America's Benefit Specialist August-September 2022

VOLUNTARY DISRUPTION

the new book: Breaking Through The Status Quo , and he’s also EBA magazine’s Voluntary Adviser of the Year. Voluntary Disruption works as the “adviser’s adviser” for client’s small to large all across the country, and is nationally recognized as a disruptive carrier agonistic enhanced benefits boutique with in-house distribution and enrollment services. Reach Eric directly by voice and text at (443) 676-0340, by email; eric@voluntarydisrup tion.com, at his website; voluntarydisruption. com, on LinkedIn, on Twitter @SilvermanS BG, or through his business Facebook page; facebook.com/SilvermanBenefits.

fit for their client. They end up being a point of stress for both of our back offices and ultimately block groups from getting the benefits strategy that best works for them. So, I politely say that we wouldn’t be a good fit for each other and move on. I always say there’s no such thing as being 99% coachable and one percent un-coachable. It doesn’t work that way. You’re either all in or you’re not. Because that one percent where you disagree with the expert is the world of difference that turns a sure thing into a slammed door. Do you have a story like mine? Have you ever been on my side—the receiving end of someone telling you how to do your job and, capable option and a positive contribution amount to the HSA as defaults prompts employees to opt out if they want a differ ent coverage option. Opening the HSA on the first day of coverage with a nominal employer contribution gets them off on the right foot—starting the clock on eligible expenses. Importantly, HSAs contributions need not precede eligible expenses. Other implementation tactics include a midyear HSA re-enrollment and avoiding capital preservation options as the default HSA investment. The best overall strategy is to leverage all tax-preferred benefits—the HSA, the FSA and a tax-qualified retirement savings plan. Leveraging automatic features in terms of both HSAs and FSAs requires positioning medical coverage to get the incentives right, which might include increasing point of purchase costs while “leveling the playing field” with adjustments to the coverage de sign for options that are not HSA-capable Continued from page 35

unfortunately, messing everything up? Have you ever been that someone and realized your mistake after it was too late? If so, then you recognize that being coachable in our dynamic and quickly changing industry is an asset that lets you close deals and bring better results to your clients. Until next time, don’t just have a great month— make it a great month!

Silverman, Founder and Owner of Voluntary Disruption, a division of Silverman Benefits Group (SBG), is an Amazon “Best Selling” Author featured in

HSAs

so that they parallel the HSA-capable cover age structure. To succeed at prompting workers to save and to leverage the tax preferences only available through an HSA, a plan sponsor should deploy many of the same processes widely used to prompt saving in 401k plans: • Limit health coverage to a single, HSA-capable coverage option. • Deliver any employer financial support to the HSA as a matching contribution. • Auto-enroll individuals into the HSA (both enrollment and a contribution amount to the HSA at least sufficient to fund the deductible). • Provide transition rules/features/pro tections for individuals when they first enroll in HSA-capable coverage. • Prompt mid-year re-enrollment into the HSAs, or a mid-year automatic escalation in HSA contributions.

1 www.marketwatch.com/ press-release/2023-employ

er-health-and-benefit-strategies-fo cused-on-affordability-and-access-

mercer-survey-2022-07-06?siteid=nbkh 2 Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Atlanta Fed GDPNow Estimate for 2022: Q2, www. atlantafed.org/-/media/documents/cqer/re searchcq/gdpnow/RealGDPTrackingSlides.pdf

Christine Cooper is the CEO of aequum LLC and the co-managing member of Koehler Fitzgerald LLC, a law firm with a national practice. Founded in 2020, aequum serves third-party

administrators, medical cost-management companies, stop-loss carriers, employer-spon sored health plans and brokers nationwide, defending medical balance-bills and delivering savings to employer-sponsored health plans. Christine is an avid runner and Ironman and is active in a variety of community affairs.

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