[mrkurt]

Mostly it's to prevent brokers from giving customers kickbacks (either pure money or gifts). When a broker is helping people make decisions about what plans to buy, it seems like a reasonable restriction, although I don't think the intent was to prevent what Zenefits is doing.

[stale2002]

Kickbacks just means "charging customers less money" and "giving customers a better deal than their competitors" and "competing in the free market".

The insurance industry is so messed up that they have made it illegal to give customers good deals and have made it illegal to compete.

Imagine that a bunch of companies got together and decided that everyone should increase their prices. In the normal world that would be called illegal monopolistic pricing. In the insurance world, charging people less money and giving consumers a good deal is the illegal thing.

[a_c_s]

Kickbacks (especially in the form of gifts) often go to the individuals rather than the company.

A broker who gives a 10% discount to a company saves the company money which allows them to get their employees a better plan (or higher profits or whatever).

A kickback of steak dinners and free golf for the HR manager is more like a bribe: no benefit accrues to the company itself.