Re-Writing the Book on Effective Benefit Solutions

We have a different way of doing business. We're an employee benefits consulting and brokerage firm that works for you, our client. As such, we're here solely to serve as your advocate and strategic partner. Because we think the whole point of benefits is to support the goals of your entire business.

How Is A Benefits Plan Designed?

You can just have someone pull a plan off the shelf, or you can have Tompkins author one just for you. Providing customized brokerage and consulting services means designing, implementing and managing your employee benefit plans. We understand how plans work, how to be good stewards of your company’s benefit dollars, and how to design a plan customized to your culture and affordable for both you and your employees.

Employee benefit plans might incorporate very traditional healthcare components like medical and dental coverage. Or it may include voluntary fringe benefits to supplement what is offered by an employer. It could be executive benefits, or long term care benefits for baby boomers recognizing that they – and their parents – are aging. Or, it could be customized to seamlessly tie the benefit plan design to your corporate culture. We’ve even been known to design a plan to comply with a strong set of corporate bylaws reflecting core beliefs towards employees and the organization as a whole.

Regardless, an employee benefits plan wouldn’t be complete without options for financing arrangements like self-funding or custom premium arrangements which allow for potential savings when the plan is running efficiently. Or, for that matter, the ability for employees to pay for benefits like healthcare or transportation on a pre-tax basis.

And, those in finance will appreciate the customized (that word, again), in-depth, financial reports showing you how the plan is running, including actuarial analysis, benchmarking and trends. You can’t manage a plan without good data. Once the plan has been implemented, it is time to take care of those employees and dependents insured under the plan. TBG provides strong advocacy on behalf of your organization and your employees and their families. All with an eye for confidentiality and one-on-one service.

How About Compliance?

Tompkins Benefit Group will keep you abreast of current events in the area of employee benefits through direct personal contact and calls to discuss matters particular to your plan and your employees, through e-newsletters and through a client portal. This password protected portal includes third-party articles to help you learn more about employee benefit plans, business and industry trends and what others are doing; healthcare encyclopedias and drug digests; informational healthcare links to support your employees and their healthcare needs; and forms and documents for all of the insurance companies that you would do business with. Just so you can have it all in one place to save you time.

What Is This Talk of “Wellness”?

Being a good steward of your company’s benefit dollars means more than just good negotiating skills with the insurance carriers. It also means having the tools to impact current and future claims being paid by the plan. It means educating employees and helping them make wise healthcare choices. It means looking at your organization’s culture to see if it helps or hinders wellness initiatives. It means taking a good long look at doing what is best for employees and the business to successfully navigate the sometimes choppy healthcare waters.

Wellness programs generally start with biometrics testing so employees know what their own personal measurements are, health risk assessments to set a benchmark and allow for the implementation of customized personal health coaching, global management reports that can be used to target high risk factors within the employee and dependent population and lastly, an effective educational program customized to the needs of your own employee population. The whole project is then wrapped up financially to show yearly return on investment (interesting, a health plan ROI) and financial impact on your health plan costs.

How About Employee Communication and Education?

Communication is critical to the smooth and efficient functioning of an employee benefits plan. Through Tompkins HR Group, we provide customized benefit and HR web pages branded to you as the employer. You design the look, the content, and we do the heavy lifting to establish and then maintain the site all the while ensuring that you are meeting your compliance requirements.

What Resources Can I Expect From Tompkins Benefit Group?

Benefit Benchmarking Data – we offer a variety of resources to benchmark your benefit plan. Benchmarking allows you to ensure that you are offering a plan that will support employee recruitment and retention objectives, while ensuring that your plan continues to be affordable for both the employees and your business.

Actuarial Services – for employers whose needs include actuarial services, we contract with McCartin Analytical Services to provide analysis of claims trends, costing and reserving calculations, and second opinions for insurance company renewal calculations that can often be helpful to you during annual renewal discussions.

Employee Benefits Client Portal – through our website you will have access to a wide variety of notices and documents, third-party articles pertaining to employee benefit plans, our current and archived e-newsletters, healthcare encyclopedias and drug digests, healthcare informational links, and other resources to help you manage your benefit plans well and effectively.

Reference Library – we offer a professional library of benefit reference books, which are diligently updated monthly as new regulations and benefit law interpretations occur.

Contact Us:

You probably have recognized that we like to customize our services to meet the needs of our clients. If you would like more details about why we are different, please take a moment to read the stories on the top shelf of our home page. Or, call us at 503.224.3040 and tell us your story.