Top Employee Benefits Brokers with Stellar Wellness Programs

The top employee benefits brokers offer insurance wellness programs, as savvy benefit brokers know that robust wellness solutions improve employee wellbeing, productivity, and morale while reducing overall healthcare costs.

Wellness should be a key factor in choosing a benefits broker. Brokers that prioritize wellness can help you identify which vendors are the best fits for your unique needs, and they can often get better rates and pass those savings on to you.

Here, we explain how working with wellness program brokers can benefit your organization plus list 37 of the top employee benefits brokers that offer exceptional wellness programs.

Wellness broker leads an open enrollment meeting onsite to a group.

Summary

Insurance brokers with effective wellness programs offer significant benefits, including reduced healthcare costs, greater productivity, improved morale, expert advice, quick implementation, wellness savings, and program customization
Evaluate wellness program brokers on client and culture fit, references, and cost and expected benefits
Top employee benefits brokers with wellness programs include Ollis/Akers/Arney, Nesso Group, Epic Insurance Brokers & Consultants, GBS, Huntington Insurance, Holmes Murphy, Lockton Affinity, and Marsh McClennan Agency. A total of 37 brokerages are listed below

Why Choose an Employee Benefits Broker that Offers Wellness Programs

Organizations that choose employee benefits brokers with robust wellness programs enjoy the following benefits.

1. Reduced Healthcare Costs

Wellness programs are proven to reduce healthcare costs by improving employee wellbeing, as nearly 70% of healthcare costs can be attributed directly to poor lifestyle behaviors.

People who live a sedentary lifestyle, for example, incur an additional $1,313 in annual healthcare costs (CDC), while smokers average an additional $2,056 per year. Programs that foster true behavior change can reduce or eliminate many of those costs.

2. Greater Productivity

Wellness programs also influence productivity by reducing presenteeism – when employees continue to work even though they’re not feeling well. Presenteeism is:

28% higher for smokers
66% higher for unhealthy dieters
50% higher for those who do not exercise

Again, behavior change campaigns that improve overall employee health can have a dramatic impact on presenteeism and therefore productivity.

3. Improved Morale

Effective insurance company wellness programs help create a sense of belonging and a family-oriented atmosphere, which ultimately boosts employee morale. This, in turn, influences organizational success, as publicly traded companies with award-winning wellness programs yield 13% greater returns than their peers.

Employee summitting a hike as part of the wellness program.

4. Expert Advice

Top employee benefits brokers routinely evaluate and vet wellness programs, so they can help identify which best fit your organization’s culture and needs. When you work with wellness program brokers, you can skip trial and error and avoid wasting investment on programs that aren’t right for you.

“Working directly with the broker allows for a consultative approach. The broker can analyze the health claims and design the wellness program to reduce those claims where possible,” says Cameron Black, Advisor/Director, Corporate Wellness Consulting at Ollis/Akers/Arney.

“An example of this could be a high percentage of claimants with high cholesterol who are on medications. An educational program along with a walking program could reduce the number of employees that take medication.”

5. Quick Implementation

Experienced employee benefits insurance brokers streamline wellness program implementation. They leverage vendor relationships and deep industry knowledge to accelerate setup and minimize delays for a swift and successful launch.

6. Savings

Many health benefits brokers have existing relationships with vendors that allow them to get better rates, and they can pass those savings on to your organization. Insurance carriers often provide better rates for companies that have wellness programs, and wellness vendors typically provide discounted pricing to broker clients.

“Another reason to work directly with a broker is the ability of the broker to utilize the results of the wellness program in his or her discussion with the insurance underwriters,” Cameron says. “The narrative that the client is working diligently to contain healthcare costs through the wellness program is a positive solution in the eyes of the underwriter and can lead to better renewal rates.”

7. Customization

The top employee benefits brokers can connect you with vendors that offer highly customized programs that achieve measurable results.

However, the unfortunate reality is that many major insurance companies claim to offer “free” wellness programs, but they’re not really free – wellness is just baked into their costs. Moreover, these programs often don’t lead to true behavior change and they offer little to no customization. In contrast, they’re one-size-fits-all, which means they don’t fit most organizations. It’s best to avoid these types of wellness offerings.

A truly tailored, customized, and well-thought-out program that matches the culture of your organization will yield many more benefits.

Broker reviewing the details of a wellness program with client.

Learn From The Best

How to Evaluate Wellness Program Brokers
Cameron Black, Advisor/Director, Corporate Wellness Consulting at Ollis/Akers/Arney, says it’s imperative to evaluate the following when choosing brokers for wellness programs:
Client and Culture Fit: “The program has to fit the client and their culture. One size does not fit all, and the lack of personalization can be detrimental to the results that you are looking for. It is incredibly important to fully understand the client before creating the program, and most times a ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach makes the most sense.”
References: “I think it is fair to ask for testimonials and proven results from other clients. Everyone’s experience will be different based on their commitment, but you will get a sense of what to expect and find out some of the pitfalls to avoid.”
Cost and Expected Benefits: “Wellness has become a nice thing to offer as a broker service. However, many brokers who offer wellness put no time, effort, or finances into their programs. It is merely something to say that they have. It is important to evaluate the cost of the program relative to its expected benefits. Consider both the initial investment and potential long-term savings from improved employee health and productivity.”

Top Employee Benefits Brokers with Wellness Programs

We’ve worked with each of the following employee benefits brokers and can attest to the quality of their wellness programs. As you evaluate brokers, we recommend exploring these options and comparing their programs to determine which is the best fit for your unique needs.

1. Ollis/Akers/Arney

Ollis/Akers/Arney is a benefits broker that has offered wellness programs for nearly 20 years. While their programming has evolved during that time, their philosophy has remained the same: they partner with clients looking to help their employees improve their health and wellbeing to enhance their culture and contain rising healthcare costs.

“We like to meet with our potential clients and discover what their goals and objectives are for their business, and in particular, their health insurance program,” Cameron says. “Using this information, we craft a wellness plan outline and review with the client. We share our vision of how the program will impact them and decide on a move forward plan. We almost always use the ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach, which allows us to assimilate into the population without overburdening employees immediately.”