Case Study

Our customers’ results speak to the success

of Barrow Group’s temporary staffing

controllable premium programs. Take a look

at how our relationship with A-1 Staffing

helped them reduce their premium costs by

over $600,000 over six years – that’s an

average of around $100,000 each year!

Balance Staffing

Is It Possible to Lower Health Care Costs

Without Cutting Benefits?

What do you say when your insurance agent succeeds in lowering your health insurance costs while increasing benefits for you and your staff?

The Problem

For most organizations, the cost of offering health insurance and other benefits to employees are escalating rapidly. The Kaiser Family Foundation said that premiums for employer-sponsored health coverage rose by about four percent in 2020 with similar increases expected in 2021. Unfortunately, these increases are often passed on to employees resulting in higher payroll deductions, less coverage, and fewer plan choices.

For Barrow Group’s client, Balance Staffing, it was no exception. Their ability to offer benefits to all employees covering them and their families was becoming cost prohibitive. But they were determined to find a solution. According to Balance Staffing’s Controller, Matthew Klapper, “Our employees are our most important and valuable assets, and we are committed to offering them affordable health insurance.”

Matt worked directly with Barrow Group’s health and benefits administrator, Charlie Stearns, CSFS. Charlie has been consulting with clients and providing valuable solutions at Barrow Group for more than five years.

The Solution

The solution began with simple goals and a long-term commitment. The first thing Charlie did was to move Balance Staffing to an ACA compliant plan strategy using a self-funded program that included a simple MEC. He then found ways to improve major medical and ancillary plans. This helped save the organization $100,000 in insurance costs the first year. By restructuring their plan, Balance Staffing was also able to build up reserves in the amount of $86,000 during the same period. This cycle repeats itself annually creating true plan assets and reserves that could now be utilized for the benefit of the members. Using the reserves in the future helped to maintain rates and provide better health insurance coverage options within a robust employee benefits package. Through all of this, Charlie caught an error in ACA-related fines paid to the IRS. Fixing the error resulted in an IRS refund to Balance Staffing of almost $80,000.

What do you say when your insurance agent lowers your health insurance costs while increasing benefits for you and your staff? Matt commented “It’s absolutely awesome! “

Approximately 90% of Barrow Group’s clients have received refunds this year! If your benefits administrator is not working hard for your company, you owe it to yourself and your staff to explore other options.

Barrow Group specializes in working with staffing agencies to provide an unsurpassed level of expertise when it comes to assessing and managing the risks associated with the placement of temporary workers. If you would like to schedule a consultation with Charlie, contact 800-874-4798.

$100,000 Savings

In Insurance Costs Year One

$86,000 Built Up Reserves

For Future years

$80,000 IRS Refund

Error Caught

A-1 Employment:

A Case Study on How to Pay 31% Less for

Insurance (without Quoting)

With an “X-mod rating” of 139, A-1 Employment’s number of workers’ compensation claims exceeded the national average and meant the firm was paying 39% more in premiums than average.

An experience modification or X-mod rating represents a company’s likelihood of experiencing workplace injuries or illnesses that would trigger a workers’ compensation claim. While it is calculated by a complex mathematical formula, it relates closely to the number of workers’ comp claims the business has previously encountered. Insurers use this number to determine the cost of premiums. The number 100 represents the industry’s baseline average. Anything over 100 means your company had more workers’ comp claims than the average and thus, your premiums will also be above average, costing you more. A number under 100 means that either you were very lucky or you have put measures into place to emphasize safety and reduce your workers’ compensation claims and control your premiums.

The latter is just what our clients at A-1 did.

Owner Kim Petrina and Risk Manager Jerrie Necrelli worked with Barrow Group’s Director of Staffing Insurance Kevin Kilcoyne and Barrow Group’s staffing insurance team to identify the causes of their workers’ compensation claims.

With nearly two decades of experience in staffing insurance, Kevin has an in-depth understanding of staffing’s complex nature. He applied his expert knowledge of the staffing industry to help Kim and Jerrie identify the specific risks to which their temporary workers were exposed. Next, helped them identify which carriers could best meet A-1’s specific needs by identifying any workers’ comp class codes or job types that might have restrictions or might not be insured by specific carriers.

Then, Kevin worked with Kim and Jerry to provide on-site safety training and educational seminars on specific areas of concern. The A-1 team also received access to Barrow Group’s extensive on-line catalog of downloadable workers’ compensation and safety content to use in their office; provide reminders to their temporary employees; or share with their host clients.

A-1 Employment’s “Controllable Premium Program” was rounded out with Barrow Group’s proactive claims and loss analysis management. Using data-driven insights, Kevin worked with Kim and Jerrie to help them better understand how evaluating potential clients and screening job applicants for risk factors could help them prevent future losses due to the workers’ comp claims.

By learning how to identify potential work-related hazards and proactively implementing the programs Barrow Group helped them put into place, A-1 systematically reduced their x-mod rating by 70 points. They went from paying 39% more than the average staffing firm for insurance, to paying 31% less in just six years!

Kim and Jerrie couldn’t be more pleased with their results. Jerrie says, “We are grateful to Kevin Kilcoyne and Barrow Group for teaching us that we could control our premiums! Thanks to him and the programs he helped us put into place, we saved $650,208 over the course of 6 years! That’s like placing 105 FTEs every year for that period!”

To see more of Barrow Group’s client success stories, visit https://www.barrowgroup.com/about-us-2/testimonials/and check back here often for more updates.

Case Study By The Numbers

Before Barrow

139

A-1 EMPLOYMENT’S X-MOD RATING

%

Higher Premium Than national average in premium costs

After Barrow

139