Your choice of employee benefits broker can have a major impact on the quality and cost of your benefit package. It also affects your employee satisfaction, your HR team's bandwidth, and your budget. But with thousands of brokers on the market, choosing a new employee benefits broker can be a tricky decision.

Here’s a great place to start. Our team of benefits experts put together this guide to employee benefits brokers and what to expect from your broker's service.

The basics of choosing a great employee benefits broker for your employer

What is an employee benefits broker?

Employee benefits brokers help employers design, customize, and purchase benefit packages for their client’s employees. When it comes to annual renewals, these healthcare experts are here to help. They analyze employee population data and suggest the plans that best fit their needs while staying within budget.

But their support shouldn’t stop after healthcare renewals are over. Your employees (and HR team) should continue to receive the help they need. Your broker should offer guidance and support to make sure you get the full value of your benefits - all year round.

In short, a great benefits broker is an employer’s partner in all things benefits. They help make benefits management easy and efficient for HR teams, during benefits renewal season and year-round.

Benefits brokers can be employed by a larger brokerage or work as an independent consultant. Regardless of where they work, every broker must be licensed to provide these services.

What kind of support should a good employee benefits broker provide?

Although your broker’s services should flex to meet your team’s unique needs, there are four areas of benefits management that any great broker should support:

1.  Healthcare renewals

During your annual healthcare plan renewals, your broker should make the process efficient and collaborative. Their ultimate goal is to start the year with you feeling confident in your benefits package.

While some brokers specialize in certain strategies, all brokers have access to the same range of providers, plans, and healthcare costs. In other words, two different brokers will get you the same price for the same plan. For that reason, their real value lies in how well they support you and recommend the best plan for your employees.

Here’s how your broker should support healthcare renewals:

• Delivering renewal information with enough time to make any necessary edits before the deadline
• Proactively answering your team’s questions through every step of the process
• Making benefits strategy recommendations tailored to your employee needs, budget, and company goals
• Proposing cost-saving strategies to keep your year-over-year budgets sustainable

2. Open enrollment

Your broker’s approach to open enrollment (OE) can make the process easy for your HR team, or a big headache. But it also has longer term impacts.

OE is a critical opportunity to educate your employees on how to choose and use their benefits. If they don’t understand the benefits available to them, your employees may not choose the best plans for their needs. Only 40% of Americans say they’re “very confident” in their ability to choose the right health insurance plan.

Open enrollment is the time to make sure your employees feel confident about their healthcare benefits. Equip your employees with the right guidance so they can easily find providers, submit claims, and receive care throughout the year. This guidance helps your employees get the full value of their benefits.

Here’s how your broker should support open enrollment:

• Educating employers and employees about their available benefits options
• Supporting employee communication to ensure folks are equipped with the info they need to make their plan selection on time
• Providing tools and resources to help employees navigate the process, such as digital enrollment portals, mobile apps, or chatbots
• Ensuring compliance with all relevant legal requirements

3. Compliance support

Staying compliant can be complicated and time-consuming. Your broker should provide you with tools and support to ensure you anticipate deadlines, avoid legal penalties, and stay compliant.

Here’s how your broker should support compliance:

• Keeping you up-to-date on relevant regulations, laws, and industry standards
• Providing guidance on how to comply with applicable regulations and laws
• Conducting regular audits to ensure you’re in compliance
• Helping you review and update your policies and procedures
• Offering compliance-related tools such as digital compliance calendars and automated filing systems

4. Year-round employee advocacy & support

Benefits can be confusing for employees. And if they don’t understand their benefits, they won’t use their plans correctly (or, sometimes, at all.) 

Plus, employees who are confused about their benefits often opt to turn to their HR team with day-to-day questions. This can end up draining time from HR’s already busy schedule.

Building a great benefits offering is only half the battle; your employees need to know how to use it. That’s why your broker should offer resources and support to help employees understand, choose, and use their benefits.

Here’s how your broker should support employees:

• Answering day-to-day employee questions
• Helping employees navigate claims
• Providing educational resources and tools to help employees understand their benefits

How to choose an employee benefits broker

There is no one-size-fits-all approach here. To find the best broker, you need to understand where your needs lie.

Here are some key things to consider when finding a broker:

• Company size
• Where your company is headquartered
• Budget for benefits spend
• Openness for alternative funding strategies
• The size and bandwidth of your HR team

The broker-client relationship is key — not only to your benefits, but also the efficiency of your HR team. Your broker should be easy to work with, and should make your HR team’s jobs easier.

So when searching for a new broker, consider their ability to make your day-to-day more manageable. At a baseline, this means they should offer proactive support, as well as access to tech and tools.

What are the different types of employee benefits brokers?

The HR and benefits space is changing fast – and employers are relying on their brokers more than ever. Many up-and-coming brokerages are now taking a tech-driven approach to better serve their clients needs. Meanwhile, other brokerages press on with reliable (albeit analog) strategies.

Most brokers now fall into one of two different categories: Next Gen and Traditional. There are pros and cons of working with each.

What’s a traditional broker?

Traditional employee benefits brokers typically focus on offering standard benefit plans to their clients, without much customization or modern technology. They may have limited access to technology and rely on manual processes (like paper forms or spreadsheets) to manage benefit programs. Their services may not extend beyond basic benefit plan selection, enrollment, and renewal.

In short, they found what worked for their clients in years past, and stuck to that strategy. For that reason, many of them rely on tried-and-true (but sometimes outdated) strategies, technology, or tools. 

Traditional brokers tend to be more established, with stronger name recognition than Next Gen brokers. Most have been in business for several decades.

What’s a next gen broker?

Next-generation employee benefits brokers are changing the game in the benefits industry. These brokers leverage modern technology and data analytics, with the goal of making benefits administration more effective at a lower cost.

By using tech, next gen brokers can offer employers benefits solutions that are customized to their unique needs. For instance, they can create data-driven plans to meet an employer’s specific needs, in a fraction of the time this takes for traditional brokers.

By automating administrative tasks that usually take manual effort, these brokers can free up hundreds of hours for their clients. And by partnering with a tech-enabled broker, employers can offer competitive benefits at a lower cost.

15 employee benefits brokers for 2023

Here are some employee benefits brokerages serving clients across the US, grouped by next gen and traditional.

Next gen brokers:

Nava Benefits

Nava Benefits is the tech-enabled brokerage that takes the hardest parts of benefits — renewal strategy, enrollment, compliance, and member support — and makes them easy for mid-sized employers.

By melding cutting-edge technology with deep industry expertise, Nava offers world-class benefits with a lighter lift and a lower cost. 

And it’s all covered by the industry’s only money-back guarantee. Under the Nava Benefits Performance Guarantee, Nava’s fees are transparent and contingent on the client’s satisfaction.

Features:

• Streamlined renewal strategies: Nava leverages a tech-forward approach to renewals to get your strategy in your hands with time to spare.
• Simplified open enrollment: With step-by-step support, Nava makes open enrollment easier for HR and employees alike.
• Expert compliance support: Nava’s team of ERISA experts makes compliance simple to manage.
• Always-on employee support: Through the Nava Benefits App, employees have round-the-clock access to expert member support.

Get started with Nava Benefits here.

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OneDigital

OneDigital is a national employee benefits broker and HR consulting firm that uses data analytics and technology to offer benefit solutions. They cover a wide range of benefits, including health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits.

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Bennie

Bennie is a tech-enabled benefits brokerage that offers personalized employee benefits solutions. Their platform simplifies benefits administration and helps employers create benefit programs.

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Sequoia

Sequoia is an independent insurance brokerage and consulting firm that provides a range of employee benefits and HR solutions to businesses of all sizes. Their services include health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits, as well as compliance and risk management consulting.

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Traditional brokers:

Mercer

Mercer is a global consulting firm that offers a comprehensive suite of employee benefits consulting services. Their solutions include health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits. They provide personalized consulting to help employers design and manage their benefits programs.

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Willis Towers Watson

Willis Towers Watson is a global advisory, broking, and solutions company that offers customized employee benefits consulting services. Their solutions cover a wide range of benefits, including health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits.

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Aon

Aon is a global professional services firm that offers tailored employee benefits consulting services. Their solutions cover a wide range of benefits, including health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits. They provide strategic consulting to help employers optimize their benefits programs.

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Gallagher

Gallagher is a global insurance brokerage and risk management services firm that provides a range of employee benefits consulting services. Their solutions include health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits. They offer personalized consulting to help employers create benefit programs that meet their specific needs.

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Lockton

Lockton is a global insurance brokerage firm that specializes in employee benefits consulting. Their solutions include health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits. They provide personalized consulting to help employers design and implement benefits programs that meet the unique needs of their workforce.

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HUB International

HUB International is a global insurance brokerage firm that offers personalized employee benefits consulting services. Their solutions cover a wide range of benefits, including health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits. They provide strategic consulting to help employers create cost-effective benefit programs.

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Marsh & McLennan Agency

Marsh & McLennan Agency (MMA) is a national insurance brokerage and consulting firm that offers a range of employee benefits, risk management, and consulting services to businesses of all sizes. Their services include health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, property and casualty insurance, and surety bonds.

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NFP

NFP is a national insurance brokerage and consulting firm that offers personalized employee benefits solutions. Their solutions include health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits. They provide strategic consulting to help employers create benefit programs that attract and retain top talent.

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CBIZ

CBIZ is a national professional services firm that offers comprehensive employee benefits consulting services. Their solutions include health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits. They provide personalized consulting to help employers design and manage their benefits programs.

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USI Insurance Services

USI Insurance Services is a leading national insurance brokerage and consulting firm that offers customized employee benefits solutions. Their solutions cover a wide range of benefits, including health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits. They provide personalized consulting to help employers create benefit programs that meet their unique needs.

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Alliant Employee Benefits

Alliant Employee Benefits is a national insurance brokerage and consulting firm that offers customized employee benefits solutions. Their solutions cover a wide range of benefits, including health and welfare benefits, retirement benefits, and other voluntary benefits. They provide personalized consulting to help employers design and manage benefit programs that meet the unique needs of their workforce.

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Looking for a great benefits broker?

There are thousands of benefits brokers across the nation doing good work. But just like any other industry, there are some brokerages that can meet a high bar of customer service.

Need help sorting through the options? Chat with our team for a free consultation.