How to ask insurance providers for a discount

If your business provides health insurance for your employees you are probably already aware of the rising cost of health insurance, which in most cases is directly related to the number of unhealthy employees in the American workforce. With the rising insurance rates employers have to pay more for their employees' health insurance, so to help offset the costs some employers are passing the cost on down to the employees. However, other companies are trying to find ways to get the insurance providers to give them a discount. Unfortunately getting the providers to give you're a company a discount is not that easy, simply asking them for a discount is not the most effective way to get them to give you a discount.

Here are few tips for asking insurance providers for a discount.

Tip one: Create a No Smoking Policy
A lot of insurance providers are willing to provide discounts for employers that have a strict no smoking policy. In order to get the discount on your insurance you are going to need to make sure that you are enforcing the policy and that you can prove to the insurance policy that you are enforcing the policy. One of the best things that you can do is to offer employees smoking cessation classes or even free nicotine patches. Doing this will put the company in a position to get a discount on insurance. If you want to go to extremes you can fire all employees who are not willing to quit so that you can have a smoke free workplace, this method goes a long way towards reducing insurance costs.

Tip two: Wellness programs
You can also receive discounts from your insurance providers by implementing a wellness program. These programs are designed to help employees deal with stress, eat healthier, exercise more, and promote overall employee health. These types of programs are considered to be preventative measures because they can actually help reduce the number of times you employees visit the doctor. One wellness program is not the same as another, there are many different wellness programs out there. And of the different wellness programs out there wellness programs have many different levels. However, regardless of the size or type of wellness program that you implement you need to help your insurance provider see the types of benefits that they provide your employees so that you can receive the proper discounts on your insurance.

Tip three: Switch providers
Since all insurance providers are competing against each other the rates they provide are going to fluctuate. What you will need to do is some basic research and sees if you can get a lower insurance rate with your insurance provider's competitor. Then what you can do so that you do not have to go through the hassle of switching insurance carriers is to present the lower rate to your current provider to see if they will match the lower price. Since most insurance providers will match the rate, if they are unwilling to match the rate it might be better off to switch to the competitor for the lower rate.

Tip four: Number of employees
If you are a larger company you might find that it is easier to ask for discounts from the insurance company because of how much business you provide the insurance company with. This can be especially true if you have been with the insurance company for a long period of time. The reason for this is that if you combine the number of employees that you have with your loyalty for the insurance company that can sometimes be enough for insurance companies to give you a discount.

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Categories: Health Care Costs,

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