Arizona Health Insurance Tips: 3 Common Mistakes at Renewal Time

Every year, you typically have the opportunity to choose to renew your existing health insurance plan, or make changes and enroll in something new. At AZ Health Insurance Brokers, we help people sign up for all types of insurance, including group business health insurance for their employees, individual health insurance and family health insurance.

1. Not Shopping Insurance

First, one of the main mistakes we see is employers not shopping around for insurance every year. Many employers simply renew the same insurance policy they had the year prior, even if it’s no longer the best fit for their employees. 

For businesses that are focused on scaling and growing, especially those that have at least 10 employees enrolling in employer-offered health insurance, it really makes sense to shop insurance plans every year. Carriers go through cycles based on who’s buying market share for the current year compared to the previous year, so it’s important to take a fresh look at everything on an annual basis. That way, you can get all available options laid out in front of you.

This is a service we provide for all our group health insurance providers at AZ Health Insurance Brokers. Every year, we walk our clients through all available plans, so they can be confident the one they’re choosing works for their workforce.

If your broker doesn’t help you shop for group health insurance every year, you should find one who will walk you through your options, so you can see every single option from every carrier to compare their offerings and their rates. 

Sometimes it makes sense to pivot, and sometimes it makes sense to stay put. It really depends on your individual company and your risk pool.

2. Not Offering New Options

In addition to not shopping for insurance, another mistake employers make is staying with the same insurance year over year, without considering new options that could meet employees’ current needs. For example, if there’s a significant increase in insurance costs, instead of just forcing employees to keep their same plan at a higher cost, an alternative would be to offer a new option that’s going to be at a similar cost to what they were paying but that provides a little bit less in benefits.

At AZ Health Insurance Brokers, we recommend to put yourself in the shoes of your employees, so that you can make better decisions from an employee-centric point-of-view. Employers can survey employees about their thoughts on their current insurance plans and what would make them better, which is valuable information employers can use when they’re shopping for insurance. Knowing what employees want can also help businesses better position their insurance offerings when they’re trying to hire new talent.

We also recommend that employers consider budgeting for a health insurance expense increase each year. Generally, there will be between a 5% and 12% annual increase. If you can plan this increase in your annual budgets, you’ll be better able to maintain plans your employees want without a surprise increase.

3. Not Looking at All the Details

Finally, the third major mistake we see business owners make at renewal time is not looking at all the granular details of plans, from health insurance to dental insurance. A trusted insurance broker can do this for you and explain details and changes quickly and clearly, which may be easier than sifting through the fine print yourself.

Why is it important to review all insurance plan terms? It’s really important to look at all the variables in an insurance plan because insurance is more than deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums and coinsurance. You need to look at factors like doctors networks, the prescription drug formulary, how emergency room visits are covered and how major diagnostics are covered. 

You don’t want your staff to be blindsided by an oversight. For example, an ER copayment on a previous plan could pivot to a deductible coinsurance on a new plan. That could result in unexpected expenses for your employees, and major stress and hassle that impacts your business operations. 

Avoid These Mistakes: Call AZ Health Insurance Brokers 

Since health insurance consistently ranks as one of the top employer-offered benefits to workers, it’s important that employers work with a trusted health insurance provider who can help them select the best coverage for their employees. Simply renewing the same plan every year may not make sense for your workforce, as plan details, prices and other factors are always subject to change.

When you choose AZ Health Insurance Brokers as your group health insurance provider, you can be assured we’ll:

1. Shop all current insurance plans and present you with relevant options to consider.
2. Walk you through any price increases and explain how you can make plans that are in your budget work for your workforce.
3. Alert you to any changes and all term details that could impact your business and health insurance selection.

If you want to start offering group health insurance to your employees, or you already are and you want to make sure you’re offering the best plan at your business, call AZ Health Insurance Brokers. We offer free consultations for business owners and look forward to helping you.

Contact us online, call 602.617.4107 or email quotes@azhealthinsurancebrokers.com for information.