Our Work in Action

We believe in delivering measurable services with high ROI for our clients. While the following case studies are examples of very successful projects, they also are typical of the type of results we deliver to all our clients on all our assignments.

Management and recovery of outsourcing vendor relationships

One of SBA’s unique specialties is salvaging contentious client/vendor relationships. Our process typically includes:

  • Mediating disputes and, when necessary, developing and managing action plans to get the providers, and in some cases the plan sponsors, back on track.
  • Developing and implementing specific metrics that monitor the performance of administrative vendors. As needed, action plans are created and managed by SBA to address deficient areas.
  • Working with third-party research organizations to develop and execute objective employee satisfaction surveys to gauge the performance of providers.
  • Negotiating solid performance guarantees and associated penalties to assure successful administration.

Examples of our work in this area:

  1. A Fortune 500 client's relationship with their health and dental claims administration provider was severely strained. SBA worked with both parties to understand the issues and obstacles, developed clear objectives for success and managed a specific action plan. Today the relationship is on solid ground and each party understands their role in a successful partnership.
  2. A client who maintains their own physician/hospital provider network for their medical plans had significant unrest among internal staff, their claims administrator and the physicians/hospitals. SBA interviewed all parties to identify all issues, developed specific objectives for success and managed a specific action plan leading to a successful relationship between all parties.
  3. SBA reviews all change orders sent to one of our clients by their administrative providers. Over the past year we have caught numerous errors and saved the client over $500,000 in unnecessary charges.
  4. For one client, we negotiate all of their outsourced provider contracts. To date we have eliminated early termination fees and eliminated or minimized numerous critical issues, penalties and liabilities that could have resulted in millions of dollars in charges to the client over the contract period.

DB, DC and health & welfare plan design, compliance and consulting

SBA’s plan design and compliance work often includes the following project elements:

  • Reviewing plan documents and documenting all necessary changes due to misalignment with administrative practices or due to historical and current design changes.
  • Developing alternative plan designs for use in cost analysis, benchmarking studies, labor negotiations and other uses.
  • Providing extensive consulting to clients in the midst of mergers and acquisitions, often including conducting a thorough analysis of benefits and funding prior to the acquisition. In other cases, we perform an extensive analysis of the incoming plans and recommend the best approach for assimilation.
  • Analyzing the non-discrimination testing results produced for clients by their providers and making necessary recommendations and adjustments.
  • Gathering, scrubbing and testing data for providers that were unable to perform non-discrimination testing due to complexities.

As an example of our work in this area, SBA led the redesign of the DB, DC and retiree health & welfare benefits for a Fortune 100 client. The redesign saved the client $75 million in the first year and approximately $350 million over the first three years, yet allowed them to remain one of the top companies providing benefits to their employees.

Comprehensive benefits data cleanup

Over the years, we have identified and corrected thousands of benefits-related data issues. These issues arose due to historical payroll problems, benefit design changes, vendor issues, hastily performed system implementations and company acquisitions. All of these data issues would have led to incorrect benefit calculations or incorrect premium calculations and claims payments. SBA's data cleanup methodology is time-tested, repeatable and proven. The process includes:

  • A systematic analysis of the benefit plans and associated data.
  • Comprehensive documentation to ensure the underlying causes of the data issues are understood.
  • Correction of all data issues and establishment of measures to ensure the issue does not occur again.
  • Providing research and cleanup of deceased participant accounts to eliminate defined benefit overpayments.
  • Cleaning up historical QDRO and DB overpayment files.

As one example of our work in this area, we led the effort to locate, compile, clean, test and organize tens of millions of pieces of data for a client, enabling them to respond to a major union’s request for information requirement in preparation for upcoming labor negotiations. SBA successfully completed the project, resulting in zero challenges to the data by the union.

For another client, SBA was engaged as part of a system implementation to examine thousands of records in paper form and on microfiche. This data was compared to the data converted to the new system and discrepancies were noted, researched and corrected. This exercise allowed the client to archive the paper information and gave them confidence in the data in the new system. Our work also meant that no one needed to check calculations against the manual data after the new system went into production.

Comprehensive project and implementation management

SBA can fill a variety of project management roles, including:

  • Acting as the lead project manager (representing the plan sponsor) for large administration implementations, ensuring the project delivers accurately and on time.
  • Placing resources on-site in order to execute tasks or provide project management expertise.
  • Providing complete support for clients during implementation activities. We have executed all the tasks required of the plan sponsor during the process, thereby relieving the client’s staff of significant extra workload.
  • Assisting clients in the merging of numerous retirement plans, thereby saving hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in administrative costs.

Whether your project management and/or implementation needs are small or large, SBA has experience in filling those gaps:

  1. For one large client, during the conversion of their DB plans from an in-house structure to an outsourced environment, we completely managed their internal DB administration group for a period of 18 months.
  2. We have taken the lead role in the development of systems specifications for outsourcing implementations. In one case, we reviewed more than 800 pages of detailed specifications and requirements for a DB plan being outsourced to a major provider.
  3. We have prevented recordkeepers from converting unnecessary data. In one case, we prevented the conversion of 55,000 unnecessary records that would have cost the client over $200,000 per year.

Mergers and acquisitions

Merger and acquisition activities within a company are transactions with high potential financial and employee impact from an employee benefits perspective. SBA’s consultants have years of experience in:

  • Performing due diligence on the employee benefit plans.
  • Analyzing data, making appropriate corrections and ensuring safeguards are put in place to prevent new data issues.
  • Creating employee communications and change management materials around such transactions.

As an example, one client engaged SBA to analyze the benefit plans and systems in use by a company targeted for acquisition. The benefit plans were examined for their financial impact. The systems were analyzed to ensure appropriate security processes were being utilized and that the systems were calculating benefits according to the plan documents.

Employee Communications

SBA believes that the administration of your benefit plans doesn’t end at the door to the benefits department; employees also must understand their plans to fully appreciate them. That’s why SBA commits resources to the development of custom employee communications.

Examples of our work in this area:

  1. We designed, developed and delivered a custom Web modeling tool for a large client who was implementing significant changes to their DB, DC and health & welfare plans. SBA provided the tool at one-third the cost proposed by our competitors and delivered it in one-fourth the time. The personalized modeler was a critical asset to the client in communicating plan changes and managing employee concerns.
  2. We have designed pension choice systems that, on a personalized basis, model benefits to participants under both traditional and non-traditional pension plans and enable them to elect the plan in which they wish to participate.
  3. SBA designed, developed and delivered a custom administration system that performed all maintenance and reporting for a client’s retiree healthcare account structure.
  4. For one client, in an abbreviated timeframe, we designed and developed a static information Web site to address participant questions surrounding their Pension Equity Plan calculations.

Comprehensive administrative vendor searches

Selecting the right outsourcing vendor is essential to the accurate management of your employee benefit plans, to cost-effective benefits administration, and to making your daily work lives pleasant. SBA has a unique approach to ensuring that each client selects the vendor most appropriate for their specific situation. Our approach is a process that starts with an analysis of the client’s specific buying criteria. This buying criteria becomes the baseline against which all vendors are ranked and your choice is ultimately made. SBA manages the client and vendors through the entire process so a decision can be made based on a common set of criteria.

Examples of our work in this area:

  1. SBA provides complete search consulting for DB, DC and health & welfare administration providers. Our expertise and proven process saved one client more than $15 million over a five-year contract with their outsourced provider.
  2. We have assisted clients in their search for a vendor to provide extensive personalized modeling so employees might select the most appropriate health plan and FSA enrollment options for their needs.
  3. For one client, we negotiated a $100,000 reduction in the cost of outsourcing their benefits check writing.

Contract negotiation, re-negotiation and benchmarking

Next to choosing the correct business partner based on a client's buying criteria, the negotiation of the business deal and underlying contract is the most important aspect of a client/service provider relationship. SBA consultants are experts at ensuring that contracts have all the safeguards and service level agreements in place to protect the client. As client advocates, it is our mission to ensure that each client gets the level of service and response agreed to in the sales process.

SBA's consultants regularly benchmark a vendor's performance against the final contract to ensure vendor compliance. In the case of missed objectives, SBA consultants work with the vendor to implement a recovery plan and monitor that plan.

Examples of our work in this area:

  1. Negotiate service level agreements for a Fortune 500 client for full defined benefit outsourcing. All service level agreement items and response times were negotiated based on client-specific criteria and current market conditions.
  2. Negotiate a contract for the installation of a payroll and HRIS system internally.
  3. Re-negotiation of an expiring outsourcing contract. SBA consultants were able to realign service level agreement items with the performance over the initial term of the contract.

Data security consulting

After surviving a potential security breach, our client asked SBA to make their security procedures state-of-the-art. While the issue in this case was quite limited, the client wanted to take this opportunity to improve all its security measures. SBA addressed both electronic and in-office operations.

SBA created a technical environment where all client work is done on servers located in an offsite data center. There is no ability to download information from the data center servers to any external device (including a PC or mobile device). The data center is state-of-the-art, and provides:

  • Biometric security (iris scans and finger print scans)
  • 24x7 physical security monitoring with a secure building and perimeter
  • Backup power generators and an on-site sub-station to deliver “pure” power
  • Nightly backups taken to another site for offsite storage
  • Full redundancy capabilities in case of server failure

To improve office security, SBA recommended the following:

  • All paper data files secured each night in locked file cabinet inside locked offices
  • Office secured with monitored alarm (theft and fire)
  • All security procedures are documented, provided to new employees and reviewed semi-annually
  • Card access entry to office
  • Card access entry to room with phone, Internet switch, etc.

In addition, an IT provider was brought in to manage all IT operations. This provider conducts random checks for rogue modems and unsecured wireless connections to ensure no unauthorized access.

403(b) Plan Vendor Search and Plan Sponsor Compliance

When the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued new regulations mandating changes to the oversight and administration of 403(b) plans, SBA saw an opportunity to help bring change to an environment traditionally fraught with high participant fees, a lack of coordination between vendors and a legislative environment that favors brokers over the plan participants. The new regulations, which are generally effective January 1, 2009, squarely place the responsibility for plan compliance and participant well-being on the plan sponsor.

SBA’s consultants are experienced in the operation and regulation 403(b) plans and are capable of analyzing a plan sponsor’s situation, developing a strategy that meets the client’s requirements, and executing against that strategy. SBA does all this without conflicts of interest such as revenue sharing deals with the vendors being evaluated and recommended. Plan sponsors can be assured that the chosen strategy is in their (and their participant’s) best interests and not in the interest of others who stand to gain financially from the participants.

SBA has assumed the following roles for plan sponsors looking to make their 403(b) plans more valuable for their employees:

• Advised both ERISA and non-ERISA plan sponsors on the impact of the regulations
• Developed strategies according to the priorities of the plan sponsor
• Conducted vendor searches according to each plan sponsor’s specific buying criteria
• Educated the plan sponsor’s steering committee regarding the new regulations
• Documented the entire selection process for the plan sponsor