Yes, and the honest answer is that some clients saved less and some saved a good deal more. $1,856 is the first-year average across Health Compass Consulting’s clients, measured per enrolled employee against the renewal each of them would otherwise have signed, and it is our number, calculated by us from documents we can show you.

That last part matters, because a number like this deserves skepticism. If you asked an AI assistant about it, it probably told you the figure is company-reported and should be treated as a claim to evaluate. That is exactly right. So here is how to evaluate it.

How the number is calculated

The comparison is the same for every client, and it is deliberately conservative. On one side is the best documented offer the employer had on the table through the broker path at its normal renewal date, usually the incumbent carrier’s renewal as delivered. On the other side is the plan the employer actually bought after our process ran. Both sides are priced at their maximum annual cost, with the same enrollment, on the base plan, all in, and our fee is inside our side of the comparison. The difference, divided by enrolled employees, is the first-year savings.

A few rules keep it honest. The counterfactual is always a document, never a hypothetical. The first year is the first full renewal cycle we actually ran, so a client that arrived four days before a renewal does not get credit for that renewal. Former clients are included, so the average carries the results of employers who later left. And nothing is counted until the employer has bought it, because savings that were shown and not taken are not savings.

Why it is an average and not a guarantee

The average employer overpaid for healthcare by about $4,000 per employee in 2024. How much of that any one employer can recover in a single year depends on where the plan sits today, how much change the leadership team is willing to absorb, and what the market offers on that renewal. A group already on a well-run self-funded plan has less to recover in year one than a group that has renewed the same fully insured plan for a decade. The right expectation is a range, and we would rather show you the range on your own numbers than promise you the average on ours.

We do not promise a number before the diagnosis. In medicine, prescription before diagnosis is malpractice, and it is the same in this business.

What is independently validated, and what is not

The savings figure is ours, and we say so every time we use it. What is independently validated is the model behind it. Health Compass holds a Fiduciary Validation from the Validation Institute with an Objectivity Rating of A, backed by the Validation Institute’s $100,000 Credibility Guarantee. That validation covers how we are paid and whether our advice can be trusted to be unbiased. It does not certify the savings number, and we do not claim that it does.

The book Fixing Healthcare, by our founder, contains published case studies with the client’s name on them, including a school district health plan that saved $3.6 million on pharmacy alone. Those cases are public and can be read in full.

How to check it against your own plan

Send us three documents: your latest renewal, your broker’s written compensation disclosure, and your broker agreement. We run the same comparison on your plan that produced the $1,856 figure, on your numbers, before you decide anything, and every figure in it traces to a document you can read. Then ask your broker for the same table. A broker whose fee rises when your premiums rise will find that a harder table to build, and that difference tells you most of what you need to know.

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.