Hi Jo
The first thing I would expect the supplier to do is to present details of your last 3 years claims record ("sinistrality") and the premiums you have paid for this - i.e. you should clearly be able to see what gap exists (both positive and negative) between the two sets of figures. For example, if payouts from the insurer exceed what you have paid then realistically you can expect an increase in your premium. Equally if claim payouts have dropped over the years, then so should your premium - unless the insurerer has some excellent explanations or you want to increase your cover level....
You should also be looking at the demographics that are being used to calculate the premiums - many companies often provide suppliers with use out of date or incomplete data on which to estimate premiums. Companies with lots of young couples with no children can expect claims to rise over the years as children come into the equation - equally, if you have a lot of people 55+ and few between 40 and 55 then at some point the higher risk older people will fall out of the equation and costs should drop. Keeping your insurer up to date at least every 6 months with reliable demographics data will help avoiding surprises.
Hope this helps

In reply to Ray:

Hi Ray - thank you for this, really helpful :) I will prepare some demographic detail as I don't think we've done this or been asked for it. Any tips regarding how I know if they are doing a good job for us?

In reply to Jo:

Should have specified - tips for knowing if our broker are doing a good job or not?

In reply to Jo:

Personally, wouldn't bother with a broker - they cost the insurers significant money - would just approach two or three of the usual culprits in terms of major insurers and negotiate something if needs be by playing one off against another

In reply to Jo:

Personally, wouldn't bother with a broker - they cost the insurers significant money - would just approach two or three of the usual culprits in terms of major insurers and negotiate something if needs be by playing one off against another

In reply to Jo:

Hi Jo

In the past I have found brokers helpful when it came to "added extras" - like maybe helping to bend the rules when adding people or taking them off when the dates were a little bit outside the usually permitted dates. Also, as group secretary, I was not able to get access to the on-line portal I was supposed to have access to and my attempts to contact the insurers directly to sort this out were completely ignored, doing untold damage to my blood pressure! The brokers sorted it. A past broker was able to intervene when their was a conflict between an employee and the insurer about cover.

Please also take into account that medical inflation outstrips general inflation by a significant margin (back in the noughties, I was told this ran to about 10% per annum, not sure what it is now but probably has not decreased greatly) plus, if your workforce is relatively stable, everyone gets a year older.

In reply to Jo:

Hi Jo - to my mind a good broker's role is filled in two ways twofold :
1) To help you understand your risks (hence the need for him to understand your demographics and claims record) - you should ask them to describe this to you and if they can't they are only acting as a saleman for the insurers - change your broker
2) To help you in selecting approriate cover from various suppliers that reflects your situation, and at a reasonable cost.
Admittedly, my usage of brokers has been in large mutinationals where the premia were for tens of thousands of peopleand a few decimal points made a big difference. Equally, the acqusistion and sell-off every year of business amounting to 10-15.000 people year had a major impact on the slaims risk/profile. Nonetheless I think the same principles should apply for medium size companies. For SME's David is probably right, but you will then need to work closely with the insurer to get decent reporting to help you understand your risk/claims profile - initially more expensive, but almost always a cost controller over time.

In reply to Ray:

Totally agree, Ray!