Examples of our Innovative Solutions

Harbridge Consulting Group has the expertise to perform actuarial valuations of postretirement health and other benefit plans for financial statements. Our retiree health valuation staff consists of fourteen credentialed actuaries. We have expertise in both healthcare plan pricing and actuarial modeling within one unit, so the actuary responsible for developing per capita claims costs is the same person who runs the valuation, speeding up the valuation process and reducing the possibility of error.

Harbridge Consulting Group does more than simply calculate the liability for postretirement medical benefits; we have a great deal of experience and expertise with retiree health that helps our clients to deal with this issue. We have worked with our clients to change plan design, develop experience-based claims costs, and educate employees about their benefits. In addition, our Health & Welfare consultants can find additional cost savings and plan design improvement in both the active and retiree medical plans.

Three Examples of our Innovative Solutions

Example 1
We worked with an employer whose plan costs were increasing dramatically each year to present several pro forma scenarios under various plan design alternatives. They were able to select a new plan that met both their financial and human resource needs. We also obtained claims information from their TPA and performed an analysis that showed that their actual experience was favorable, and were able to reduce the obligation accordingly.

Example 2
We have several clients in the healthcare sector. For those clients, the cost of providing postretirement medical benefits for retirees who use the facility is less than the total amount charged to another payor. The only cost is the marginal cost; the fixed costs would be incurred even if the retiree did not require treatment. We value the savings to the FAS 106 cost, and we also work with auditors to make sure that Medicare revenue attributable to those retirees is not double-counted; amount used to offset expense should not be counted as revenue.

Example 3
We have worked with clients to model cash flows and FAS 106 costs related to changing the postretirement medical plan to a pre-funded, individual account based defined contribution postretirement medical plan. Such a plan has less volatility compared to a traditional plan. We have guided these clients though the issues of employees near retirement age - are those employees grandfathered under the current plan, or do they receive some sort of "transitional" support (i.e. additional funds put into their account) to make up for contributions not received because the plan was not in effect, and therefore, no cash set aside?