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Updated: July 8, 2019

Chamber Insurance Trust’s stop-loss plan gains steam

By Matt Pilon

Stephen Glick, president of the Orange-based Chamber Insurance Trust (CIT), which offers insurance services to businesses and chambers of commerce in Connecticut and Massachusetts, is among those pushing a stop-loss health plan to small and mid-sized companies.

The so-called Chamber Health Care Coalition offering is somewhat similar to level-funded plans offered by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association and others, but with a few differences.

The chamber plan generally won’t accept groups smaller than 20, while level-funded plans could go lower than that.

There are also varying levels of financial risk and year-end refunds for employers.

The chamber plan, designed by Ohio-based Roundstone Insurance, uses of a captive insurer as its stop-loss vehicle.

Captives, controlled and owned by their insureds, are increasingly popular among big companies; introducing relatively small businesses to that model is new.

It’s been just over a year, but Glick said the plan’s advisors have signed up nearly 1,000 small group lives in the state so far.

“We’re really pleased with where we are,” he said.

Trey Bongiovanni, partner at Meriden-based Bongiovanni Insurance & Financial, has enrolled three group clients into the chamber plan thus far.

Compared to a fully insured product, there’s more real-time insight into what’s driving costs, and more chances to do something about it as early as possible.

“The employers are very excited about the fact that they have more control and transparency,” Bongiovanni said.

Another advisor offering the plan is Richard Whitbeck of Avon-based Innovative Health Concepts.

While self-funded plans aren’t exactly new, many companies are still unfamiliar with them, he said.

“Some people don’t like change,” Whitbeck said.

However, he said he’s commonly seeing potential savings of 10 or 15 percent for employers compared to regular health insurance, which could be enough to draw them out of the fully insured market.

“Some of the businesses we’re dealing with, they say ‘my people just can’t afford it,’ ” he said.

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