[mjamilkowski]

For B2B, it’s worth noting that most Americans still receive their health coverage through employers, and this is especially true for the 200-2,000 company size segment. Meeting the majority of people where they are seems to be a reasonably impactful way of starting change. We can make a considerable impact for companies with 100 employees. We can make a massive impact for companies with more than 400. We currently are not geared to do much for individuals, but we’ll get there. https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/total-population/

B2B is scalable for launch, giving us access to information and leverage that is not achievable in the individual space without significant expense and economic loss. Starting in this market segment gives us a profitable platform to expand into other coverage areas and consider adjacent market segments. That said, we believe our approach which is intensely focused on quality will drive cost savings that satisfy employers. The 3-year rate-lock option helps to demonstrate results and builds confidence in our approach without demanding changes to plan designs that may be injurious to the employee’s long-term health.

I’m not sure I completely follow your question about changing coverage to keep an employer to keep the company afloat. Our plans are approved by the state and we cannot change benefits during the year. We cannot slash benefits to reduce costs to keep a client. That would be detrimental to the employer’s business model too because it would severely impact their ability to attract and retain talent. Trying to reduce benefits would have the opposite effect and increase costs, like the delays caused by high deductibles.

[pierre]

Thanks for your answer. I'm not American so not really familiar with your health system. Agreed that B2B will be easier to scale given acquisition cost. However scaling with corporate client limit you in your ability to do good risk selection as I believe you will have to accept all employees.

[mjamilkowski]

Underwriting a whole group actually gives us protection from risk selection and creates a more population based risk which is more stable. Yes there will be individuals that have extreme expenses, which is why we have reinsurance. It is the principle of risk pooling and credibility.