How a higher education institution with 800 employees slashed healthcare spend by over 10%, saved $1.87M, and outperformed national benchmarks — all within the first 12 months of the new benefits partnership.
$1.87M
Realized savings in 2024
10.3%
Reduction in total healthcare spend
5.2%
Renewal rate vs. 18.3% national avg
THE CLIENT & THE CHALLENGE
A Long-Standing Relationship. A Fresh Set of Eyes.
Our client is a private higher education institution with approximately 800 faculty and staff members and a robust benefits program to match, spanning four medical plan designs supported by pharmacy, telemedicine, an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and Life & Disability coverage. It’s the kind of comprehensive offering that helps attract and retain top academic talent, and one that demands an equally sophisticated approach to management.
When we stepped in to take over a long-standing partner relationship, we inherited both an opportunity and a challenge. The university’s benefits program had history and structure — but it also had room for meaningful improvement. The question wasn’t whether we could do better. It was how quickly.
Our mandate was clear: protect the institution’s financial exposure, negotiate from a position of strength with carriers, and build a platform for sustainable, data-driven benefits management. We had a short period of time to prove our value.
WHAT WE DID
Implementation Highlights
- Secured 110% consortia stop-loss protection — immediately capping the institution’s catastrophic financial risk
- Achieved capped renewals with no lasers or exclusions
- Deployed utilization oversight protocols and data-driven plan management strategy
- Coordinated annual wellness incentive program to improve employee health engagement
- Leveraged strong carrier relationships to execute an early renewal at exceptional terms
Securing 110% consortia stop-loss protection immediately capped the institution’s catastrophic financial risk — a critical first move that set the tone for everything that followed.
The Renewal That Changed Everything
Perhaps the clearest measure of our impact: we secured an early renewal at a rate that stopped finance leadership in their tracks.
OUR CLIENT
5.2%
Achieved through active carrier negotiation
and strong market relationships
NATIONAL AVERAGE
18.3%
What most comparable institutions
accepted in the same renewal cycle
That’s not a rounding difference; it’s a 13.1 percentage point gap that translated directly into dollars returned to the institution. Combined with disciplined plan management and utilization oversight, the full-year impact reached $1,868,309 in realized savings and a 10.3% overall reduction in healthcare spend.
Healthy Employees, Healthier Plan
Financial discipline alone doesn’t sustain a benefits program. The other half of the equation is engaging employees in their own health, catching issues early, reducing downstream utilization, and building a culture of preventive care. Our annual wellness incentive program delivered results that significantly exceeded national benchmarks across every tracked metric.
| WELLNESS METRIC | NATIONAL BENCHMARK | OUR CLIENT |
|---|---|---|
| Annual Wellness Visit | 31.7% | 45.5% |
| Office Visit | 60.8% | 73.8% |
| Breast Cancer Screening | 39.4% | 52.1% |
| Cervical Cancer Screening | 48.2% | 52.8% |
Across all four metrics, our client outperformed the national benchmark, in some cases by more than 12 percentage points. Higher wellness participation reduces emergency utilization, drives earlier intervention, and keeps the plan performing efficiently year over year.
THE TAKEAWAY
By Year Two. Measurable Proof.
Within a single plan year, taking over from a long-standing incumbent, we delivered $1.87M in savings, locked in a renewal rate 13 points below the national average, eliminated financial exposure through stop-loss protection with no lasers or exclusions, and moved the needle on employee wellness in every tracked category.
This isn’t an anomaly. It’s the result of disciplined plan management, data-informed decision-making, and the kind of carrier relationships that only come from years of operating at scale in the market.
Ready to see what year two looks like? So are we.
Client name and identifying details have been kept confidential. Results represent actual plan year performance for a higher education institution with approximately 800 employees.