Until 2011, the church offered its employees a standard benefits package, including major medical coverage with a modest deductible, life insurance, and optional group dental and vision coverage. But it wasn’t cheap. The church’s last annual premium increase, Neil says, was a little more than 50 percent of the previous year’s premium. “That plan was just cost prohibitive,” she says.

To save money, the church’s broker moved them to a major medical plan with a higher deductible, plus a discount plan.

“We thought it would be a nice buffer, a way of easing the burden a little of going to a higher-deductible major medical plan,” says Danny O’Connell, a partner at the Dallas-based Benefit Resource Group and the church’s broker.

Recommended For You

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.