6 Ways Self-Funding in a Group Captive Enhances Employee Satisfaction

Highlights  

• Top-tier benefits are one of the best ways to improve employee retention and prevent the expense of hiring and retaining your workforce.

• Group captives offer smaller companies a way to self-fund for better control and flexibility over healthcare benefits.

• With benefits like customized plan design, data transparency, and cost savings, Roundstone’s group captive model can help you provide high-quality benefits to your team.

• Choosing Roundstone guarantees savings after five years and can lead to improved employee retention, thanks to increased engasgement and job satisfaction.

High turnover rates are wreaking havoc on businesses across the U.S. Nearly 3.4 million Americans left their jobs in January 2024, resulting in a high cost to employers.
 

When an employee quits, you may spend nearly two times their annual salary on recruiting, hiring, and retraining a replacement — a major financial setback.

One way to keep your team is by providing the high-quality benefits they want and need. 43% of workers who quit in 2022 did so because of poor benefits. Self-funding employee benefits with group captive insurance is an affordable way to do that.

Self-funding in a group captive allows for more flexibility and financial advantages than traditional, fully insured options. With this model, you can tailor an employee benefits package to match your team’s unique demographic and preferences.

Here are six ways that group captive insurance improves employee satisfaction, lowers turnover, and boosts success for small to midsize businesses.

1. Flexible Plan Design

Group captive insurance offers a personalized way for your business to improve employee retention through flexible plan design. Unlike traditional insurance models with fixed plans, group captives let you design a benefits package that caters to the needs of your team.

At Roundstone, we bring you on board with a customer support team and approved Third-Party Administrator (TPA) to help you build your plan from the ground up. We recommend our in-house TPA, Bywater, or we can suggest other vetted options as well. Ultimately, your choice of TPA is up to you.

You can implement any number of specialized incentives and services for your employees, including:

• Zero deductibles and low copays. Design your plan to support routine care. For example, implement lower copays for primary care visits than for urgent care, guiding employees toward cost-effective healthcare choices.

• Expanded provider network. Ensure access to a broad spectrum of specialists and services. For instance, you can include mental health professionals and physical therapists in your network, offering comprehensive care options to your employees.

• Telemedicine inclusion. Integrate telehealth coverage for convenience and accessibility. You might offer 24/7 access to virtual doctor visits, making healthcare immediately accessible for minor illnesses or consultations.

2. Transparency and Data Analytics

One of the biggest benefits of self-funding with a group captive is transparent data access. Instead of operating in the dark with a fully insured plan, self-funding puts you in control of your claims information, letting you make data-driven decisions that improve plan efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and responsiveness to employees’ specific needs. Cost containment is a vital self-funding tool for driving down costs while improving quality care.

With Roundstone, you can view your data at any time with our CSI Dashboard, which provides real-time insights and analysis of your healthcare spend. This lets you compare your claims usage to national benchmarks to see where you may need to adjust your plan to better cover employees through data-driven cost containment.

For instance, say your data shows that a significant portion of your healthcare spending is on managing chronic conditions like diabetes or kidney disease. You could implement or enhance a clinical care management program to provide targeted support for these conditions.

This data analytics tool provides clear transparency that allows you to adapt your plan to your team. Providing them with better treatment at less cost ultimately drives better productivity and retention.

3. Cost Savings and Rebates

By self-funding in a group captive, members share risks and enjoy the benefits of greater buying power. With this approach, your company will see lower premiums and valuable rebates, making healthcare more affordable for employers and employees. This can often translate to a happier, healthier team with less turnover.

With Roundstone’s affordable self-funded employee health insurance, these benefits include:

• Cost-saving opportunities. Through Roundstone, your company can implement various cost-saving strategies to lower healthcare costs while keeping employees healthy. The Roundstone Guarantee ensures savings within five years of joining your group captive plan.
• Return of unused premiums. Roundstone’s model includes returning unused premiums to your company. Since 2003, we’ve returned $72 million to group captive members. Sharing this benefit with employees through better plan services or bonuses reinforces the mutual benefits of self-funding, enhancing their loyalty and desire to remain part of the company.
• Rebates. With Roundstone, you collaborate with a Pharmacy Benefits Manager (PBM), who secures rebates and more competitive pricing on medications. This lowers the cost of prescriptions for employees, improving their access to necessary medications. The result is a healthier workforce and boosted satisfaction and commitment to your company.

4. Direct Involvement in Health Management

By adopting a group captive model to deploy your health benefits, you can boost employee retention through active participation in their health management. Empowering individuals to make their own healthcare decisions leads to higher engagement with the plan and improved outcomes.

At Roundstone, you’ll collaborate with your advisor and our customer service team to find solutions that empower your employees to manage their health, including:

• Well-being programs. These efforts encourage employees to lead healthier lives by engaging in activities that boost physical and mental health. For example, setting up a program that offers discounts on gym memberships or fitness classes can inspire more people to get active.

• Preventative care initiatives. Launch programs that spotlight early disease detection and promote healthy habits to help ward off illness. For example, you could offer free yearly health screenings that check vital stats like blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels. Catching these issues early can lead to quick interventions, reducing the chance of more serious problems and keeping healthcare costs in check.

5. Stop-Loss Coverage and Risk Sharing

In 2005, Roundstone pioneered a new approach to self-funding for small businesses — the Roundstone Captive. This innovative funding model pools risks with other similar-sized businesses, enabling even small businesses to self-insure predictably and safely like the Fortune 500 do. Captive members are covered by stop-loss insurance to protect against high-cost claims, leading to more stable premium costs for your company and employees.

How does this impact employee retention? When your team sees that their healthcare coverage is affordable and reliable, it contributes to their sense of security and well-being. This peace of mind is invaluable, making them more likely to stay with your organization long-term.

6. Cost Share Reductions Through Employee Incentive Programs

One approach that improves both employee as well as employer satisfaction is offering cost share reductions on health benefits through employee incentive programs, such as wellness programs and other health initiatives like quitting smoking, getting regular checkups, and exercise programs.

Roundstone has initiated a number of employee wellness programs for our own employees, including those that encourage regular health checkups and efforts to lower BMI through diet and exercise. These programs lower employee cost, improving employee satisfaction, but they also lower the overall cost of the benefits plan, so employers save substantially, too. Roundstone’s employee incentives lowered our employee cost share by 20%.

Our Plan Is So Good, We Use It Ourselves

We are participants in the Roundstone Captive ourselves, resulting in increased employee satisfaction and lower costs. This strategy has worked so well for us that our employees haven’t seen an increase in their premium costs for eight years.

The big win has been a savings of over $1.1 million in five years, thanks to lower-than-expected claim costs. We invested this extra cash in improving employee benefits and reducing their cost share, effectively protecting them from the rising costs of healthcare and offering better benefits at a lower cost.

We also implemented a wellness program, and participants of that program actually experienced a reduction in their costs. Roundstone’s strategy not only made healthcare more accessible but also improved our employees’ financial and health status, setting a new benchmark for employee satisfaction expectations.

Read Roundstone’s Success Story, or see the full case study below.

Switch to Self-Funding with a Group Captive  Today

ROUNDSTONE is an innovative employee health benefits company. We help small and midsize organizations offer competitive benefits at a lower cost by self-funding health insurance through our group medical captive.

The Roundstone Captive enables companies to self-insure safely by pooling hundreds of employers together to share risk and save money. With easy onboarding and personalized support every step of the way, the Captive offers control, flexibility, transparency, and returns all savings back to employers where they belong.

We believe in always aligning with the employers’ best interests and remain committed to our mission — quality, affordable healthcare and a better life for all.
 

Speak to a Roundstone Representative today to discuss how a group captive plan can help you provide a better life for your employees.