Health Plans NY a group benefits provider owned and operated by Jay Gerlitz and Bill Behr have recently released a white paper entitled, "Saving money on group health insurance, what your broker is not telling you." This white paper explains how Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRA's) could be a viable solution to the high cost of group health insurance.

More and more business owners are frustrated with the ever increasing cost of group health insurance. This year alone, many insurance carriers are raising premiums close to 18% and over the last 10 years, insurance premiums have increased over 96%! Small business owners need an affordable and comprehensive health plan to attract and retain quality employees but with healthcare costs spiraling out of control business owners are paying more and getting less.

A Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) can offer a significant savings in health premiums to the small business owner that is looking to reduce his or her costs. Traditionally HRA's look like the old "self funded insurance plans," but today they go way beyond the self funding concept and offer a business owner better control over insurance premiums and health care expenses. And most importantly, they can save big dollars on group health premiums. "The savings for a business owner can be dramatic with an HRA, Behr says, "We've seen savings of over 30% for some of our business clients. They are truly amazed when we revamp their current health program and implement a cost saving HRA."

However, Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRA's) are not for every business owner. They work best for companies with 10 or more employees that have a good "claims" history. If your work force is older and many of your employees are submitting several healthcare claims on a regular basis, an HRA may not be a good option for your company.

Why isn't your health broker telling you about HRA's? Most brokers are looking for the easy sale and implementing an HRA is not an easy sale. First you need a good administrator to run the plan and that is an additional cost. Secondly, explaining to your client that they will be reimbursing some of the healthcare expenses to their employees makes most brokers not even want to discuss an HRA. But even with the additional admin costs and the mild complexity of HRA's, you can still save a lot of money on health premiums.

Probably the most important reason that your broker might not be telling you about an HRA is that when a business owner's premium is reduced by 30% or more the broker's compensation is reduced as well and that's less money in your broker's pocket. Jay Gerlitz, a partner in www.healthplansny.com puts it this way, "We don't mind if we're going to get paid a little less commissions on a case. We know that if we make our clients happy and show them how they can save money through creative planning, we've done our due diligence and that client will stay with us for a long, long time."

The findings in our white paper are supported by real case examples of our clients that after implementing the Health Reimbursement Arrangement have saved significant money on annual health premiums. An actual before and after scenario has been included to illustrate how one of our many clients has reduced their health insurance premiums by more than 30%.

www.healthplansny.com an online insurance site was formed over 5 years ago by Jay Gerliz and Bill Behr, 2 independent insurance agents in business for over 30 years that offer their clients high quality health insurance programs at affordable prices.