Most employers open the renewal file thirty days out. By then the only decision left is whether to accept the increase or eat it. Everything that could have changed the number happened earlier, and quietly.
This is the sequence. Work backwards from your renewal date. If you are inside 60 days and haven't started, skip to Month 2 and move fast.
90DAYS OUT
Get the facts on paper
Nothing here requires a broker. It requires someone to ask.
- Request your current census — every enrolled employee and dependent, with age bands.
- Request claims experience for the last 24 months. If you're fully insured and the carrier won't release it, write that down; it matters.
- Pull your current rate sheet and last year's renewal letter. What was the increase, and what reason did they give?
- List employees who declined coverage and why. Cost is the usual answer, and it's the fixable one.
- Confirm your ALE status for ACA purposes — 50+ full-time equivalents changes what you're legally obliged to offer.
Cost of skipping: without claims data you cannot be shopped to a level-funded carrier at all. That single missing document removes the option that most often produces a double-digit saving.
60DAYS OUT
Put the alternatives side by side
- Get the renewal quote in writing, with the rating factors that produced it.
- Get at least two competing fully-insured quotes.
- Get a level-funded quote if you're between 20 and 150 lives. This is the step most small employers have never taken.
- Model the worst case, not the expected case. Level-funded carries a maximum claims liability — know the number before you like the premium.
- Check whether a plan-design change (deductible, network tier, HSA pairing) closes the gap without changing carriers.
- Price the employee's side, not just yours. A plan nobody enrolls in isn't a saving.
Cost of skipping: accepting a renewal without a market check is the single most expensive habit in small-group benefits. Typical first-time market check on a stale plan: 8–22%.
30DAYS OUT
Decide, then communicate
- Decide. Carrier, plan design, contribution split. In writing, dated.
- Confirm employer contribution meets carrier participation minimums — usually 50–75% of employee-only.
- Book open enrollment. Two weeks minimum, with a live session, not just an email.
- Prepare Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC) and required notices. These are legally required, and they're the thing that gets missed.
- Brief payroll on new deduction amounts before the first affected check.
- Confirm the termination date of the outgoing plan in writing so there's no coverage gap.
Cost of skipping: a rushed open enrollment produces under-enrollment, which breaks carrier participation minimums, which can void the quote you just negotiated.
The four questions that predict a bad renewal
| Can you produce 24 months of claims data today? | If no — you have no negotiating position. |
| When were you last quoted level-funded? | If never, or 3+ years — there is likely money on the table. |
| What % of eligible employees are enrolled? | Below 60% usually means the employee cost share is too high. |
| Who owns this file internally? | If the answer is "nobody, really" — that is the finding. |
You don't need us to run this
This worksheet works whether or not you ever speak to Hipson. If you'd rather hand it to someone, that's what we do — group medical, dental and vision for Houston employers, plus the retirement and compliance side under one relationship.
If you'd like your own Form 5500 Snapshot — a one-page read of what your public filing says about your plan — ask. It takes us a few minutes and there's no charge or obligation.