Over the past decade, the benefits industry has undergone a seismic shift. The slow, grinding dissatisfaction with fully insured plans finally erupted into a full-blown revolution — a disruptive movement centered on transparency, accountability, quality and value known
As the movement enters its second decade, the results of the first are undeniable: hundreds of brokers transformed into consultative advisers. They're winning bigger, mid-market groups from bigger — even national — brokers; an eye-popping $8.2 billion in employer savings
The question now is simple: what comes next?
Here are nine lessons for the future drawn from a decade of next-gen benefits.
- Become a consultative adviser. A consultative approach elevates you far above the transactional broker pitching fully insured plans. When you use questions — not a brochure, not a slide deck – prospects will tell you exactly how to win the business. You close the deal during discovery, long before any finalist presentation.
Strategic alignment begins when HR and the C-suite lead together. A company's best chance to transition to a high-performance health plan occurs when HR and the C-suite come together with a shared mission. HR understands the workforce. The
C-suite understands the company's financial and operational imperatives. When those perspectives are aligned, an employer can reimagine and redesign a health plan that advances organizational objectives and genuinely improves employees' lives. Facilitate this collaboration and help both sides see the same strategy through different lenses to produce better decisions, better outcomes and a health plan that finally works for everyone.Read more:
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- Learn the language of the C-suite. Top advisers are having a strategic, financial conversation with the CEO and/or CFO. You have to speak the language of business to engage the C-suite. When you bring HR and the C-suite together, you're able to address each party's unique perspectives and concerns in their professional language.
- Self-funding is the future. Consulting firm McKinsey projects that 12 million employees will migrate to alternative — primarily self-funded — plans in the next four years, a $500 billion opportunity. Advisers who can clearly articulate self-funding as a superior financial strategy for employers will ride this wave to a bigger book of bigger clients.
- Stop-loss: the new battleground. Leading advisers
understand underwriting — and how participation, quality, cost containment and utilization drive underwriting decisions. When you advocate for the employer from a position of strength, you get better rates — and win more business.
- Control the healthcare supply chain. Don't talk about it. Don't theorize about it. Control it. High-performance advisers deliver navigation strategies, quality management, predictable outcomes and zero-trend performance. The days of "managing the renewal" are over. When you manage the supply chain, you're operating on an entirely different level.
- The C-Suite's new expectations. CEOs and CFOs are waking up to a new understanding: the health plan isn't a "benefit" — it's a balance-sheet strategy. It should be managed like a financial instrument — one with important implications for cash flow, profitability, retention, productivity and competitive advantage. Frame
healthcare spending through a financial lens and you will beat the adviser stuck in the old carrier-centric mindset every time.
AI is reshaping the consulting landscape. AI's power isn't simple automation — it's visibility. AI empowers advisers with insights into patterns, interventions, risks and outcomes that traditional brokers will never see. The AI-enabled adviser will outperform the old-school broker at every step of the process.
- The adviser community will determine the industry's future. The rise of the NextGen Benefits movement — especially the ASCEND community and the NextGen Benefits Mastermind — proved that advisers accelerate faster in an environment of accountability, expertise and collaboration. The zero-sum mindset – one broker's win is another's loss — is outdated. Plug into high-performance communities and actively collaborate with innovative peers to gain a decisive competitive edge.
The benefits industry is changing faster than at any point in its history. Advisers who want to lead in the next decade must think bigger, act faster and embrace a level of strategic sophistication unheard of just a few years ago. Not leaning into the future means falling backward into irrelevance.
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