1. Employee Benefits Brokerage Services
March 2009
Prepared for
Prospects
Presented by:
Jon P. Carroll
Van Meter Insurance
2. Executive Summary
Van Meter Insurance combines years of experience with leading-edge products to provide exceptional service and
value to our customers. We provide a full range of brokerage services including employee benefits, property and
casualty, and financial and retirement.
Headquartered in Kentucky, we think globally but act locally, with personal services designed specifically for each
individual client. VMI shares information and resources with national networks of brokers to ensure we can meet
your every need, and find answers to your questions quickly and efficiently.
Our Value Proposition
Our goal is to achieve a long-term relationship focused on bringing value to your employee benefits management
and insurance programs. We are committed to utilizing our collective talent to support your insurance goals.
We promise to identify activities that drive claim frequency, and implement an action plan to control health care
costs. We will identify training needs and provide on-site assistance to actively address your health care costs and
promote a healthy work environment for your employees.
Carrier Analysis/Situation Analysis
You face many employee benefit challenges, including internal resources, time management, employee education,
compliance with federal and state legislation, trend increases, pharmacy costs, and increased litigation activity. This
challenging environment dictates a change in the way you purchase and manage your insurance programs. In order
to compete in your marketplace you must adopt a total cost of employee benefits management philosophy based on
data-driven decisions and globally positioned communications. We specialize in evaluating, negotiating with, and
recommending insurers and providers to our clients, and we employ rigorous selection criteria and performance
objectives when considering a vendor.
Plan Implementation
Securing the best insurance package for your business begins with planning. Analyzing all your risks is critical to
successful implementation of your employer group benefits. Van Meter Insurance will partner with you by providing
ongoing assistance, consultation, and service that will help you control your insurance expenses and promote health
care consumerism.
Data Analysis
Data analysis allows you to manage and reduce your claims activity. By analyzing your losses with a sophisticated
data analysis tool, we can help you develop cost containment strategies and employee communication campaigns
that will target areas with the highest potential to reduce high-dollar claims and high utilization.
Communications
Understanding the increased complexity of employee benefits is a challenge. Staying abreast of the issues you face
and developing strategies to meet the constant demands of business can give you a competitive edge. VMI’s
communication programs will help you stay on top of the changes affecting the employer group insurance industry
and consumer-driven employee programs.
3. Employee Benefits Services
Our range of value-added services includes delivering you custom solutions for all of your health care management
needs, including benefit plan analysis, contribution strategies, health & wellness education and training, claims
analysis, and developing employee policies and consumer-driven programs.
Wellness Campaign
VMI is committed to keeping you and your employees informed. We can build and customize a wellness campaign
specific to your employees’ needs. Through our online services, we can deliver you payroll stuffers, posters, ready-
to-use employee newsletters, and educational brochures on health & wellness designed to help you drive
consumerism in your workplace.
Controlling your Pharmacy Costs
Did you know drug benefit costs are rising 15 – 20% per year, and account for 10 – 15% of total health care
expenditures? Repair your pharmacy benefits program with ZywaveRx™, from VMI. With ZywaveRx, we provide you
access to exclusive, extremely favorable terms for your pharmacy benefit plan that include discounts guarantees and
annual claims validation audits, along with expert resources and full savings analysis.
Education & Training
We provide exceptional service through our education and training opportunities. Our employee seminars are
designed to help educate employees, create health-conscious employees and reduce high claim utilization and high-
dollar claim expenses. They also provide an atmosphere for team building. Together, we can determine the topics
that best suit your needs. We also will provide you with educational articles and newsletters to keep you informed of
hot benefits and HR-related topics.
Legislative Briefs and Plan Design Concepts
Do you find it difficult to keep up with legislation affecting insurance, your industry, and your business? Do you need
help recognizing and assessing all the trends that may have an impact on your business? VMI’s Legislative Brief and
Plan Design concepts help you understand the latest issues affecting employee benefits insurance, and help you to
address those issues.
Employee Handbooks
We are committed to helping you offer collateral on all levels to your employees, including a complete employee
handbook. Our dedicated staff of professionals can help you develop and implement the employee policies to
promote a healthy culture for your entire workforce and maintain a positive work environment by offering solutions
for your organization’s human resource challenges.
Benefit Statements
Benefit statements are a successful and cost-effective tool that can assist you in delivering the value of your
employer-sponsored benefits to your employees. Your employees will have a greater appreciation and understanding
of their benefits, which can lead to improved recruiting efforts and higher employee retention.
Claims Analysis
Trying to control your claims experience can leave you feeling powerless. We can help. Our tools and resources help
you respond to, track, and manage losses as they occur. We can also analyze your aggregate loss history to
determine where significant losses are occurring, and develop strategies to mitigate them.
4. Employee Benefits Services
We extend many of our value-added services to you electronically through a Client Portal, your personal VMI Web
site. Here is just a sampling of the information that we can deliver to you via the site’s Collaboration Center:
Know Your Employee Benefits
Health Care Costs Series 2nd
Edition: Is
Your Drug Plan Hard to Swallow?
HR Tools
Employee Benefits Survey
Live Well, Work Well
Healthy Portion Sizes
Plan Designs
Health Savings Accounts
Legislative Briefs
EEOC Moves to Protect Retiree Benefits
Wellness Services
Think About What You Drink
Handbook & Policies
Employee Handbook with Linked
Table of Contents
Employer Education Articles & Newsletters
Benefits Bulletin
Prevention Newsletter
Obesity
5. Employee Benefits Services
Technology Solutions
At VMI, we continually look for innovative benefits management resources and value-added services to ensure your
customer satisfaction. We use state-of-the-art technology to deliver these products and services to you.
Client Portal
MyWavePortal®
- We offer our clients access to a client portal which is a Web tool that allows you to receive
information from our agency online, participate in Employee Benefit surveys to find out how you compare to others
from around the country, and easily connect with a nationwide network of peers in your industry.
MyWaveHR®
- How do you currently support your health & wellness initiatives? Whether you’re looking for ready-to-
print flyers that feature targeted health & wellness issues to employees, or searching for Medicare Part D information,
MyWaveHR combines information and collaboration tools, including two-way document posting, to help streamline
your everyday work tasks. You can quickly source insurance-related news, information, and resources 24/7.
MyWave®
Benefits – How do you access your employer group benefits at a glance? MyWaveBenefits is your one-stop
information center that allows you to view your agency’s benefit plan information online.
MyWave Elements [INSERT ELEMENTS INFORMATION IF APPLICABLE]
HRconnection®
Our HRconnection tool offers you access the most powerful HR communication system available, featuring more
ways for you to educate and empower your employees than any other site of its kind.
It is an easy-to-use employee Web site that serves as a custom company information and employee benefits expert.
For employees, it provides 24-hour access to company and benefits information from any computer with Internet
access. For employers and human resources personnel, HRconnection increases productivity and cost savings by
providing employee self-service and improving employee communication efforts.
Decision Master®
Warehouse
Decision Master Warehouse (DMW) enables us to eliminate potential problems, find the underlying causes, and
determine effective solutions. Decision Master Warehouse’s Health Plan Management Report offers over 70 easy-to-
use and understand management exhibits to detect problems with your medical utilization or plan cost by comparing
your costs to national norms of similar employers. DMW’s powerful querying module, Drill-Down, analyzes the critical
components of your data in multiple ways. Drill-Down can answer nearly any question you may have regarding your
claims experience. These results will help you formulate focused strategies for reducing utilization and costs. DMW’s
Alternative Modeling allows us to experiment with plan design alternatives, and most importantly, determine how plan
changes can lead to savings.
PlanAdvisor™
Imagine taking the guesswork out of the benefits renewal process. Our PlanAdvisor tool allows us to analyze your
benefits plan costs against reliable benchmark information, project the impact of medical plan design changes,
estimate your renewal costs, and streamline the plan selection process for your employees.
6.
7. MyWavePortal®
Click+Connect+Communicate
Welcome to a whole new way of working — MyWave®
is your personalized Web site that allows you to
effortlessly click, connect, and communicate with Van
Meter Insurance.
It’s designed to offer you time-saving tools and
resources that build convenience into managing your
everyday work tasks. Whether you want to view
documents online, participate in plan/program
surveys, or connect with over 200,000 peers in your
industry, this is the place to be. It’s easily accessible,
hardworking, and just one of the many value-added
services available to you when you partner with us.
"The Community section allows us to easily find out what other
companies are doing in a variety of situations. I can get answers
quickly from other colleagues in the industry; the Community has
become my personal sounding board."
Trevor, MyWavePortal User, Northeast
Collaboration Center
• Our document posting capabilities
allow a seamless exchange of
information sharing from our
agency to you.
• Accessible 24/7, postings from our
agency are timely, relevant, and
easy to locate in one convenient
place online.
Survey Benchmarking
• Participate in benefit plan and/or
P&C program surveys
• Allows you to determine how your
plans and programs compare to
other employers across the U.S.
Community
• Through MyWave®
Community,
you have access to a vast and
knowledgeable network of
colleagues from across the
country.
• Share information and resources
via the Community’s interactive
forum that allows you to post
questions to your peers, provide
insight into other users’ questions,
and allows you to track responses
based on topics or individual
questions.
• Community postings are organized
by topic so you can source
information quickly and easily.
8. MyWaveHR®
: Your Electronic
Human Resource Assistant
“MyWaveHR is an extremely valuable
resource for us. We particularly
appreciate the forms available in the
Legislative Guides and the newsletters
found in HealthShop.”
Julie, MyWaveHR Client User, Midwest
MyWaveHR is the helping
hand you need for
all your Human
Resource needs.
Whether you are
looking for
Legislative
information,
employee
communications,
industry-related Web
sites, or consumer-
related healthcare
information,
MyWaveHR has it
readily available for
you in one easy,
convenient location.
Compliance
Looking for quick answers to
tough legislative
questions?
MyWaveHR’s
Compliance has the
answers you’re
searching for. You
will be directly linked
to an exclusive set
of comprehensive
guides full of federal
legislation. Complete
guides include
COBRA, HIPAA,
HIPAA Privacy,
Section 125, and
FMLA. Within each
guide, sections
include Related
Articles, Q&A,
Forms, and Quick
Reference. A search
function is also
available to help you
easily source
information by
allowing you to
browse all or only
particular sections
within each guide.
Documents on
Command
When you need to resource
information fast, the
Documents on
Command section of
MyWaveHR provides
instant access to a
library of
downloadable
articles covering a
variety of topics —
exactly when you
need them! Articles
are conveniently
grouped by general
category and
include: Benchmark
Surveys & Statistics,
Compliance & Plan
Designs, and
Employee
Communication &
Education — to help
you easily locate all
the resources
available to you. Or,
use its keyword
search function to
find related
documents.
Resources
MyWaveHR’s Resources
provides useful links and
articles to industry-related
Web sites —all through the
convenience of your
9. MyWaveHR®
homepage. In
addition, use the helpful
search function so you can
promptly find all the
information you are looking
for, as well as any related
documents from the
Documents on Command
section. And if you still
cannot find exactly what you
need, use the convenient,
“contact your broker
representative” help link. So
many helpful resources — all
at your fingertips.
HealthShop
Want consumer health-
related articles in
professional looking
newsletters to give to your
employees in a snap? No
problem! MyWaveHR
supplies you with
HealthShop —
comprehensive, consumer
information, in ready-to-
print newsletters. Topics
include: At the Doctor’s
Office, At the Pharmacy,
Home Care, and Your
Health. Use these
newsletters to help your
employees make smart and
informed healthcare
decisions.
10. "We currently create plan summaries
using Excel for each of our clients.
MyWaveBenefits will now make this
available to them online and free up some
time for us."
Kaye, MyWaveBenefits User, West Coast
MyWaveBenefits is your one-stop information center
that allows you to view your company’s benefit plan
information online. And to help simplify things even
more, we’ve stored all this valuable plan information in
one easily-accessible location—making it just a mouse
click away.
Benefit Plan Information
Want to be able to see the different plan types that
your agency chose for the year? MyWaveBenefits can
easily provide you with this wealth of information.
Once you select a plan type, the current related
policies will automatically appear, allowing you to view
each plan’s basic information. If you select a specific
plan type such as dental, you will be able to see that
plan broken down by plan type, year, and name, as
well as policy number, and issuing carrier.
You can drill-down and see even more detailed
information by selecting the Benefits tab – displaying
your agency’s current plan design.
Another great benefit is that the system holds plans
that are currently in place, in addition to prior plans,
allowing you to compare plan information from year to
year.
Rate Information
Would it be helpful to know specific information about
the benefits elected by your agency such as monthly
fees? And how great would it be to know rate structure
information? With MyWave®Benefits, this beneficial
information is just another valuable component you’ll
have access to, with the ease of a click of the mouse.
By clicking on the Rates tab within the plan type you
selected, you’ll be provided with a detailed summary of
the policy’s rate information including such valuable
information as rate structure, employee count, and
rate amounts.
MyWave®
Benefits: Your Benefit Plan
Information Center
11. Sample MyWave®
Homepage
Brought to you by Van Meter Insurance
MyWaveHR®
MyWaveHR is the helping hand for all your Human Resource needs.
Benchmark Surveys
Allows you to determine how your plans and programs compare to other employers across the U.S.
MyWave®
Community
Share information and resources via the Community’s interactive forum that allows you to post
questions to your peers, provide insight into other users’ questions, and to track responses based on
topics or individual questions.
Collaboration Center
Two-way document posting capabilities allow a seamless exchange of information sharing and
collaboration. Users can download and share documents, make updates, and track a document’s
history – simplifying updates to reports, worksheets, questionnaires, and policies.
12. Page 12
How does your current broker
COMPARE?
What Van Meter Insurance Provides:
Current
Broker?
Insurance
Market Access
We provide access to virtually all insurance and administration markets.
Strategic
Planning
We will develop a customized strategic plan for you that defines objectives and outlines the
actions needed to fulfill those objectives. Our strategic planning services ensure an organized,
complete approach to fulfilling your benefits needs.
Five-Star
Service
We pride ourselves on the level of knowledge and service we bring to our clients. All of our
clients are assigned a team of specialists dedicated to serving their needs. Each client accesses
our team through a single point of contact, making working with us seamless and easy.
Experience We are dedicated and committed to excellence in our service to the business community.
Technology
We use leading-edge technology to provide our customers with the latest data analysis,
legislative, communication, and human resources administration tools.
Actuarial
Services
When needed, we employ the services of professional actuaries to assist with calculations
critical to your employee benefits plans.
Data Analysis
Using employee claim data from your carrier or TPA, our Internet-based Decision Master®
Warehouse system analyzes your data and shows how and where to adjust your plan design to
save money. We can even model recommended changes to show you the potential savings.
Legislative
Briefs
Our exclusive Legislative Brief publication summarizes recent federal legislative developments
in insurance and employee benefits including COBRA, HIPAA, HIPAA Privacy, FMLA, and Section
125.
Client Portal
All of our clients receive access to a personalized Client Portal. The site is devoted to helping
you with plan administration, legislative compliance, employee communication, and more!
Custom
Communication
Through MyWaveHR®
, we can assist you with all phases of employee communication, from
employee meetings to payroll stuffers and informative brochures about employee benefits and
wellness.
Human
Resources Tools
HRconnection®
is available to you exclusively from VMI. This Web-based tool is a complete
employee communication system that helps you improve communication, increase productivity,
streamline processes, and save money for your human resources department.
Pharmacy
Benefits
Services
Through arrangements with two leading pharmacy benefits managers, we have access to
national pharmacy networks, significant discounts, pharmacy benefits modeling tools, and
more.
Voluntary
Benefits
We have a experienced and highly knowledgeable staff who can help you with this growing and
important area of employee benefits.
Community
When partnering with VMI, you gain access to professionals from all over the country through
the Community section on the Client Portal. An answer to a problem you have is just an e-mail
away. As an example, one client writes, “We just recently implemented a premium only
cafeteria plan. Can anyone tell me how this will report on the W-2s?” This question was
answered quickly, saving them time and resources.