Challenge: Many Intrepid clients have HR teams that wear multiple hats and rely on separate vendors to manage benefits. When one new client came to Intrepid without a clear COBRA process, the brokerage uncovered a gap: the client didn’t know how to pull notices or what the requirements meant for its business.
Solution: As a Preferred Partner, Intrepid works with isolved to help clients reduce the need for multiple point solutions and get reliable compliance support. In this case, Intrepid offered to move the client to isolved, giving them an easier way to pull COBRA notices, manage qualifying events and access information for employees.
Impact: The client saw a noticeable difference in how they managed COBRA regulations and gained confidence that their standards were being met. For Intrepid, the experience also helped strengthen the broker-client relationship and reinforced the value of having a trusted partner as compliance needs continue to evolve.
Helping HR Teams Keep Up with Growing Demands
As a benefits broker supporting many mid-to-large employers, Intrepid works with many HR teams balancing benefits administration, compliance responsibilities and employee support. When that work is spread across multiple human capital management (HCM) systems and vendors, gaps are easy to miss.
Intrepid’s Senior Vice President of Consulting, Maggi Quinn, sees this regularly with clients. For the brokerage, part of the job is helping HR teams manage the administrative work that becomes more time-consuming as employee benefits and compliance demands develop.
“I think any time a client can eliminate having multiple point solutions or systems, it really makes the HR team’s lives a lot easier. One of our jobs, as we see it, is to take the burden off of them as much as we can.”
Maggi Quinn
Senior Vice President of Consulting at Intrepid
Intrepid saw this firsthand when the brokerage began working with a new client that had no clear process in place for managing Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) regulations. The client didn’t know how to pull notices and had a limited understanding of what COBRA continuation coverage could mean for employees and their family members after events like job loss or other changes in health insurance coverage.
It’s a challenge many brokers are seeing more often. According to isolved’s Emerging Trends for Brokers report, more than half of brokers say demand for compliance support is rising (58%). In the report, brokers cite the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) as clients’ top compliance concern, followed by COBRA, Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirements.
Recommending a More Connected Approach
As an isolved Preferred Partner, Intrepid partners with isolved to help clients find the right solutions for their needs. When the new client had no COBRA process in place, referring them to isolved was the natural next step.
“They saw a noticeable difference of being able to pull the COBRA notices, make sure that the qualifying events are done timely and accurately, and they were really happy just to be able to have access to that information for their employees,” said Ashley Dinges, benefits consultant at Intrepid. "They felt great confidence with isolved and in making sure that their COBRA standards were met."
For Intrepid, simplifying benefits administration is one of the biggest ways they support clients. By helping bring health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), COBRA continuation coverage and other health plan administration together with isolved, Intrepid helps HR teams reduce the burden of managing multiple vendors.
“In partnering with a partner like isolved, it eliminates having different vendors for HSA, FSA, COBRA, and brings all of that together in one place to really make the administrative lift for the HR teams as simple as it possibly can be,” said Quinn.
A Partnership That Strengthens Every Client Relationship
Partnering with isolved also gives Intrepid a compliance resource to lean on when client questions arise. Benefits regulations keep changing, from COBRA administration and paid family leave to state sick leave requirements and life events, and clients need guidance that keeps pace.
“isolved has always provided a wealth of resources in the compliance space that we could go to when we had clarifying questions for clients. Having experts delivering expertise in a unified and easy way is really why the partnership has worked with isolved.”
Liz Frayer
President at Intrepid Atlanta
As regulations continue to evolve, having connected technology and compliance support in place helps Intrepid and other benefits brokers guide employers through open enrollment, renewal season and the benefits decisions that happen long after plans are selected.
“Relationships are very important to us,” said Quinn. “We want to think of not year-to-year renewals, but long-term vision. You really need a trusted partner in this space, and I couldn’t think of anyone better to serve that role than isolved and the whole isolved team.”
