Employees benefit from group buying power

Members of the Missouri Apartment Association and the Nixa, Mansfield and Mountain Grove chambers of commerce are now eligible for health coverage through Select Benefits, offered through a partnership with Adco-Burch Insurance Services and Symetra Life Insurance Co.

Southwest Area Manufacturers Association members are enrolling in coverage through a partnership with Springfield-based Jenkins & Associates Insurance Consultants and Mercy Health Plans.

And member companies of Associated Industries of Missouri are covering employees through AIMCare, a partnership of Associated Industries of Missouri, Springfield-based Benefits Unlimited Inc. and American Community Mutual Insurance Co.

Each health care product offered comes after the Missouri Department of Insurance granted tentative approval July 12 for insurers to make health care coverage for small employers more available in Missouri.

Select Benefits makes health coverage accessible to more than 20,000 workers and dependents statewide, said Adco-Burch Insurance Services Agent Janet Blair.

“It’s not a consortium,” Blair said. “It’s a limited-benefit plan that is offered through associations.”

An enrollment number was not available for local participants for the coverage, which is available to businesses with two or more full- or part-time employees.

There are no limitations on pre-existing conditions, Blair said, adding that the program is not designed to serve as a comprehensive or major medical plan.

“With this group there is no underwriting. We accept everybody. It’s a payroll-deduct product, so as long as they’re an employee of that company, they’re eligible,” Blair said.

SAMA member companies are working toward an enrollment deadline of Dec. 2, with coverage taking effect Jan. 1. An enrollment number is not yet available, said Rita Needham, SAMA executive director. Of more than 120 member companies, 32 have made the commitment to join the consortium.

“We feel that our final group, once they get enrollments done with dependents, will exceed 2,000,” Needham said. The 32 companies represent about 3,200 employees, she said. The consortium, SAMA I, will be effective Jan. 1, 2006, and interest is already being shown for SAMA II by member companies who opted out of the first group and companies that recently joined SAMA.

Six of SAMA’s member companies were not able to offer health insurance previously. One of those companies is Welhener & Saville Inc. of Springfield.

“As a small (business) who otherwise wouldn’t be able to economically offer health care, or at least not a health care package of the quality and caliber that we’ll have, it means a great deal. It will help us with employee retention, but also it’s something I would like to do for my people,” said Jim Conley, president and owner.

Darren Coffman, president of Benefits Unlimited, markets AIMCare to member companies of Associated Industries of Missouri. The plan, he said, isn’t a consortium, either.

“A consort brings a whole bunch of groups together for a one-time deal and we’re treating this as individual groups, but they’ll be combined into an association for buying power,” he said.

AIMCare launched Oct. 1, and Coffman estimates 12,000 people will be covered statewide by the end of the year. Enrollment numbers were not available.

While SAMA’s plan required underwriting, AIMCare and Select Benefits do not.

“Our plan’s rates are based on location, ages, occupation, but not their health history, so there’s no medical questions in our plan,” Coffman said.

Rates for participants in SAMA’s consortium were not available due to confidentiality requirements, Needham said. But rates, she said, are not the focus of the consortium.

“If they join a consortium only because it has a low premium, then they’re joining the consort for the wrong reason,” said Doug Jenkins, president of Jenkins & Associates.

“They need to join a consortium because they believe that by pooling, and the law of large numbers, they will provide long-term rate stability. If all they do is join a consortium because it has a low rate, the next year when they can get a lower rate somewhere outside of the group, they’ll leave, and that is typically what can occur and what ruins a consortium.”

SAMA’s consortium, Jenkins said, took one year to set up, mainly because of the level of education required for member companies to understand the level of commitment the consortium required.

“I think most of the participating companies understand that,” said Conley, who employs 12 full-time workers.

If companies were to cancel their three-year commitment to SAMA’s consortium, Needham said there would be a five-year penalty making them ineligible to rejoin. Select Benefits and AIMCare do not require a similar commitment.

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