How Good Neighbor Insurance Helps Small Groups

“Can we afford a group health plan?”
One of the reasons people prefer Good Neighbor Insurance is that rather than being “sold” a group health plan, we assess and assist each group immediately, even with affordable individual plans and advice as they grow and are ready to choose a group health plan. By knowing your group now, we can anticipate any current births, retirements, issues with claims, or other concerns to help you get the best price now and in the future.

We also make plans more affordable by custom tailoring each plan to fit. We rarely ever offer an “off-the-rack” health plan that causes you to pay for benefits your people may not want or ever use. Most brokerages only do this for their largest clients, but at Good Neighbor we do it for all of our clients. And they reward us by referring us 2-to-1 over our competition.

We also save you time with administration, so you can focus on more important tasks.

We also understand that raising money is a full-time job for many organizations. That is why we do many additional things to keep your rates low and minimize costs so that you can better steward your funds. We have worked overseas ourselves and with non-profit, cause-based agencies so we understand where you are coming from when you are simply trying to bootstrap and survive those first few critical years.

Sometimes splitting up domestic and international staff makes sense or even having two overseas plans. We have a guide to saving money on group health insurance here written to help groups that are overspending. It teaches practices we have been honing and following for years to save our groups the most money possible.

 

“How do we sell this to our people?”
We don’t think you’ll need to sell it to your people, but see a group plan as one more way you can strengthen caring for each family, growing the organization and protecting each person overseas better.
As your members realize that they themselves could be the victim of becoming uninsurable or of being overcharged based on an unforeseeable claim or chronic health condition, they will hopefully understand the importance of grouping together to protect one another against these types of practices. Unlike new ACA health laws in practice in the USA, international carriers are not always required to accept those with high health claims on overseas plans.

 

“What if two or three people are not interested?”
Do you have to have 100% participation? Most carriers, only require 75-80% participation. If an employee has insurance through a spouse at another workplace, or have Medicare, they can waive coverage without counting against your participation percentage. There are options and reasons for not having 100% participation. We can discuss the options with you.

 

“What about renewals”
We are proud of our track record advocating for our groups. In 2018, even with one group with extremely large claims, our groups averaged a 4.7% increase which was way below industry standard and medical trend.

One advantage to having Good Neighbor as your broker is our ability to use our relationship with the carriers, our expertise and our volume of business, to help you negotiate a better rate than you could get on your own.

Another way we help you at renewal is by wise plan design at the start and help using your plan throughout the year so that you face fewer surprises at year-end. At renewal, we can help you tweak your plan design to bring your rates down.

 

 

“How do we find someone that understands our needs? That we can trust?”
The Group department at Good Neighbor Insurance has been helping small groups just like yours for over 19 years. Our focus and commitment in that time has been, not only large groups, but especially small(er) groups. We help all of our groups save money and give each the same level of care and personalized service regardless of size, because we care. Groups like yours are an important part of our business.

Ask around. Those working overseas know us. Organizations working overseas know us.
Or check the BBB.

Ask the carriers themselves – Especially those who deal with brokers. There are reasons why we not only have a great reputation among smaller non-profit organizations needing health insurance and small businesses with an international presence, but also why we consistently win Agent of the Year or have the top 1st, 2^nd, or 3^rd sales with many of our carriers. There is a reason they appear in our guides and are in our booth at events to answer your questions.

 

“How can you help us?”
We start by listening. And we continue to listen.
Then we act.

“What if we only need…”
We can help if you are overworked and want us to “take over” and do it all for you, or if you simply want the best price and some strength negotiating and can handle everything else on your own.
Either way, we realize you have a lot on your plate so we are here to help. Fast, personalized answers. No more anonymous phone trees!

“We are expanding rapidly.”
This is what we want to hear! Good Neighbor simply has more options as you grow. Why be locked into one carrier or a broker that only specializes in one carrier’s plans? We have approximately 12 carriers we work with to offer flexibility, competition, and more benefits without ever having to start all over from scratch.

Need political evacuation? No problem. We are already set to help you when you are ready!

“We need to be conscious of security issues overseas.”
Many of our groups are working in sensitive countries or places where war and terrorism exist. Or kidnapping. We understand these types of unique security challenges and can help.

“Are we liable?”

We don’t expect you to be an expert. Or even know all the right terms. Organizations, even non-profit groups are being faced with more and more lawsuits over liability issues. More importantly, you want the best coverage possible for your people living and working abroad. Rather than trying to manage multiple health contracts with multiple benefits and exclusions, we can help bring everything together under one roof, keeping you, and your organization, safe and secure.

 

“What about ACA laws?”

As you know, this is a moving target, since these are evolving. We are keeping up to date. Please let us know your questions and will be happy to answer them.