FrankBlog

3 Reasons to Consider Outsourcing Benefits to a PEO

Written by David Peasall, VP, Human Resources | Oct 24, 2017 1:00:00 PM

Very few companies can efficiently employ enough to support a competitive, robust, employee benefits program. Without a specialization in the area of benefits, it can distract from your core business to try to do things yourself. PEOs like FrankCrum are designed to combine employee benefits programs with payroll services, HR and workers’ compensation insurance to offer a “one-stop-shop” for managing it all. This enables you to offer great benefits affordably, save time and money, and stay consistently compliant.

  1. Benefits Plans and Programs

Partnering with FrankCrum allows small to medium-sized business owners to offer big-company benefits plans and programs. Because FrankCrum’s policies have thousands of employees on them, we’re able to negotiate comprehensive benefit packages for you. That means you can offer your employees the options they want with top carriers they know and trust. We consult with you from the very beginning to help you determine whether offering a benefits package is feasible and what type of benefits package you desire. In addition to health insurance, and voluntary and supplemental plans, adopting FrankCrum’s 401(k) plan frees you from worry regarding fiduciary responsibility, investment committees, performing ADP/ACP/top heavy testing, plan audits, maintaining plan documents, and Form 5500 filing. This makes PEO-sponsored 401(k) plans very attractive for business owners in terms of administrative time and costs.
  1. Compliance and Administration

Not only do we help you develop your benefits plans, we handle enrolling your employees (and removing them when necessary) and answering any questions they have during the process. That means anytime someone has a life event change (marriage, divorce, child), they call us to update their benefits so you don’t have to sort through the personal details and determine which options are available. While outsourcing benefits administration certainly saves you time, having the experts assist with all of the tax and regulatory reporting reduces your risk of non-compliance. It also ensures that your company is making the appropriate pre-tax deductions from your employees’ paychecks. When you outsource employee benefits management to FrankCrum, you gain experts who provide ongoing guidance and support in the following areas:
  • Enrollment eligibility notifications
  • Answering employee questions
  • Carrier renewal negotiations
  • W-2 health premium reporting
  • Form processing for employee enrollment, changes and termination
  • COBRA information processing
  • Monthly carrier invoice reconciliation
  • Carrier claims management
  • ACA compliance strategies

3. Open Annual Enrollment

Communication and employee engagement efforts should really happen year-round and not just during annual open enrollment. Employees are looking for easy-to-use guidance on which plan options are best in a language that’s easy to understand – and that information isn’t always readily available. When you outsource benefits management to FrankCrum, we handle the open enrollment process. Every year, we utilize an easy-to-use technology platform to have employees update their benefits elections. This takes the burden of paperwork, communication and time constraints off your shoulders so you can focus on growing your business.