Category Archives: Insurance

HR Outsourcing: The Secret Weapon For Today’s Business

More than ever, today’s businesses are running lean and seeking ways to mitigate their risk while increasing efficiency. In a recent survey conducted by SHRM, they identified the most common reasons why companies choose to outsource their HR:

Save Money – 26%
Focus on Business – 23%
Improve Compliance – 30%
Lack of In-house Expertise – 20%

Human resources is more than hiring and firing. Much more. With new laws being passed more and more often, compliance, concrete HR systems, and training are key components businesses of every size need. Noncompliance and lack of systems cost businesses 10’s of thousands of dollars every day.

Options For Managing HR

Employers often try to manage HR themselves with little to no expertise. This often leads business owners working in their business versus on their business. To minimize the challenges posed by HR management, many businesses are turning to CorpStrat HR.

Benefits our clients love:

Support in navigating complex legal issues.
Cost effective solutions.
Effective management of performance issues.
Reduced pressure on internal HR staff.
Updated practices and policies.
Increased productivity.
Risk Management.

If you haven’t given serious thought to HR outsourcing, the range of support you can have just might surprise you. Contact CorpStrat today to free up your time so you can focus on your business.

How CorpStrat Helps Employers Manage Open Enrollment

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Identify Risk

Open enrollment season is upon us and if you are like most employers, you’d like to bury your head in the sand and pretend that it’s not happening.

What is Open Enrollment?

Open enrollment season occurs annually and is the time when your employee benefit plans renew. During this time, you, as the employer, should reevaluate your plan offerings and employer contribution. This is the time to choose a benefits package for the new plan year that balances cost and value. In addition, carriers typically implement rate and benefit changes during open enrollment.

This all needs to then be communicated and rolled-out to employees. As employer-sponsored benefits transition to more voluntary, employee-paid or employee-subsidized offerings, employees must assume more control in making smart decision. Benefit information should be provided and communicated to employees in an easy to understand way.

All in all, this is typically a 60 – 90-day process and can become quite cumbersome.

How a Cutting Edge Broker Can Facilitate the Process

This is where an OUTSTANDING benefits broker comes into play. Leave it up to the team at CorpStrat to make the open enrollment process smooth for both you and your employees.

Following are just some of the tasks CorpStrat’s Employee Benefits Specialists can handle for you during open enrollment:

Collect, negotiate and communicate the renewal specifics to you, the employer
Shop the insurance market to ensure your company is set-up with the benefits that fit your needs, at the most competitive rates
Present clear options, discuss each and make a recommendation of how we suggest you should proceed for the upcoming plan year
ALWAYS ensure you are in compliance with benefit mandates
Communicate all changes and options to your employees in an easy to understand manner
Answer all questions and concerns employees may have – ‘handhold’ them through the process
Process all changes and follow-up until all are completed

Working with CorpStrat will help you develop a strategic benefits package that works for your budget and offers attractive options to your employees. We can also give you access to educational materials for your employees as you launch your new or improved benefits package. Contact us at 800-914-3564 or send an email today.

What Does Great Service Really Mean?

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great customer service for payroll and benefits

We live in a connected, always-available time. Amazon delivers in two hours. Starbucks baristas know what you drink and call you by name. Food appears at your doorstep via single click and the internet creates instant “likes and favorites”. But when you are dealing with complex systems that aren’t “clickable”, service has to stand out in other ways:

What Should You Expect From Your Insurance Broker?

Communication

Organizations have to communicate 10-times better today, to be sure their messages are heard, and understood. From an advisory standpoint, clients should seek out firms that use todays’ technology to communicate and focus on communicating progress, when getting to the “finish line” requires more complex resolutions.

Goals

You should feel confident that your advisors are just as committed as you are to the achievement of your outcomes. By focusing on your goals, it should be readily apparent and clear that YOUR current and future goals are the focus of an advisory relationship – not the goals of that broker’s vendors.

Creativity

Seek out and explore organizations that take advantage of disruptive technology and “out of the box” thinking when it comes to problems and strategies. Creativity comes in all shapes and sizes, but mostly, it appears in what seem to be clairvoyant ways that outcomes are achieved, that systems are deployed and that people connect.

Confidence

Seek out advisors and organization that increase your confidence. Yelp and other business rating sites, and good old “word of mouth” referrals are still a great way to affirm a decision to do business with and engage with companies. The experience with your vendors and service firms should be one that you come away with a sense of progress, direction and ultimately sense that “we got your back”. Accountability and confidence go hand in hand.

At CorpStrat, we lead by example. Our success and business depend on four fundamentals – Show up on time, Do what we say, Finish what we start, and Say “please” and “thank you”.

The Right ACA Reporting Tool For Your Business

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45352091 - emotional businesswoman gesturing during meeting at office

ACA Reporting season is upon us, and many business owners are still struggling to understand their reporting responsibilities, and make the reporting process efficient and low-cost. Unfortunately, many find out too late that they don’t have the right plan or information to correctly file ACA reports with the IRS.

If you don’t know where to start…

Wouldn’t know a TIN if it walked right up and pinched you? When are ACA reports due? How do you store ACA reporting data? If you’re a small business owner who didn’t sign up for all of this red tape, an HR audit may be in order. An HR professional can review your business for potential compliance problems and risk exposures, and evaluate the best way for you to go forward with your ACA reporting in 2017. Continue reading →

Cafeteria Plans: Are You Missing The Benefits of Voluntary Benefits?

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The underutilized benefit the IRS doesn’t want you to know about!

With the rising cost of health insurance and increasing out-of-pocket expenses, there are additional expenses being put on both employees and employers due to the ACA. Employers are challenged, chief among these balancing the value of health benefits and optional coverage provided to employees, versus the costs and reporting burdens put on employers and employees.

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