[MangoDiesel]

> Why would an HR person or a CFO EVER give up 1) expert benefits consulting 2) protection against the ACA 3) access to long-standing carrier relationships that allow for renewal negotiations 4) ability to support complex benefits strategies

I'm really not buying their case here.

1) Expert benefits consulting seems like something that could be made easily accessible via research online 2) Obamacare FUD? 3) Haggling is a feature? 4) This seems like expert consulting re-worded

[FLGMwt]

> Rumor that they may have struck a deal with ADP to be their benefits administration system and replace TotalSource

Heh, guess not (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9679312)

[cykho]

Big reason we have a broker is time savings - just have them handle it and get back to work. It took me under an hour to get set up with a broker. It took me longer than that to figure out what the Zenefits cost/benefit was.

[exelius]

> 1) Expert benefits consulting seems like something that could be made easily accessible via research online

If you have the time to sort through it all and become an expert on the various products in the market. Oh, and if you make a mistake, you bear all the risk. Also, remember that most HR departments collect people who were terrible at every other job they've ever had -- these are not people you trust to do things correctly. You'll likely end up paying less in the long run if you pay someone else to do it where that is their entire job.

> 2) Obamacare FUD?

There is a lot of FUD around the ACA, but some of it is warranted. You don't know what changes the GOP is going to try to force through, and Obama himself keeps delaying implementation of certain requirements.

> 3) Haggling is a feature?

For a business it is. It's not even an inconvenience, you just hire a professional negotiator and if you save more than his fees (which is usually the case), you come out ahead. If you're not big enough for hiring a negotiator to make sense, you're not big enough to have leverage to negotiate in the first place.

> 4) This seems like expert consulting re-worded

It mostly is, but employment / tax law is not somewhere you want to read a few tutorials on the Internet and call it a day. Again, if you're big enough to worry about this, it'll be worthwhile to pay an expert consultant for the risk coverage alone.