How to Find the Right Benefits Adviser

How do you know if you’re working with the right adviser?

“If an adviser suggests to you that the way they earn your business is to quote your employee benefits package at renewal. They are the wrong adviser,” says Bob Gearhart Jr. of DCW Group.

In this installment of The New Benefits Blueprint, Gearhart Jr. shares why the way employers buy benefits is broken and how employers should go about selecting an adviser.

If you send four advisers and a member of your human resources team to the insurance market with the same data, they’re all going to come back with the exact same proposals.

“This process works in direct conflict to what you want to achieve as an employer,” Gearhart Jr. says. “Which is to offer the best benefits to your employees at the lowest possible cost.”

So, how should you go about selecting the right adviser?

“It starts by agreeing to look at the process outside of your annual renewal cycle,” Gearhart Jr. says.

To learn how to go about looking for a new adviser, watch the video above.

Gearhart Jr. was named Rising Star in Advising by Employee Benefit Advisers magazine, a finalist for Broker of the Year by BenefitsPRO magazine, and has been awarded multiple awards by the Association for Insurance Leadership. He is a nationally recognized speaker on health care and employee benefits frequently appearing on radio, television, and in print to provide expert knowledge concerning the ever-changing landscape surrounding health care in America.

Gearhart Jr. also co-authored the Amazon best selling book “Breaking Through the Status Quo: How Companies Are Changing the Benefits Game to Help Their Employees and Boost Their Bottom Line.” In the book, Gearhart Jr. explains the power of data analytics to inform and guide decisions that can lower health-care costs in group health plans.

In his current role at DCW Group, he and his team relentlessly focus on delivering measurable, repeatable, and predictable reductions in health-care costs for their employer clients while simultaneously improving the benefits for their employees.

DCW Group is an employee benefits and business consulting firm with a goal of making its clients more profitable and productive at their core business, by improving the way they procure health care.

DCW accomplishes this by implementing strategies that create measurable, repeatable and predictable reductions in health-care costs for their employer clients while simultaneously improving the benefits for their employees. Understanding the business models of stakeholders within the health-care supply chain and employee benefits allows DCW Group to eliminate waste, provide transparency and return stakeholder profits to their clients.

Have employee benefits questions? Email Bob Gearhart Jr. at [email protected].

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.