Employee benefits have become much more complex than simply figuring out what types of products or coverages to offer your employees. The modern benefits package also helps support culture. Your benefits package can do everything from assisting with inclusivity messages to nurturing a culture of caring/mental well-being to catering to pet lovers and recent college graduates. There’s an art and science to what Marsh McLennan Agency helps employers put together.
MMA at a Glance
6,000+
colleagues
120+
locations across the United States and Canada
1 million+
lives under MMA car
“How we do it differently is through really understanding what is important to employers and their culture, but also what business challenges they’re facing and what their financial budgets are and where they want to invest in colleagues,” Abbey Vanderwerf, VP of Employee Benefits, said. “At the core, we help implement benefit products, but our team provides diverse backgrounds with all types of experiences that allow us to help in all sorts of ways.”
The Team
Including:
Strategic Plan Management
- Development of a 3-5 year plan where goals are outlined and strategies are detailed for your employee benefits program.
- Evaluation of the program, vendors and solutions needed to help accomplish future goals.
- Aligning plans and offerings with benefits, philosophy and objectives to achieve desired business results.
- Partnership strategy reviews, providing plan and vendor updates, claim reviews, benefit trends and insights, and ongoing re-evaluation of goals and objectives.
Actuarial Services
An understanding of actuarial and underwriting practices, MMA can have peer-topeer conversations with carriers about what is in the best interest of all parties. This also allows them to negotiate with principals and long-term sustainability in mind.
Our team of client-facing actuaries and analysts provide:
- Financial forecasts for insurance spending and assistance with budget conversations.
- Independent review and analysis of your program.
- Periodic claims review and projections.
- Self-funded feasibility analysis
- Plan selection tools for employees
Benchmarking
Provide national, regional and local benchmarks for all aspects of benefits including:
- Stop-loss premiums & deductibles
- Plan design
- Premiums
- Employer contribution
- Compare plan designs and contribution strategies with similar size, geography and industry employers.
Communication & Technology
- Create awareness of company-sponsored benefits and health improvement programs and resources.
- Assist with content development, employee education, videos and booklets and overall benefits messaging.
- Provide independent insight and assistance with vendor technology selection and implementation.
- Support technology and carrier vendors to help drive satisfactory employee experiences
Compliance & HR Resources
- Focus on protecting, supporting and educating clients on areas that impact their business.
- Education opportunities such as webinars, seminars, white papers, HR and compliance focus groups and client alerts on industry announcements and updates.
- Access to HR portal for questions, template and training modules.
- Compliance doesn’t stop and MMA has a national team that educates local colleagues on what is impacting employers and what employers need to do to prepare. They customize this to their groups, knowing what is important or critical to them based on their size and offerings.
- In-house attorneys and compliance experts that assist with questions on compliance issues, WRAP documents, 5500 filings, SPD and plan review, HIPAA, DOL audits and more. How they’re different: “We look at our relationships as a business partnership. This is an ever-changing industry that requires a diligent understanding of trends. We analyze, evaluate and educate our employers on what could impact them while helping them make compliant and data-driven decisions and really help them and their employees understand what they have and how they can most effectively utilize their benefits packages. We are constantly asking questions about the organization’s future goals and objectives so we can anticipate things that could impact their benefits down the road and not just make decisions for today,” Vanderwerf said.
- From retirement to well-being, voluntary benefits, pharmacy, benchmarking, HR compliance and funding methodologies, MMA’s toolbox is vast and they train their team to find the right solutions at the right time to assist their clients.
MMA’s Proprietary Solutions
PATH
A dedicated team consisting of a Medical Officer, clinical consultants, data analysts and health & wellness consultants who work together to identify cost drivers, highlight cost containment to offer greater control over health management programs and track vendor performance.
Rx Solutions
Pharmacy specialists providing data-driven solutions and ongoing program management to help employers evaluate, optimize and protect their pharmacy contracts to create saving opportunities.
iNGAGED
A mobile application and web portal branded specifically to their clients, designed to assist them in promoting employee engagement and communications.
Stop-Loss Center of Excellence
A dedicated team of specialists who are laser-focused on helping bring MMA clients the most competitive pricing and contractual terms to manage and control costs with top-tier stop-loss carriers.
Want to improve your benefits plan? Reach out to the MMA team!
505 Broadway N. Suite 100,
Fargo, ND 58102
701-237-3311
[email protected]
marshmma.com/us/locations/north-dakota/fargo.html
Facebook: /DawsonInsuranceFargo
Twitter: @MarshMcLennan
