BenefiBenefit Administrators

Real numbers, not a range

Request a proposal.

A carrier cannot quote a group it cannot see. A real proposal needs one thing: a date of birth, gender and home ZIP for every eligible employee, and for every dependent they cover. There are two ways to get that to us, and they end in the same place.

Not ready for either? Ask for a consultation instead — a twenty-minute conversation, nothing to prepare.

Read this before you start

Either route collects personal information about your employees and their families. We ask for exactly four things per person — date of birth, gender, home ZIP code, and who they are to the employee — because carriers cannot rate or issue a plan without them. We do not ask for names, Social Security numbers, member IDs, or anything about anyone’s health, and you should not send them. Employees are identified by number.

You are also responsible for having the authority to share your employees’ data with a broker, and for telling them you have. The privacy policy sets out what we do with it and when it is deleted.

Pick whichever suits your week

Option one

Enter it online, step by step

Three steps in the browser. The business, then the people one at a time, then a review before anything is sent. It checks the dates and the ZIPs as you go and tells you exactly which rows are still incomplete, so nothing comes back to you a day later with a question.

  • Best for up to about fifty lives
  • Nothing to install, works on a phone
  • You can see the count add up as you type
  • Arrives structured, so it goes straight to market

Enter the census online

Option two

Download the workbook, send it back

An Excel workbook with the dropdowns and the date checks already in it. Fill it in on your own machine, at your own pace, and upload it when it is done — or email it, if your IT policy would rather you did. Nothing is transmitted while you are working on it.

  • Best for fifty lives and up
  • Hand it to whoever keeps your HR records
  • Save it, stop, come back to it
  • Your own spreadsheet is fine too

Download and upload instead

Either route asks for the same four things per person and lands in the same place — Benefi’s own account, and info@benefiba.com. Expect an answer within one business day.

Why we ask for what we ask for

Who counts as an eligible employee

Carriers rate and test participation on the eligible population, not the enrolled one — so an accurate number needs every eligible employee counted, including the ones who waive your coverage.

  • Any W2 employee working more than 30 hours per week on a regular basis
  • Owners of the business — eligible regardless of how they are paid
  • Eligible employees who waive coverage. They still count.
  • 1099 contractors. They are not employees and are not eligible for coverage
  • Employees working 30 hours a week or fewer

The owner one catches people out most often. If you take a draw or a K-1 rather than a paycheck, you are still eligible and you still belong in the count.

Why a date of birth

Age is the single largest input into a medical rate. Bands get an indication close; they do not get a carrier to issue. Every carrier prices off the actual date.

Why gender

Several of the lines quoted alongside medical — life and disability in particular — are rated on it, and carriers require it on the enrollment record either way.

Why each employee’s own ZIP

Not for rating. For network adequacy. A plan has to give the people covered by it reasonable access to care — a sufficient network of providers and facilities where they actually live, not where the office is. An employer in one ZIP with a third of the staff two counties away is a real problem, and it is much better found now than after the plan is in force.

It is also the reason we ask for dependents’ details. They use the network too.

Still not sure which one?

If your headcount is small enough that you know everyone’s birthday off the top of your head, do it online — it will take ten minutes and the validation will save you a phone call.

If you are going to have to go and ask someone for the data, take the workbook. You can forward it, and it will come back to us in a shape we can read.

Or call (920) 243-4006 and we will tell you which one we would pick for a group your size.

Why we ask what the business does

Carriers rate by industry as well as by age. The SIC code decides which industry factor gets applied, and a handful of industries are loaded or declined outright by particular carriers. Getting it right at census time means we go to the right markets first rather than re-quoting a fortnight later.

If none of the suggestions fit, leave it — your description in your own words is the part we actually need, and we will assign the code.

What happens to it

It goes to the carriers we are quoting, for underwriting, and nowhere else. It is not sold, not rented, and not used for marketing. See the privacy policy, which sets out retention and deletion in full — and which you can hold us to.

Not ready for this yet?

Ask for a consultation instead. Twenty minutes about what you have now and whether anything better exists for a group your size. Nothing to prepare, no employee data at all. If the conversation goes somewhere, come back here.