Most business owners spend more time evaluating a new $100,000 commercial truck than they do on their company’s health insurance plan.
Think about that for a moment. That truck gets months of rigorous analysis, operational comparison, and financial scrutiny. Your health plan, which, for many employers, will cost several multiples of that truck over the same period, gets a single renewal meeting once a year.
For most employers, healthcare is the second-largest line item on the income statement, right behind payroll. Yet it remains one of the few major corporate expenses where the buyer has almost no visibility into pricing, underlying vendor contracts, or where the money actually goes.
That level of financial opacity would not be acceptable anywhere else in your operating budget. So why accept it in employee benefits?
You Built Your Business for Independence
Business owners rarely start a company because they want someone else to make critical decisions for them.
Whether you left the corporate world, grew up with very little and wanted to build something of your own, or simply believed there was a better way to operate, the drive usually comes down to one principle: independence.
Independence is ultimately about control.
- Control over your company’s future
- Control over your operational decisions
- Control over your financial outcomes
Which is why it surprises so many owners to realize they have handed complete control of their health insurance budget to third-party intermediaries. Healthcare should not be something that happens to your business. It should be an operational asset you actively manage.
The System Isn’t Broken — It’s Working as Designed
It is common to hear that the healthcare system is broken. The harder truth is that the system is doing exactly what it was built to do. It simply was not built around the financial interests of employers or employees.
Hospital price transparency research has repeatedly documented dramatic variation in what different facilities charge for identical procedures — often within the same market, sometimes within the same health system. Meanwhile, employers who fund these plans routinely find their access to claim-level data restricted by the very vendors they pay.
When the buyer cannot see the real price of a service, competition disappears. When competition disappears, costs rise. That is not only a healthcare problem. It is a basic business problem.
Four Kinds of Access Every Employer Needs
Turning healthcare from a passive expense into an actively managed investment comes down to access. There are four kinds worth fighting for.
1. Access to data. You cannot fix what you cannot measure. Most employers genuinely do not know where their healthcare dollars go. Complete claim-level data and financial transparency is the first steps toward managing a plan rather than renewing one.
2. Access to better care. When employees have direct, frictionless access to value-based primary care, member advocacy, and care navigation, they make better healthcare decisions and see better outcomes. Better care and lower cost are not opposing goals here; they tend to go hand in hand.
3. Access to lower prices. The same procedure can vary by thousands of dollars between facilities in the same market. Understanding transparent pricing mechanics lets an employer act as an informed purchaser rather than a passive payer.
4. Access to aligned incentives. Trust is the foundation of any working business relationship. Your benefits advisor’s compensation should be fully disclosed to you and aligned with your financial goals, so that recommendations are made in your organization’s interest rather than the intermediary’s.
That fourth one is worth sitting with. In most other areas of your business, you know exactly what your advisors are paid and by whom. Ask the same question about your benefits plan and see how straightforward the answer is.
Taking Ownership of Your Healthcare Spend
Waiting for external market forces to solve an internal operational problem is rarely a winning strategy.
Taking ownership means gathering clear information, analyzing real data, making deliberate decisions, and holding the budget the way you hold every other budget.
The leaders who get better healthcare outcomes are not simply negotiating a smaller renewal increase. They are asking sharper questions, demanding transparent data, holding vendors accountable, and applying the same financial discipline they bring to every other major investment.
Independence does not stop at owning your business. It should extend to your health plan.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Getting there is a process, not a switch you flip at renewal. In broad terms, it starts with a clear-eyed look at your current plan — what you are actually paying, what your contracts permit, and what data you are entitled to but not receiving. From there, the work is deliberate: securing data access, evaluating where care is being delivered and at what price, and building a plan design your people will actually use well.
Our employee benefits team works with employers through exactly that process. If you would like to know where your plan stands today, that conversation is the place to start.
About the Author
Mike Otis, REBC, is Vice President of Employee Benefits at Palomar Insurance Corporation, with more than 25 years of experience helping employers design, optimize, and communicate high-performing benefits programs.
A graduate of the University of Kentucky, Mike launched his career with Unum Employee Benefits and went on to strategic roles with ING/Voya, Aflac, and Sun Life — developing deep expertise in plan design, underwriting strategy, and the operational mechanics behind sustainable benefits solutions. He also founded, built, and successfully exited his own employee benefits agency.
Mike specializes in cost-containment strategies for employer health plans, advising organizations through complex plan decisions, and building communication frameworks that help employees understand and actually use their benefits.
Contact Palomar Insurance
Ready to stop negotiating annual renewals and start managing your healthcare spend? Contact Mike Otis and the Palomar Employee Benefits team to schedule a confidential strategy discussion.
- Direct line: (770) 405-6301
- Email: mikeo@palomarins.com
- Main office: (800) 489-0105
- Online: palomarins.com/contact
Palomar Insurance Corporation has delivered tailored insurance programs to U.S. and international companies since 1954.
