> Advocate
Chamber offers a
Spectrum of benefits
F
By Jason A. Smith
or many businesses, health insur-
ance is an unavoidable cost.
Tom Dorywalski with Taylor
Insurance has been in the insurance
industry for 17 years and is aware
of the changes that have taken place
in the health-care marketplace.
“What I’ve seen in the marketplace is there
has been a rough 250% increase in the last 10
years,” he said about the cost of health insur-
ance. “It’s been especially bad in the South. The
common person can’t afford health insurance
which means the common person can’t afford
health care.”
With the health-care marketplace hav-
ing changed so much, the Valdosta-Lowndes
County Chamber of Commerce partnered with
Taylor Insurance to offer a group insurance plan
to its members two years ago.
Taylor Insurance was the architect in build-
ing the Chamber Spectrum Benefits program,
said Dorywalski, benefits advisor for Taylor
Insurance. When Taylor Insurance brought the
idea of Chamber Spectrum to Myrna Ballard,
the chamber’s president, “she immediately saw
the benefits of it to the community.”
“Today, the average per employer per year
savings is just short of $3,000,” Dorywalski said.
These savings are a change from what Do-
rywalski has been told by businesses for years:
“There is nothing you can do about (insurance).
The claims are the claims.”
Taylor now has a response for those
businesses and says that Chamber Spectrum
Benefits are “changing the game and there is
something we can do about reducing costs for
those businesses.”
Group health insurance works by using the
buying and negotiating power of a large group,
but individualizing health-care plans for all of
12
the businesses in the group, Dorywalski said.
All of the businesses, from small to large, are
then able to benefit from being a part of a larger
group but still have their specific needs met.
“From my perspective, to be able to find
something like this and bring it into the com-
munity and to offer roughly $1.6 million in
premium savings is beneficial for everyone,” Do-
rywalski said. “What we have seen is that busi-
nesses are taking these savings and reinvesting it
back into their people. It’s not just the business-
es, but the people are coming out ahead.”
Chloe Wade, membership and events direc-
tor, echoed Dorywalski statement by adding: “It
benefits the community because when some-
one opens a small business – and say there are
only three people – when the owner gets sick,
they have to shut down the whole business for
the day. So when they are able to get treatment
sooner and get back to work sooner, they can
get back to work sooner than they would have if
they didn’t have insurance.”
There are currently about 500 employees
insured through Chamber Spectrum, Dorywal-
ski said. The buying power of the 500 employees
is just a small portion of the potential power
the chamber would have if all 1,200 chamber
businesses joined the program.
Dorywalski said the most exciting part of
the program is when an employer moves to
Chamber Spectrum benefits and the move saves
the business money, “the employee saves money,
and it frees up capital for the employer to give
other benefits to employees. That has been tre-
mendous.”
When asked about the effectiveness of
Chamber Spectrum Benefits, he said: “I have it
on my family. I wouldn’t put my wife and kids
on something that doesn’t make sense.”
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