While employers ultimately decide the benefit structure and budget for their health plan, brokers are a critical input to implement long term solutions that work. Year after year, innovators create health plan solutions targeted at offering the next best thing in healthcare. For brokers, this means more solutions to parse through and analyze on behalf of their clients.

And this is not easy to do. With each new solution comes the promise of “solving” healthcare. Many vendors sound the same yet offer fundamentally different products. For brokers in any segment, it is critical to understand the marketplace and surface a diverse set of options for clients. Here’s why.  

1. Helps build and demonstrate trust

By understanding and identifying unique solutions for clients, brokers are playing a critical role. Many companies, particularly those that have less than 500 people, do not have full-time employees to do this. 

Throughout the year, brokers must be connecting with clients on what is working with their current plan and what aspects they would like to change for the new plan year. When it’s time for the renewal period, brokers will be able to offer suggestions based on what they’ve learned, acting not only as a key advisor but a confidant. 

2. Drives innovation forward

In many ways, brokers are the conduit between employers and health insurers. As the link between the two, the strategies that brokers recommend determine how quickly innovation is adopted by the marketplace. 

Including options like modern health plans that focus on saving costs and putting the members’ health first can make a difference in the larger health plan landscape. Even if clients don’t choose the more innovative option at first, that awareness can go a long way in the future.

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3. Differentiates themselves  

Larger brokerages can leverage their size to offer different services and tools that smaller brokerages cannot access. For small brokerages to compete, understanding and identifying unique solutions can be a game changer. And in today’s market, with a myriad of solutions now aimed at smaller employers, the need to present diverse options has never been more important. 

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