Stop Playing the Carrier’s Game: Why It’s Time to Rethink Your Health Insurance Renewal

For many employers, the annual health insurance renewal feels like a frustrating ritual. Your carrier delivers an initial rate increase, often somewhere between 8-12%, claiming it's a “normal” adjustment. And just as you're ready to shop around, they come back with a magically reduced rate, hoping to keep your business.

This predictable back-and-forth can feel like a victory. After all, who doesn’t like the feeling of winning a negotiation? But there’s a question that often gets overlooked:

Why didn't they offer the best rate upfront?

The Painful Cycle of Cost Shifting

If you’ve been through this cycle enough times, you know that these yearly rate increases aren’t just small adjustments. They’re part of a larger pattern that forces many employers to make difficult trade-offs, often shifting costs onto employees. When an 8-12% increase is normalized, the options usually include:

• Increasing deductibles
• Raising employee premium contributions
• Cutting back on coverage options

Every year, the game is the same. You negotiate, get a bit of a break, but ultimately, you’re still pushing costs down the line. And all of this raises an important realization: if the carrier has room to negotiate, why weren’t they transparent about it from the start? This negotiation dance isn’t for your benefit—it’s for theirs.

A New Game Plan: Self-Funding and Captives

There’s a better way to structure your health plan—and it starts with stepping outside the traditional carrier system. Solutions like self-funding and health insurance captives allow you to take control of your costs, avoiding the annual negotiation trap.

Here’s the difference: with self-funding, you’re not simply waiting for a carrier to give you a rate they can “afford to lose.” Instead, you’re aligning your insurance costs directly with your employees’ actual needs, not an arbitrary price tag.

Health insurance captives go a step further, allowing groups of employers to share risk, which stabilizes costs over time. Imagine seeing a renewal increase of only 4% without having to negotiate. Our clients who adopt these models experience exactly that.

The Payoff: Control, Stability, and Predictability

By moving to a self-funded model or joining a health insurance captive, you’re no longer playing a game rigged against you. Instead, you’re creating a sustainable, stable benefits strategy that keeps costs predictable and manageable without sacrificing employee care.

Employers who’ve made the switch aren’t just seeing lower increases; they’re seeing freedom from the annual struggle. It’s a game you can win—because this time, the odds aren’t stacked in the carrier’s favor.

Ready to step off the hamster wheel? Self-funding could be the right next move for your business. Don’t let another year pass by letting carriers control the terms. Take back control and build a health plan that works for you and your team.