16. What quality control processes or auditing do you perform to assure quality of your brokerage and consulting work?
100% satisfaction is our only option, so we use a proven approach to quality assurance:
- Hire smart people with deep industry experience
- Create time-saving templates wherever we can
- Require peer review for all data and analysis that drives clients’ presentations
These steps have been crucial to ensuring our work is consistently accurate and reliable. In our company’s history, and in the founder’s 25-year history in benefits, among the many hundreds of clients and thousands of renewals, none of his benefits teams have ever had to file a single Errors and Omissions claim – at Innovo or any other firm.
17. What benchmarking analysis are you able to provide?
We will begin by first benchmarking all plans against others in your industry, drawing on proprietary national NFP data. We will then fully explore all plan carrier, design and plan funding options, in an unbiased way, to generate the ideal balance of plan richness and cost. While results can vary from client to client, our independent approach has led to an average renewal increase of just 2.2% across our clients with 50+ employees.
18. Do you have any relationships with HRIS vendors?
Yes, we have relationships with many HRIS vendors, but more important than that, we maintain internal expertise to implement and manage many of these systems. Our benefits administrators and HR consultants are working within client HRIS systems every single day, and we are uniquely qualified to partner with you to manage the systems that work best for your organization.
19. Describe your approach to innovation. Please provide five recent samples of innovation your firm has created or provided to clients?
Innovation is at the heart of our organization – it’s even in our name. However, we see innovation going beyond incorporating technology and finding ways to improve how our clients offer and administer benefits. Some examples include:
- We offer access to innovative tools, like Airbo and a benefits-decision tool called ALEX that does the math for your employees using real-world scenarios. It allows them to make much more informed decisions.
- We have helped some of our clients innovate how they operate through self-funding techniques adapted specifically to the unique needs of smaller companies.
- Our clients have access to a suite of resources through the Zywave Client Cloud, which delivers industry-leading resources and tools to stay compliant, manage risk, and build a better workforce. The service includes many helpful self-service HR and compliance apps.
- When Innovo was formed, we decided to maintain higher levels of broker objectivity by donating most of our broker bonuses to charity. In our business, objectivity is a true innovation. Want to know more about the risks broker bonuses pose to your bottom line? Read more.
- We maintain a very close partnership with NFP to ensure our clients have access to services and solutions of the largest brokers, while maintaining personal relationships. Our clients experience no compromises or downsides.
- We are elevating what clients should expect from brokerage services. We are committed to a Triple Bottom Line accounting practice that allows us to focus on more than profit, demonstrating care for our community and the environment. This focus improves how we serve our clients and enhances the communities where we all live.
- To answer a growing client need, we recently launched Total HR, a suite of human resource and benefits administration services that augment the reach of internal teams. Clients find additional value in these services since Innovo also knows their brokerage needs, allowing the two to work hand-in-hand.
20. Describe your experience with all benefits for New York City based organizations with fewer than 100 staff on location.
Our proposed team members have been working with New York City based organizations with under 100 staff for over 20 years. We have an understanding of the community pricing for groups under 100, we know the various carriers in the area, the different networks offered by those carriers, the differences in out-of-network coverage and its importance in the city. In addition, we noted your interest in self-funding.
While there are ways to self-fund portions of plans, it will be important to consider the New York state insurance regulations, which severely restrict the purchase of stop loss insurance in the state for small groups, thus restricting the self-funding options for groups under 100. We, of course, also have extensive expertise in the other required benefits in the city and state, covering disability, leave, and commuter benefits.