See where your benefits dollars go.
The renewal came in high. Your CFO wants to know why. And the explanation you got came down to one word: "trend."
Employee Benefits Without the Bull is a plain-English guide to where the money goes, what your broker isn't telling you, and the questions that change a renewal. Reserve your free digital copy today, and it arrives in your inbox in December 2026, a month before the January launch.
Take these tools to your current advisor and get a better result. That is exactly what the book was written for.
Free for HR and benefits leaders. No sales pitch inside; the author's disclosure is on page one.
Practical tools, not theory.
One-page Benefits P&L
Show your CFO where every benefits dollar goes, on a single page.
Twelve pharmacy questions
What to ask your broker or PBM about a contract that is probably growing faster than the rest of your plan.
Funding Readiness Test
Find out whether self-funding actually fits your company, before anyone pitches it to you.
Renewal Calendar
Start preparing months before the deadline, so the renewal number is a starting point, not a verdict.
Plus six more blank templates, including the Fiduciary File. Every tool is included in the book.
You run one of the biggest expenses in the company. Nobody handed you the manual.
- Your broker's recommendation sounded reasonable, but you couldn't tell how they get paid for it.
- Your CFO asked why benefits cost what they cost, and you didn't have a one-page answer.
- A vendor showed you an ROI slide, and you couldn't tell whether any of it was real.
- Hundreds of families depend on a plan nobody ever trained you to run.
This book gives you the information nobody handed you.
Fourteen chapters. No jargon left unexplained.
Written like an experienced colleague talking you through it over coffee, in four parts: how you got here, following the money, playing the game well, and leveling up. Every chapter ends with something you can do Monday morning.
See all 14 chapters
The setup nobody explained to you
How benefits landed on HR's desk, and the four things nobody told you when it did.
What your broker isn't telling you
How brokers actually get paid, what that does to a recommendation, and the disclosure request to send this week.
Reading the money
Where the dollars go, and a one-page Benefits P&L that turns a renewal exhibit into numbers a CFO respects.
Fully insured vs. self-funded
The decision that changes everything, and what happens when the assumptions are wrong.
Pharmacy: the spend nobody's watching
Twelve questions to ask about a contract that is probably growing faster than the rest of your plan.
Paying the real price
Why hospital prices are so hard to see, and how to judge reference-based pricing without the sales pitch.
Vendor selection without getting played
How to read an ROI slide and run a selection you can defend.
The renewal is not a verdict
Why the renewal number is a starting point, and what to do before you sign.
Open enrollment that doesn't break you
Three weeks of work, twelve months of consequences, and the control sheet that protects both.
Compliance without panic
Which hat you're wearing, the six folders every plan should be able to find, and real risk versus marketed risk.
Making employees actually value it
What employees are really judging, and how to get credit without spin.
Benefits should not be a surprise
How to bring finance a case they can evaluate, in their language.
Why nothing changes
The loop that keeps a bad plan in place, and when doing nothing is the right call.
What good actually looks like
The Benefits Maturity Ladder, and a scoreboard you can run every year.
