What is a Stewardship Report and Are You Getting One From Your Insurance Broker?

What is a Stewardship Report and Are You Getting One From Your Insurance Broker?

A Stewardship meeting is a mid-year planning meeting with your insurance broker. At Playa Vista Insurance Services, we see our clients several times a year: at open enrollment; we return for a 3 month follow up to take their temperature and ensure they are happy; and the six month mark where deliver our Stewardship Report.

I am amazed by how many insurance brokers do not deliver a Stewardship Report to their clients.  In some cases, I have seen brokers only make the effort when they were in jeopardy of losing the client. This is unacceptable to me.

A Stewardship Report covers several things:

• Last year’s renewal is explained, including a written dialogue of why you made the changes you did.
• The Plan – Explain what is going on with the insurance carriers, any big changes or updates in the marketplace, an update on status of their carriers, and forecasting upcoming renewal. We ask about the client’s business and how their budget is looking.  We ask about employee morale.  We also ask if employees are coming to them with any questions about insurance or things they don’t understand and we try to help with those questions.
• Services – Overview of all our team has done for them that year including covering Cobra administration, providing a health and wellness expo, taking care of 5500 filings with the IRS. We explain all the services provided, which we feel set our company apart from other brokers.
• Thorough report is delivered in a binder.

A Stewardship Report is a great tool for any Human Resource department to have handy, and invaluable in assessing year over year plans and costs.