Everything a group benefits plan should do — and nothing it should not.

Nothing additional, in almost every case. Brokerage compensation is already built into the carrier rates you pay — whether or not you have an advisor. The real question is what you are getting for it. We disclose exactly how we are compensated on every plan we place, in writing, and we are happy to work on a flat fee instead if you prefer that transparency.

Small and mid-sized employers. Below about three lives the group market is very limited, and at the top end you eventually need the actuarial machinery of a national consultancy. In between is where a boutique has the advantage: you get a senior advisor personally, which is precisely what a national firm cannot offer a 40-person company. Ask us where you fall and we will tell you honestly.

Changing your broker of record is not the same as changing your plan. It is a one-page signed form, your carrier and coverage stay exactly as they are, and your employees notice nothing. From there we review the plan on its merits and only recommend a change if the numbers justify one.

We are independent. No insurer owns a piece of us and we carry no volume quota, which means the recommendation you get is the one your claims data supports rather than the one that hits a target. Ask us for our current list of carrier contracts and we will send it — and if the right market for your group is one we do not hold, we will tell you that too.

It is common, and it is very often negotiable. Large increases are usually driven by a handful of high-cost drug claims, a pooling threshold set too high, or a plan that was never designed around your actual claiming patterns. We review three years of claims experience before accepting any renewal, because an increase you cannot explain is an increase you cannot challenge.

Yes. Multi-provincial groups are routine for us — the coordination points are provincial health coverage differences, payroll tax treatment, and Quebec-specific requirements including French-language materials and RAMQ interaction on drug coverage. We handle all of it.

For a straightforward group of under 50 employees, four to six weeks from first meeting to effective date is typical. Larger or more complex groups usually run eight to ten weeks. If you are up against a hard deadline, tell us — we have done it faster.

There is no invoice and no separate contract. We run a marketing capability alongside the brokerage — strategy, social media, graphic design, web development and SEO — and our group benefits clients get it at no charge. The reasoning is not complicated: a benefits plan grows when the company under it grows, so helping our clients get bigger is the most direct investment we can make in our own book. The honest limit is capacity, not cost — we agree scope before anything starts and we say so when something is bigger than we can do well.

A capped book. When you call, an advisor answers, and that same advisor still holds your file at the next renewal — because we limit how many clients each of us carries and we say so when we are full. Large firms are excellent at scale and analytics; they are structurally unable to give a small employer a senior relationship that does not get reassigned. We built this firm around the part they cannot do.