No. You are already paying your broker. The money is built into your premiums as commissions, and in most cases bonuses and overrides on top, so the question is never whether to pay for advice. The question is whether you can see what you are paying and whether the person you are paying is paid to lower your costs.

Here is the objection you will hear, and it is a fair one on its face. A fee shows up on your P&L. Commissions do not. So a fee-only advisor looks like a new line item, and a broker whose services appear to be free looks like the cheaper option. The appearance is the whole difference.

You are already paying, you just cannot see it

Commissions are a percentage of premium, paid by the carrier to the broker, and priced into the rate you pay. That is true of every commissioned benefits broker in the country, and it is why brokers can say their services cost you nothing. It is also why a broker’s income goes up when your premiums go up. Legacy brokers, meaning the brokers paid on commission and carrier bonuses, make more money when your costs rise, and the arrangement is invisible on your invoice by design.

The document that makes it visible is your broker’s written compensation disclosure. It lists the commissions, bonuses, overrides, and other compensation the firm expects to receive on your account. Most employers who read theirs for the first time are surprised by the total, and that total is the number a fee-only advisor’s fee should be compared against.

What actually happens to your money in year one

This is the part most people never get a straight answer on, so here it is. When an employer appoints Health Compass as its broker of record, nothing changes on the invoice. Through the first renewal, we collect exactly what the incumbent broker was already collecting, as found, in the same commissions and fees the carriers were already paying. There is no new invoice and no top-up. Your cost of advice in year one is identical to what it was the day before you switched.

At the first renewal, two things happen at once. Our flat annual fee replaces that compensation, and wherever the carriers allow it, the commissions come out of your rates. The fee goes in as the commissions come out. That is why the “paying twice” objection does not hold: the money that was funding your broker is the money that funds your advisor, and now it is on an invoice you can read.

Why the fee is the point

Our fee is the same whether your costs rise or fall, and the same no matter which products you choose. It is a flat annual amount, billed monthly, invoiced to your company, and communicated for the following year six months before your renewal so it is never a surprise at the table. We name our fee before we see anyone else’s numbers, because a fee that is set after looking at the incumbent’s commissions is just a commission with a different name.

Compare that to the arrangement it replaces. When your renewal comes in at plus twelve percent, a commissioned broker’s income rises twelve percent. Ours does not move. The only way our compensation can improve is if we keep your business by getting you more value for every dollar you spend, and that is the entire design.

The average employer overpaid for healthcare by about $4,000 per employee in 2024. A flat fee does not recover that by itself. It removes the reason nobody was trying.

The one thing to ask for

Ask your broker for their written compensation disclosure, and put the total next to any fee-only advisor’s posted fee. You would never hire a CPA who was paid by the IRS, and once you can see both numbers on the same page, you will not have to guess who your advisor is working for.

Health Compass Consulting is a fee-only benefits consulting firm in Orlando, Florida. We are paid only by the employers we serve. We accept no compensation from insurance carriers or vendors in any form, and our fee is the same whether your costs rise or fall and no matter which products you choose.