Gather the plan facts
Start with the current plan, renewal, contributions, covered lives, and funding structure. Add claims, pharmacy, stop-loss, and vendor data when available.
Employee Benefits Benchmarking · Indiana
Employee benefits benchmarking compares your plan with relevant peers, not just a broad average. It gives leadership context for cost, contributions, funding, and plan design before renewal decisions are made.
Burt Advisory reviews the information available, explains the limits of the comparison, and shows you which questions deserve attention next.
Free benchmark · No obligation · Written findings
Why Benchmark
Price matters, but it is only one part of plan performance. A useful benchmark adds the context needed to make a defensible decision.
A renewal increase tells you what the carrier wants next year. It does not show whether your total plan cost, employer contribution, or employee share is competitive.
A broad national average can hide the differences that matter. Employer size, industry, geography, funding structure, and workforce needs all shape a useful comparison.
Lower cost is not automatically better. Deductibles, copays, networks, pharmacy terms, and employee access need to be reviewed alongside the price.
A benchmark should help leadership decide what to investigate, model, negotiate, or leave alone. A percentile without context does not do that.
What We Compare
The review follows the information available and the decisions your leadership team is considering. We focus on comparisons that can change an action, not numbers for their own sake.
How It Works
The goal is not to declare a plan good or bad from one number. It is to give leadership a clearer view of the tradeoffs and the next questions to answer.
Start with the current plan, renewal, contributions, covered lives, and funding structure. Add claims, pharmacy, stop-loss, and vendor data when available.
Use the most relevant comparisons available for employer size, industry, geography, workforce, and funding structure. Record where the match is imperfect.
Separate normal variation from differences that may affect cost, employee value, risk, or negotiating leverage. Avoid treating every outlier as a problem.
Summarize what appears competitive, what needs more analysis, and what leadership may want to model before renewal or a funding change.
What You Receive
What It Helps You Decide
FAQ
Employee benefits benchmarking compares an employer's plan costs, contributions, funding structure, plan design, and other available measures with a relevant peer group. The purpose is to identify where the plan appears competitive, where it differs, and which differences deserve a closer review before renewal or a plan change.
The useful starting point is your current plan summary, renewal information, employer and employee contributions, covered lives, and funding arrangement. Claims, pharmacy, stop-loss, utilization, and vendor data can improve the review when they are available. Burt Advisory will explain what can and cannot be concluded from the information provided.
A useful peer group considers factors such as employer size, industry, geography, workforce, and funding structure. No comparison group is perfect. The review should show which peers and measures were used, identify important limitations, and avoid presenting a broad average as a precise answer for one employer.
No. Benchmarking is a decision tool, not an instruction to reduce coverage. A plan may cost more because it provides stronger access or richer benefits. The review should separate productive plan value from avoidable cost and help leadership understand the tradeoffs before making a change.
It can show whether the current funding arrangement deserves further modeling. A funding decision also depends on claims credibility, cash flow, risk tolerance, stop-loss terms, workforce needs, and available vendors. Benchmarking is the starting point for that analysis, not the final actuarial or underwriting decision.
Burt Advisory reviews the information you provide, identifies the most useful comparisons available, and summarizes the areas that appear most important to investigate. The findings are designed to support a practical conversation about renewal, plan design, funding, and cost containment. Data availability and plan complexity affect the depth of the review.
Free Benchmark