Redesigned Employee Benefits Plan, Saving $125K and Cutting Turnover to 10%

Shortly after joining the organization, I was reconciling the benefits invoice and noticed the costs seemed high for a fairly basic plan. Digging deeper, I discovered our broker hadn't taken the plan to market in over a decade — previous HR leaders had simply accepted renewal increases year after year without question. Recognizing this as poor service to the organization, and knowing that employees had long complained about weak coverage (a factor contributing to retention issues), I reached out to a broker I'd worked with extensively in prior roles to explore what a competitive remarket could uncover.

The remarket revealed significant savings were possible, so I got leadership approval to reinvest those savings into a redesigned benefits program rather than simply pocketing the cost reduction. Over six weeks, I worked closely with the broker to model three tiered plan options based on employee demographics and historical usage data, giving staff lifestyle-based choice, and added a health spending account (HSA) for added flexibility. I presented the redesigned plan to the leadership team for sign-off, then rolled it out to all 350 employees through multiple info sessions and supporting FAQs to ensure smooth adoption and understanding.

The results were substantial: the broker's remarket brought annual premiums down 18%, freeing up $125K that was reinvested into enhanced coverage rather than absorbed as pure savings. Within six months of rollout, voluntary turnover dropped from approximately 22% to 10%, a shift the organization attributed largely to the improved benefits offering based on exit survey feedback and turnover data. This project demonstrated how questioning long-standing vendor relationships and taking a proactive, data-driven approach to benefits design could simultaneously cut costs and meaningfully improve employee retention.