Something shifted in the market this year: the profile of the ICHRA buyer has changed. It's not the small business owner who can't afford group health anymore. It's the CFO at a 400-person company staring at a pharmacy spend line item that's gone from 6% of total healthcare costs to 18%, and wondering what they missed.
This month we're covering what's actually driving large employer ICHRA adoption, how good benefits data is becoming a competitive differentiator for brokers, and why the brokers who retain clients longest aren't the ones who find the best plan — they're the ones whose clients never feel alone.
Andy's latest blog unpacks this directly: "Why ICHRA Isn't Just for Small Businesses" — a straight look at why 34% more large employers moved to ICHRA in the past year, what's changed in the market infrastructure that makes it viable at scale, and where it still doesn't make sense.
Pharmacy costs have climbed from 5-7% of total healthcare spend to over 18% in many employer pools, and GLP-1 medications are the primary driver. A single employee on a GLP-1 drug can cost a group plan $15,000-$20,000 annually, and carriers are pricing that risk into renewals before your client's renewal notice even arrives.
In a traditional group plan, your client's contribution is underwritten against their specific employee pool. One or two people with high-cost chronic conditions can produce a 30-40% renewal increase that has nothing to do with how the rest of the group used their coverage. That's not a benefits problem. That's a risk pooling problem.
ICHRA changes the math. The employer's contribution is fixed. Employees purchase individual market plans where premiums are based on age and geography, not on anyone's health history or medication list. The pharmacy spend exposure stays on the individual market side of the ledger, not on your client's P&L.
The Workforce That Carriers Can't Serve
There's a second, underreported driver behind large employer ICHRA adoption: workforce complexity that traditional group carriers simply weren't built to handle.
Think about your clients who are adding remote workers in states where their carrier doesn't have a network. Or acquiring small companies and trying to bolt them onto an existing group structure. Or managing part-time seasonal employees alongside full-time staff in a way that satisfies minimum participation requirements.
Traditional group plans force everyone into the same box. ICHRA lets employers create classes — full-time, part-time, salaried, hourly, new hires, different geographic locations — with contribution levels appropriate for each group. For a company that's been turning down good candidates because they can't offer coverage in certain states, that's not a benefits upgrade. It's a talent strategy.
One thing we're honest about: ICHRA isn't right for every client. Network depth varies by market, and employees accustomed to broad PPOs need real support navigating individual plan options. If you want a candid assessment of whether it fits your client's specific situation, that's the conversation we have first.
Most brokers think about Employee Navigator as the place where enrollment happens. That's true, but it undersells what a well-built platform does for your client relationship after enrollment closes.
The brokers who build the most durable client relationships aren't the ones who found the best plan at renewal. They're the ones who can walk into a meeting in August (months before the next renewal) and show the CFO exactly how their workforce used their benefits. Which plans got picked. Where voluntary benefits enrollment fell short. Which employee segments are underinsured relative to their claims pattern.
That kind of reporting doesn't happen automatically. It requires a platform that was configured correctly from the start, with API and EDI connections that are actually pulling clean data, and a structure that makes multi-entity reporting possible.
A well-built Employee Navigator instance — with proper carrier integrations, payroll connections, and a multi-entity structure that reflects how the business actually operates — turns benefits administration into a strategic asset. The data that comes out of it is how you justify the decisions you're recommending.
The Conversation to Have Before Renewal Season
The best time to audit your client's benefits data quality is now: February or March, when you have six months of runway before most renewals hit. Ask your clients: Can your HR team pull a report showing voluntary benefits enrollment by department? Can they see which carrier connections are triggering errors? Do they know how many employees are enrolled in plans that don't reflect their actual elections?
If the answer to any of those is no or I'm not sure, that's the opening for a platform conversation.
→ Ask us about a benefits platform audit for your clients. We'll tell you honestly what we find.
The Client Retention Strategy Hidden in Your
Benefits Communication
Why Your Best Clients Stay
There's a pattern in the brokers who have the lowest client turnover, and it's not that they always find the cheapest plan or have the best carrier relationships. It's that their clients feel supported year-round, not just at renewal.
The broker who placed the account is the hero at implementation. But if the employee experience deteriorates between enrollment and the next renewal, that's not a benefits problem that stays in HR. It becomes a vendor problem, and eventually a broker problem.
What Benefits Counselors Actually Protect
We provide licensed benefit counselors — on-site at major locations and via year-round call center — and the feedback from brokers isn't usually about employee satisfaction scores. It's about what they didn't have to deal with.
For one national beverage company with 5,000 employees across 49 states, year-round counselor support wasn't a nice-to-have. Their HR team was managing coverage questions for remote employees across dozens of locations and couldn't be everywhere. On-site counselors at 9 major locations during enrollment, plus a call center that stayed active through the year, meant HR could do their job instead of doing ours.
The ROI on benefits counselors isn't just employee satisfaction. It's the renewal conversation you don't have to rescue. It's the client who refers you to two other companies because "our employees actually understand their benefits now."
February Is a Good Time to Ask
If your clients just finished a January 1st enrollment, the feedback is fresh. Ask them directly: How did it go? Are employees still asking HR questions that should have been answered in November? Did voluntary benefits enrollment come in where you expected?
Those answers tell you what kind of communication support they need and whether the next enrollment looks the same as this one, or different.
→ Let's talk about what benefits communication support looks like for your book in 2026.
The market is moving. Large employers are rethinking group health for structural reasons that aren't going away. Benefits data is becoming a broker differentiator. And the clients who stick with you longest are the ones who feel taken care of between renewals, not just at them.
If any of this connects to a conversation you're already having (or one you want to have), reach out. We'll give you a straight answer about fit.
Let’s connect—and raise the bar together.
Andy Stein
Andy Stein | Founder & President
1900 Polaris Parkway, Suite 450 Columbus, OH 43240, USA
