of favorable resolution. Generally we find the carrier does want to do the right thing in these situations as long as they have the data to support their position. Upon permission of the claimant, it is not at all uncommon for us to work directly with their doctor/staff to collaborate on how we can best gain a favorable outcome for the claimant.

Compliance

Our firm is able to provide updated information to the client regarding current and pending legislation that may impact clients or their employees. Employer sponsored benefit insurance programs are the sole focus of our organization. Therefore, we are very familiar and experienced with the statutes, rules and regulations associated with our industry.

To keep abreast of these updates we consistently and continually educate ourselves and our staff. We utilize educational meetings from our insurance company partners, programs through the many industry associations we are involved with, updates from InfiniSource (a COBRA/HIPAA compliance company), and all other viable methods to stay abreast of all aspects of successfully governing an employee benefit plan.

Strategic Alliances

Serving businesses in the Kansas City area since 1995, HBA has developed lasting relationships with our clients and made it our commitment to provide only the best resources to meet all employee benefit needs. We partner with an impressive array of independently operated firms that provide business resources in areas such as:

• Human Resource Outsourcing & Consulting
• COBRA Administration
• Section 125 Administration – “Cafeteria Plans”
• Qualified Retirement Plans – 401(k), SEP’S, etc.
• Buy-Sell Funding – Business Continuation due to death or disability of owner
• Key-Person Insurance – Protect your business due to death or disability of key employee
• Split-dollar Insurance – Selective perks to business owner/key executives
• Salary Continuation – “Golden Handcuffs”
• IRC Section 162 Bonus – Tax favored method of providing personal benefits to executives with company dollars – also known as executive bonus
• Business Overhead Expense Insurance
• Estate Planning – Achieve goals for distribution of assets following death while minimizing taxes
• Property/Casualty, Liability & Workers Compensation Insurance