It’s that time of year again! Time to see who’s been bad or good, scope out shiny new tools, and make wish lists. And no, we’re not talking about the holidays.
It’s credit union budgeting season. Time to decide your fate for the next year. Will you have enough money for everything you need? Or will you cut corners…
And how do credit union employee benefits fit in?
Is There Room in the Budget?
In the CU 2.0 blog, we talk a lot about credit union technology vendors, trends, and strategies. For example, we keep our eyes on fintechs who work on artificial intelligence. We’ve also fallen in love with marketing automation and workload automation in general.
But what good is an online banking provider if you can’t afford it?
We spend our time researching ways to give credit unions a technological edge. But sometimes we forget that credit union budgets can handle only so much.
And that brings us to credit union employee benefits.
Save Money on Credit Union Employee Benefits
We’re not going to pretend to be the experts here:
Credit union budgeting is something we understand, but it’s not something that we do. And certainly not yearly. What’s more, we’re definitely not experts on healthcare and benefits providers.
But we came across a blog recently that got us thinking: can you save money on your credit union employee benefits?
According to the CU Benefits Alliance, most credit unions are paying too much for their employee benefits. That 25% of wasteful benefits spending could go a long way toward implementing helpful new technologies.
For example, CU Benefits Alliance suggests that credit unions with 100 employees might save over $200,000 in benefits spending.
That’s not exactly a small chunk of change right there.
United States Healthcare Is Confusing
The real trick is this: CU Benefits Alliance suggests that most benefits spending is wasteful. Not too comprehensive. Just wasteful.
They’re probably right. It’s well documented that insurance carriers and hospitals perform questionable, ad hoc price negotiations. And how bad is it?
The former chairman of Kaiser Permanente, George Halvorson, said about healthcare costs, “There is no such thing as a legitimate price for anything in healthcare. Prices are made up depending on who the payer is.”
Basically, any health insurance or benefits provider is going to price things according to their own special blend. And that blend may or may not be useful to the people who need it. It may even be geared toward people in different industries.
So, if healthcare prices can be negotiated…
And if benefits packages aren’t set in stone…
Then it’s probably that experts in the credit union employee benefits arena might find savings opportunities. And if you can offer your employees the same level of benefits and care while also cutting costs? That’s definitely a win.
Further Reading
The credit union 2020 budget season is just about here. With any luck, we’ll be able to find or highlight a few budgeting ideas to consider. Please email us if you’d like to share any cost-saving budget strategies.
To read more about board strategy, budgeting, and marketing for credit unions, subscribe to our blog. Or follow the links below to see what else we’ve written about lately.
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