Insurance co-op / pool

nannerh

Our area chamber of commerce is setting up a health insurance pool. Any company that is a member can sign up to be in the pool to hopefully get better rates. There is a one-time only sign up and once you are in you have to commit to be in the pool 3 years. We have to pay to be a member and a non-refundable fee of $500 plus $60/ee a year admin fee. All ee's must complete health risk assessments. Does anyone have any experience with these? Have they proven to be beneficial?

E Wart

This has been available through the GA Chamber (or Atlanta one, I forgot which) for years. I haven't made use of it because haven't needed it. I worry a little about being lumped in with others who you don't know and can't control. However is a way to provide coverge like a larger company.
SMI (Spring Manufacturing Institue) also provides this type of service, I believe.
Has been around for a while. Personally I don't know anyone who has used it.

E Wart

Dutch2

No personal experience. However when my better half frist went to work at a local college they had a group/pool of 4 to 6 other private colleges in an attempt to lower their health care cost. This did not work for them due to a couple of the other schools that experienced very high claims. Therefore they could see no savings and went back to a health care plan just for them.
For every bad result there may be several good results out there also....
Good luck

sonny

In a former life, 16 or so of us non profits formed an insurance trust to lower rates as we were all relatively small agencies. My recollection was that it went well for a few years, but then we (one of the larger agencies) got rates lower than the trust. We pulled out and I believe it eventually totally disbanded.