Your Workforce Connection
Featured Employer
Date: 11/04/2009
Discovery Benefits is a national leader in employee benefits administration with a long history offering employee benefit services. Discovery has offered flexible benefits administration since 1987. They began offering COBRA administration in 1994. Transportation Fringe Benefit Plans were added in 2003. In 2004, Discovery Benefits implemented Health Reimbursement Arrangements and Health Savings Accounts.
Discovery is located in Fargo, ND and currently has 153 employees. All administrative and customer service is provided from Fargo for clients throughout the United States. Their primary focus is to build long-term relationships with their clients and channels. This region is well known for its strong work ethic, which they think is second to none in the country. The strong work ethic, along with the excellent customer service make them successful when competing on a national level. They promote and promise excellent customer service as their primary differentiator and deliver on that promise because of their employees. Discovery is one of the top ten administrators in the country because of the high level and quality of customer service.
The objective and cornerstone of Discovery’s philosophy is to provide responsive and flexible administrative services creating value for their clients and their employees. They are a customer-focused organization blending people and technology to provide high-quality customer service and administration. Discovery’s mission is to transform the complexity of employee benefits administration with innovative solutions and extraordinary customer service delivered by empowered and knowledgeable employees.
Clients range in size from two to 120,000 employees across all industries. Discovery Benefits offered its services on a regional basis from 1987 through 2004 and began its expansion into the national arena in 2005 through relationships developed with international consulting firms such as Mercer, AON, and Willis. The launch into the national arena proved to be very successful and Discovery has experienced tremendous growth year-over-year.
Employers look for ways to offer employee benefits in a cost-effective manner that helps both the employer and employee save money. Flexible benefit plans, as well as the other reimbursement account benefits, provide employers a cost effective way to offer health insurance for their employees because these benefits are offered on a pre-tax basis. Employees save up to 40% on their portion of insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical and dependent care expenses by saving federal, state and FICA (Medicare and Social Security) taxes. Employers save 7.65% on every dollar deducted pre-tax because there is no Social Security match required on pre tax dollars under a flexible benefit plan.
Employers also save when outsourcing their COBRA to Discovery Benefits. Discovery uses state of the art software for its COBRA compliance administration providing their clients with real-time access to all information through the convenience of online portals. As most employers know, complying with COBRA can be difficult and cumbersome. Outsourcing COBRA eliminates the liability because Discovery assumes liability for compliance under its control.