Broker & Coverage Compatibility

September 17, 2026•7 min read

If you’re looking into a pretax wellness program, you likely want to:

Lower your company's overall FICA payroll tax liability.
Increase employee compensation through wellness incentives.
Expand your overall benefits package without adding to your overhead.

From our experience working with hundreds of employer groups, the potential upside is obvious to business owners but they're more worried about the administrative chaos. They're concerned with forcing a Broker of Record (BOR) change, switching carriers and coverage, disrupting current operations, and hurting renewals.

The only way to capture this value add without creating operational headaches is to implement a program designed to run quietly in the background alongside your primary health plan.

That’s where Thrive Benefits Group stands apart. With Thrive:
1.) Your broker relationships stay intact. No Broker of Record change required, meaning your current advisor maintains their relationship, control, and full commission.
2.) Your coverage is complimented. Think of this like a first line of defense. Standalone wellness platforms fill in coverage with $0 copay and $0 deductible services, without anything being billed to your major medical.
3.) Your administration stays effortless. Thrive handles all the data collection, enrollment marketing, and compliance reporting. All you have to do is report terminations.
4.) You have a cost containment stategy. With claims redirected away from your major medical, everyday care which increases plan utilization drops, and often times helps improve renewals for self insured and level funded groups.

Protect Your Existing Broker and Carrier Setup

As much of a headache as health insurance can be, disrupting existing coverage or a broker relatationship is generally out of the question.

The other problem problem is most carriers and brokers don't specialize in these types of arrangements.

Thrive's SIMRP program are standalone, and distinct from your major medical coverage. This integrates with exstings health care, not working against it. This also allows you to maintain any existing broker relationships.

Your broker retains full control: Your current advisor manages your core major medical plan, handles renewals.
We handle the tax mechanics: Thrive manages all administrative fulfillment, payroll integrations, and compliance filings behind the scenes.
Your advisor stays in the loop: We collaborate directly with your broker team to ensure our tax-saving layer complements their overarching strategy.

SIMRP Layered Coverage with Zero Disruption

Typical SIMRP arrangements work by providing additional layers of virtual, preventive care services and voluntary benefits such as life, accident expense, critical illness, and disability coverage.

Companies typically have some sort of wellness component baked into their major medical while also offering some of the above-mentioned voluntary benefits.

Thrive’s SIMRP complements major medical's wellness components through a fleshed-out suite of benefits, all at $0 copay with $0 deductible to be met. Typical major medical cost sharing is shown below.

Preventive & Everyday Health Service	Typical Major Medical Cost	Thrive SIMRP Cost
24/7 Virtual Urgent & Primary Telehealth	$40 – $75+ copay per visit (or subject to deductible)	$0 Copay / $0 Deductible
Mental Health Counseling	$30 – $150+ copay/coinsurance per session	$0 Copay / $0 Deductible
Behavioral Health	$50 – $200+ copay/coinsurance per session	$0 Copay / $0 Deductible
Common Prescriptions & Virtual Rx Renewals	$10 – $50+ tier copays or full retail price	$0 Out-of-Pocket Expense
Comprehensive Lab Testing (75+ Biomarkers)	$100 – $500+ applied toward annual deductible	$0 Out-of-Pocket Expense
Virtual Vision Care & Rx Renewals	$25 – $50+ vision copay (requires separate rider)	$0 Copay / $0 Deductible

These services maintain full HIPAA compliance and provide convenient access to healthcare while eliminating the financial hurdles of traditional coverage. Due to the net savings generated through this standalone wellness layer, employee participation in voluntary benefits naturally increases.

That is why Thrive stands apart as a true strategic partner.

Critical gaps in traditional health plans are filled through a zero-disruption setup that works cleanly alongside existing coverage while driving measurable savings for both employers and employees.

SIMRP Implementation and Administration

Managing employee benefits is often a heavy administrative lift. Between navigating rate increases, evaluating carriers, refining plan designs, educating staff, and running open enrollment, the operational burden quickly consumes multiple departments.

Thrive takes the majority of that weight off your team's shoulders to make implementation and administration as streamlined as possible:

No annual rate hikes or carrier comparisons: Because Thrive runs on a unified, utilization-based platform rather than insurance claims underwriting, you never have to shop carriers or negotiate rate increases for your wellness layer.
Turnkey, compliant plan design: We provide fixed, non-discriminatory plan structures built both for ease of administration and to ensure compliance with IRC 105(h) non descrimination rules.
Done-for-you education and enrollment: Thrive creates customized educational content and marketing materials for your group, then manages the entire rollout through multi-channel outreach campaigns, group sessions, and 1-on-1 employee support.

With all of these considerations addressed, deployment and ongoing management become routine HR and accounting workflows. An initial census is collected, additions and terminations are reported, and payroll deductions and AP billing are synced. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Looking for deep customization? For employers who want complete control over how benefits are communicated, Thrive’s proprietary enrollment platform was built in-house to allow maximum flexibility—so your company controls the narrative from start to finish. [Read our deep dive on Enrollment & Employee Education Strategy →]

Cost Containment for Fully Insured, Level Funded, & Self-Insured

The quality of the pool determines the price. Employers changing funding models to fight renewal hikes are just trying to switch risk pools.

But each model has different rules, so a single cost-containment strategy almost never applies to all three.

Thrive Benefits Group changes that. Think of the three funding models like this:

Fully Insured (The Community Pool): You’re swimming with everyone else. Your team might keep clean, but you still pay for the bad habits of every other group in the pool.
Level Funded (The Private Pool): You have a sectioned-off swim zone. You gain clearer visibility and more control over how claims affect renewals, but you are still bound by carrier guardrails.
Self-Insured (Owning the Pool): You own the pool entirely. Your water quality and costs are dictated strictly by who you let swim and how well you maintain the pool.

With Thrive's SIMRP setup, fully insured pools can use employer-side tax savings to offset health contributions. The employee-side savings can go towards their premiums or healthcare expenses:

Fully Insured Groups: Capturing immediate tax relief. Employer-side FICA savings offset company health contributions, while employee-side tax savings lower individual premium burdens and out-of-pocket costs.
Level Funded Groups: Same immediate tax savings plus claims control. Claims data goes down, building healthier pool habits through $0 copay preventive care. Next year, that lower-cost private pool might just have your name on it.
Self-Insured Groups: Maximum ROI. Because your rates are driven 100% by your own claims data, routing routine care to $0 copay virtual services keeps minor visits and preventable hospitalizations off your records.

Unlocking Pretax Savings Without Benefit Disruption

Adding a Section 125 pretax wellness program doesn't require sacrificing your trusted broker relationship, replacing major medical coverage, or burdening your HR team with complex administration. By layering a standalone SIMRP structure alongside your current benefits stack, you immediately lower payroll tax liabilities, enhance employee take-home pay, and protect your primary insurance loss runs for future renewals.

Thrive Benefits Group provides turnkey pretax wellness programs built to run in total harmony with your existing benefits and broker team. Submit a census today to receive a zero-commitment preview of your company's payroll tax savings.