Free · Renewal season
15 Questions to Ask Your Broker Before You Sign the Renewal
Print it. Bring it to the meeting. Write down what your broker says.
Your renewal arrives with one number on it. The meeting runs twenty minutes. You sign.
That's how many small employers handle the second-largest line item on their books.
This is the list I spent thirty years wishing somebody would ask.
Haven't got a broker? Ask them of the carrier rep, the payroll company, or the next broker you interview. The questions work on anyone selling you a plan.
Send me the fifteen questions
Six pages, free. Download it the moment you sign up — and I'll put a copy in your inbox so you still have it in six months.
One email with the PDF attached. Then a few short ones through renewal season. Unsubscribe any time and I won't take it personally.
What's in it
Six pages. No filler.
- Fifteen questions in five blocksWith room to write the answers down while your broker is talking.
- What a straight answer sounds likeNext to what a dodge sounds like. Two pages of it. Nobody else hands you this part.
- Three questions for level-funded and self-funded plansIncluding the one about your own people that carriers rarely volunteer.
- The ten-second question about next yearIt changes what your options are twelve months from now.
Who this is for
Business owners with fewer than 250 employees. And whoever in the office got handed the benefits job on top of their real one — the controller, the office manager, the HR generalist who never signed up for this.
No broker? Then use the questions on whoever sold you the plan — the carrier rep, the payroll company — or on the next broker you interview. The questions don't care who's answering them. The dodges sound the same either way.
Who it isn't for
Benefits professionals. You already know this material, and you'll find the tone irritating. Also anyone hoping for a reason to fire their broker. Most brokers are fine. This is about asking them better questions.
Who wrote it
I'm Ann Bishop. Thirty years in employee benefits, all of it on the administration side — which is a formal way of saying I was the person people called when they didn't understand something.
I don't sell insurance and I earn no commission on your plan. That's exactly why this list says what it says.
Your renewal is coming either way.
Walk in with the questions.