Born out of a demand by employers for a better solution, the group captive mousetrap known as the medical captive has had a meteoric rise since its origination in early 2005.
Born out of a demand by employers for a better solution, the group captive mousetrap known as the medical captive has had a meteoric rise since its origination in early 2005. Until that time, mid-sized companies really didn’t have any alternative choices that they could manage beyond fully insured options, but as employers continue to see their healthcare expense rise at double-digit rates, the medical captive has become a compelling answer.
In October, Roundstone Management and Hub International announced their collaboration over medical captive solutions focused on the contingent workforce segment. This collaboration erases any doubt that stop-loss group captives have grown to become the leading funding strategy for middle market employers. In addition, it confirms Roundstone’s commitment to partnering with advisory firms that share its core values of transparency and employer first.
Hub is an impressive organisation with over a million clients, 400 locations throughout North America and more than $12 billion in premium. Hub is the largest adviser consultant for contingent workforce employers, with over 6,500 clients in North America. Roundstone has been offering medical stop-loss coverage in a group captive since 2005.
Roundstone is the largest underwriter of stop-loss group captive business throughout the US. Roundstone’s mission is to create and manage turnkey insurance solutions, which are transparent, flexible and cost effective, delivered in partnership with the employers’ trusted advisors.
The opportunity to widely distribute the medical captive funding solution is obviously exciting because almost all middle-market employers are desperately looking for an answer to ever- increasing health insurance costs. With the increased visibility of these captive solutions, the benefits delivered of transparency, control and cost savings are the middle-market employers’ best chance to bring this top three line item expense under control.
Even with a deep and experienced health benefits advisory market, the process and approach for presenting the medical captive solution requires training and development.
To assist advisors with identifying and communicating the value of the stop-loss group captive, Roundstone has developed Roundstone University on its roundstoneinsurance.com website, which it will be launching at the beginning of 2018. Roundstone University will offer several sources of training tools within three curriculum subject areas that are necessary when delivering an effective health benefit plan strategy. Described as colleges, resources describing best practices for cost containment, claim adjudication and funding strategy will be made available online through a web portal.
White papers, webinars, infographics, presentations and customised sales tools will allow the adviser market to efficiently get up to speed on how to market and sell the medical captive solution to employers. Classes offered by each college will allow advisors to brush up on everything from self-funding and captive funding basics to more involved subjects on provider network and pharmacy carve out strategies.
Resources will be made available for advisors who work with Roundstone to print and share in their presentations with employers. The materials will help employers easily comprehend how escalating health insurance costs can be contained through efficient control over known cost drivers.
The materials will emphasise why transparency in all areas of health benefit funding is so critical, and advise on what actions can be undertaken to remedy rising health insurance costs. The Roundstone University toolbox will enable advisor/consultant firms to continue their valuable service to middle- market employers in a transparent, flexible and cost-effective manner with their clients’ interests at the forefront—an objective Roundstone shares and endorses.
