Why do we remain independent?
Simple. Because you deserve the best price.
Houze & Associates is a fully independent broker, meaning we maintain longstanding relationships with dozens of diverse carriers. This enables us to provide the best mix of products at the absolute lowest cost for our clients and their employees. Guaranteed.
Every product we present to our client has been bid out to the best providers around using our exhaustive RFP process. This process has yielded an impressive persistency rate (over 90% for our top-10 clients) for Houze & Associates and the products it offers. Translation: We're not selling your employees coverage they don't need and ultimately won't be happy with. In the end, you and your employees get the best product mix, price, and above all else, savings.
Below is a list of some of the more popular products we deliver. Click any one of them to understand how they can benefit your employees, then contact one of our friendly associates to find out how Houze & Associates can help you refine your employee benefit package.
Providing Health Insurance plans for employers has never been more challenging, with everyone trying to interpret the “Health Care Reform†bills. Over the next few years employers will definitely need “out-of-the-box†solutions like Houze & Associates has been delivering to our clients for years.
Designed to assist participants with dental charges, dental insurance covers a variety of procedures. Plans pay for a percentage of services based on a Usual and Customary Costs for those procedures. Plans can be designed through employers as fully insured or self insured as well as reimbursement plans.
Basic & Supplemental Group Life Insurance Plans
Basic and Supplemental Group Life are certificates where the employer or group is the policy holder. Employees of the group are covered participants in the plan. Both Basic (typically employer paid) and Supplemental (employee elected) terminate when employment ends. Some contracts allow portability to a certain age. All plans guarantee conversion to a Whole Life policy which will be at maximum allowable rates for the individual plan.
Portability Definition- Porting coverage allows employees or covered dependents to take the group plan after termination of employment. Rates are usually age banded and increase with age. All ported policies will terminate at a specific age (typically 70).
Conversion Definition- Group plans will allow conversion to an individual policy without additional underwriting. Because it is guaranteed, the premiums are rated at the highest available for the plan certificate. Because of that, it becomes cost prohibitive for most working and non-working people.
Read more about Basic & Supplemental Group Life Insurance Plans and our carriers.
Insurance can be elected to provide up to 60% of earnings should the policy holder not be able to work due to an accident or illness. Plans designate an elimination period (# days to be out of work) before the plan will begin to pay. STD usually will allow benefits for up to 26 weeks or 6 months.
Read more about Short Term Disability Plans and our carriers.
This plan is designed to provide security should you not be able to work for an extended period of time, or up to age 65. LTD is the most valuable insurance while you are living (outside of Life Insurance) because it will continue to pay up to 60% of your pre-disability earnings until normal retirement age.
Read more about Long Term Disability Plans and our carriers.
Medical Plans typically provide an accompanying Prescription Drug Benefit. The plans designed provide tiers of benefit based on a formulary as determined by the employer or plan document.
Legal insurance offers basic, personal coverage for preventive, domestic, consumer, and defensive legal services. In most cases you have direct access to local attorneys and/or a toll free network for over the phone assistance for legal services.
Accident Insurance plan can help cover the unexpected costs related to accident expenses. Policies pay a specific benefit amount for: initial care such as ambulance, emergency room and hospitalization; follow-up care such as outpatient doctor’s treatment and medical devices; injuries, including burns, dislocations and fractures; catastrophic accident; accidental death.
Long Term Care Insurance Plans
Long Term Care provides benefits for stays in a nursing home or for home health care. Plans require a loss of 2 of activities of daily living: eating, bathing, dressing, transferring, toileting, maintaining continence. Weekly or Monthly benefits are elected and payable to the policy holder for a specific period of time as elected by the policy holder.
Read more about Long Term Care Insurance Plans and our carriers.
Medical and Dependent Care are types of FSA Plans allowable by the IRS. The value of these plans is the tax savings on the elections into the plans. The government regulates the amount that can be elected into each plan. The typical savings is 28% to 32% based on tax bracket and equates to $1 election only ‘costs’ $.70 in take home pay.
Read more about Flexible Spending Accounts and our carriers.
Cancer policies pay proceeds to the covered person should they be diagnosed or treated for cancer. Plans have certain provisions for internal or skin cancer. Some plans provide an annual benefit if a cancer screening is completed (ex: mammogram for women and PSI test for men).
Vision plans provide services (exam or fittings) as well as materials (lens, contacts or frames) for a specific co-pay for covered participants. Plans have a set frequency for those benefits. Most have retail locations and private practices in their network. Out of network benefits are payable as a reimbursement of a specific limit.
Permanent Life Insurance Plans
Policies that provide Permanent Life Insurance are Universal Life and Whole Life. These plans guarantee the death benefit as long as the premiums are paid. Both plans gain cash value based on a guaranteed rate of interest built into the policy.
Read more about Permanent Life Insurance Plans and our carriers.
Plans provide Life Insurance for a specific period of time (called a Term). The policy will typically renew for 2 of the ‘terms’ and annually increase thereafter. The insurance plan is guaranteed renewable until a specific age. At that pre-determined age, the policy terminates.
