Las Vegas – Capstone Brokerage, a Las Vegas based insurance and risk management firm explains how consumerism and employer sponsored wellness and disease management programs are a big part of the solution to the National Healthcare Crisis.

“The topic is currently receiving a large portion of [...]]]> For More Information on this Topic: Contact Us

Las Vegas – Capstone Brokerage, a Las Vegas based insurance and risk management firm explains how consumerism and employer sponsored wellness and disease management programs are a big part of the solution to the National Healthcare Crisis.

“The topic is currently receiving a large portion of media attention is healthcare” explained Rick Knox, an Employee Benefits Consultant at Capstone Brokerage “I honestly do not look at our country as having a healthcare crisis; With one out of every eight national healthcare dollars being spent on the treatment and management of diabetes (estimated at $79 billion dollars) coupled with who knows how much is being spent on the treatment and management of heart disease – both conditions having a high percentage prevention rate – I look at our country as having a “Lifestyle Crisis.”

“This so called “healthcare crisis” that is being sold to the America public is just more political propaganda. I am not saying that we do not have issues with American healthcare, but the “fix” is not a single payer socialized program. A significant portion of the fix is Americans taking responsibility for their own actions and behaviors, and unfortunately a large portion of Washington Politicians do not believe in the American People.” explained Knox.

Consumerism, wellness and disease management programs start at the employer level. Consumerism is defined as anytime the insured/employee has a choice. The best example of how this works is with prescription drugs. Health insurance carriers are providing more and more web based information on drug pricing and drug alternatives. When the consumer sees the true cost of prescription drugs they are more likely to try a lower priced alternative or generic option. When the alternative drug is successful in treating their ailment – the consumer wins by saving money. In the more traditional co-pay type health plans, the consumer has zero incentive to move to a lower cost alternative and the drug companies win.

With wellness and disease management, the employer implements a program that provides incentives for the employee to visit a doctor for annual check-up’s and take Health Risk Assessments (HRA’s). Those employees who are at risk would then enroll in disease management programs through a Health Coach in order to better his/her lifestyle. Taking Type II Diabetes as an example, an employee would work with the coach (usually a registered nurse) to implement a diet and exercise program that would help the employee manage their condition. Through early detection and diagnosis we prevent those large dollar claims that are causing our healthcare spending to spiral out of control.

For more information on Consumer Driven Healthcare go to www.CapstoneBrokerage.com or call 702.227.5727 and speak with the group sales division of Capstone Brokerage.

Capstone Brokerage Inc., founded in 1997, is a risk management, insurance and employee benefits brokerage specializing in workers’ compensation, workplace safety programs, commercial property and casualty insurance, surety bonding, group health insurance, as well as all other types of commercial and personal insurance.

In today’s time, employees are rapidly coming to realize – their job is their number one asset. Now, we need to help them understand the value of protecting their income if they are not able to work due to an accident or illness.

Nevada, does not [...]]]> For More Information on this Topic: Contact Us

In today’s time, employees are rapidly coming to realize – their job is their number one asset. Now, we need to help them understand the value of protecting their income if they are not able to work due to an accident or illness.

Nevada, does not have a state funded disability program. If an employee is hurt (off the job) or becomes ill and can not work, their options are limited when it comes to purchasing income replacement insurance. Typically the best place to purchase this type of protection is through programs offered employers.

For the employers, several questions arise:

1. What programs are best for an employer to offer?
2. How do employers ensure their employees are not being charged excessively for these programs?
3. How do employers ensure their employees are being properly covered?

Most employers see value in sponsoring group products like health, dental and vision insurance and typically leave it to the employees to purchase their income replacement insurance on a voluntary basis. While this approach works well it does have some drawbacks.

Typically:

Most of voluntary disability programs being offered to employees are not guaranteed issue because they are approved or denied on an individual basis.
These programs, because they are more cost prohibitive than “True Group” programs, do not allow the employees to replace a full 60% of their income. Nor do they give the employee the ability to buy protection for the duration necessary to return to work.

Quite simply – cost – voluntary benefits while billed on a group basis are individual products. For the same price of a typical voluntary short term disability product, most employees can purchase “true group” short and long term disability protection.
This leads me to the “Value Proposition”

The typical dental plan will run between $22 and $35 per month per employee. Depending on how much the employer is sponsoring, the employer outlay would be between $11 and $35 per month per employee. So which product brings more value to the employee? Most employees would say their dental plan is more important than disability insurance. However, from an employer perspective; by providing and paying for an income replacement benefit you now have the peace of mind that should an employee be disabled due to an accident or illness they are financially protected. This also alleviates the “need” or “feeling” of financially assisting an employee who can not work due to an illness or accident.

The Solution

Dental carriers are now offering very competitively priced voluntary programs. By shifting the dental insurance to a voluntary program and picking up the disability insurance as an employer paid benefit – 80% of the time an employer can save money. The typical short term disability program will run between $8 and $18 per month per employee (depending on age and income). By taking this approach, the employee can now drop the voluntary disability product and shift those dollars to sponsor the dental plan. In addition, an ‘individual based” voluntary disability product runs between $22 and $48 per month, the employee ends up saving money that can go back into his/her pocket. Also, if the employer offers a true group Voluntary Long Term Disability Program, the employee can use the savings to fund his/her long term disability insurance.

The Result

By taking this approach to dental and disability insurance an employer can save money. More importantly, these days, it is becoming a responsibility of the employer to ensure programs being offered to the employees do not waste their wages away in excessive voluntary product insurance premiums. This approach ensures the premiums are not excessive and gives the employee the ability to choose whether or not to participate in the dental and long term disability while ensuring the employee has comprehensive short term income replacement coverage.

For More Information Please Contact Us

Capstone Brokerage, Inc. has made the 2009 Inc 5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in America for the second year in a row at #2298.  Please click on the image above to view Inc Magazine’s rankings page.

As a subset to the Inc 5000, Capstone Brokerage is named

Capstone Brokerage, Inc. has made the 2009 Inc 5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in America for the second year in a row at #2298.  Please click on the image above to view Inc Magazine’s rankings page.

As a subset to the Inc 5000, Capstone Brokerage is named #23 out of the Top 50 in the Insurance segment.

According to the NDA “A light-industrial facility that costs $405,478 a year to operate in Las Vegas would cost $625,774 [...]]]> The Nevada Development Authority (NDA) has started their add campaign and California based businesses may want to consider how much they can save by moving their operations to the Silver State.

According to the NDA “A light-industrial facility that costs $405,478 a year to operate in Las Vegas would cost $625,774 to operate in Los Angeles County”

With the Californai’s Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau’s (WCIRBG) wanting to raise rates by 22.8% – Nevada sure seems to be a more business friendly option!

If you would like to see what your commercial insurance programs will cost in Nevada, please CLICK HERE to contact us!

Allstate has finally addressed the issue of “Small Employer Access” by requiring [...]]]> In Nevada, Allstate Workplace Division’s Group Term Life Insurance, Group Voluntary Critical Illness Insurance and Group Voluntary Accident Insurance offer you and your family valuable insurance benefits, affordable premiums and protection for life or health events that can occur at a moments notice.

Allstate has finally addressed the issue of “Small Employer Access” by requiring no medical questions on the applications.  In otherwords, these products are guarenteed issue when a Nevada employer has five or more employees sign up for the program.

Capstone Brokerage is confident in Allstate’s approach of offering packaged plans  that can be tailored to meet the indivdiual and family needs of Nevada employees.

Sample Plan:

• $25,000 in valuable Term Life coverage
• $5,000 or $10,000 in Critical Illness coverage, plus a $100 Wellness Screening Benefit
• Up to $40,000** in Accident insurance coverage
• Affordable premiums
• Family coverage is available**

** Please Read The Brochure for Rates and Limitations

Please CLICK HERE if you would like to have Capstone Brokerage develop an Employee Benefit Program for your Nevada Based Company!

In a recent luncheon presentation, I spoke about  maintaining a high value benefits program in a down economy and how simply cutting the employer contribution may be detrimental to the long term success of the plan.  We have to do more with less and the easiest [...]]]> For More Information on this Topic: Contact Us

In a recent luncheon presentation, I spoke about  maintaining a high value benefits program in a down economy and how simply cutting the employer contribution may be detrimental to the long term success of the plan.  We have to do more with less and the easiest way to trim the health plan fat (cutting employer contribution) isn’t necessarily the best way.  While it may work well in the short term, when the plan renews the rates have a tendancy to skyrocket and the employer ends up with greater issues to contend with.

The basic premise behind a “Defined Benefit Multi-Choice Plan” is to give the employee the ability to choose a medical plan that best fits his/her medical needs and financial budget.

Today – I was in an enrollment meeting where an employee had previously terminated his and his famiily’s health coverage because he could no longer afford the $220 being deducted from his pay check. When we reviewed the options that were newly available to him – he was able to purchase a $2,500 deductible co-pay plan for himself and his family for $62 per pay check and he was ecstatic to be able to provide health insurance for his family again.

The above is just one example of how these multi-choice options can assist your employees in affording quality health insurance for themselves and thier families.

If you would like Capstone Brokerage, Inc to develop a comprehensive Employee Benefit Program for your company – Please contact us.

Effective November 1st, 2009 Sierra Health and Health Plan of Nevada will be increasing the health insurance premiums on their indivdiual / famiily PPO and HMO Plans.

A rate increase of 3.8% will apply to: