CG Employee Benefits Cuts Manual Work by 50% with Employee Navigator
How a Miami broker migrated 30 groups off Ease, cut manual enrollment work nearly in half, and built a system that scales with growth.
The Challenge: Moving Beyond Manual Enrollment (on Ease)
CG Employee Benefits is a Miami-based agency focused solely on employee benefits. Owner Sebastian Ricaurte has worked in the industry for more than 20 years, starting as a carrier rep with Prudential Healthcare before opening his own agency a decade ago. Today, CG’s six-person team supports roughly 40 groups, most between 10 and 50 employees.
Before Employee Navigator, Ricaurte ran enrollment the way most brokers did: by hand. Every employee add, term, and change meant logging into individual carrier websites and manually re-entering information already on file. “Before we used the Employee Navigator Data Exchange, everything was manual for us,” Ricaurte said. “We would get additions and deletions and have to go to each carrier’s website to make the changes and ensure they were processed.”
At the time, Ricaurte co-brokered a shared book on Ease with a partner. When that partnership ended and his new partner preferred Employee Navigator, he made the switch.
The Switch: A Smooth Transition, One Group at a Time
Rather than moving his whole book at once, Ricaurte took a renewal-by-renewal approach, migrating each group to Employee Navigator as its plan year came up. “I did it upon renewal, one by one,” he said. In total, he moved 30 groups from Ease to Employee Navigator this way.
The learning curve was short. Ricaurte says he felt comfortable in the system after his third group, and fully proficient within about six months. His confidence was in large part due to help from the Employee Navigator’s support team. “Your customer service is incredible, especially compared to Ease,” he said. “Your system is user-friendly and intuitive.”
“Compared to Ease, Employee Navigator has a lot more functionality. The reporting is a lot more flexible. Ease was pretty cookie-cutter, built for small groups under 20 lives. Employee Navigator is just a better system overall.” — Sebastian Ricaurte, Owner, CG Employee Benefits
Cutting Manual Work in Half with Carrier Integrations
Today, 90% of CG’s clients are connected through Employee Navigator’s carrier integrations, including Principal, Mutual of Omaha, UnitedHealthcare, and Aetna. Ricaurte connects every client he can. “I integrate all my clients,” he said. “The data exchange works great and saves us a lot of time.”
The ancillary carrier connections have been especially valuable. Describing his life and disability feeds with Principal and Mutual of Omaha, he said, “It’s set it and forget it. Once you get used to that, why would I place cases with anyone else?” Whether or not a carrier is integrated with Employee Navigator factors heavily into his recommendations to groups. “All things being equal, if I can connect (a connected carrier like) Aetna, I’m going to push Aetna,” he said. “It really is night and day.”
Ricaurte estimates the integrations save his team roughly 70% of the time they used to spend on making manual enrollment changes. “Once I terminate someone, it’s terminated on the other side too,” he said. “That’s the difference. There are a lot fewer errors.”
Managing More Clients with a Lean Team
Ricaurte also relies on Employee Navigator as the system of record for CG’s entire book of business. Renewal history, rate and contribution history, benefit summaries, and enrollment records all live in one place. “If there’s a question, I just go in and see what benefits someone has, how much they’re paying, and what’s coming out of payroll,” he said. “Everything is organized in Employee Navigator, and it helps streamline our workflow.”
“I couldn’t manage the amount of clients I have with the staff that we have without Employee Navigator.” — Sebastian Ricaurte, Owner, CG Employee Benefits
That level of organization has helped CG manage a growing book of business without adding more staff.
Support That Doesn’t Miss a Beat
Ricaurte contrasts Employee Navigator’s support with Ease’s support before the Employee Navigator acquisition, where fourth-quarter hold times could stretch past ten minutes. “Employee Navigator always picks up the phone within a minute or two,” he said. “And whoever picks up knows the system inside and out. I’d say 95% of the time they have the answer immediately. When they do need to get back to me, it’s the same day. You can tell everyone who picks up the phone is part of the company, not a call center,” he added. “It’s incredible, on par with Amex customer service.”
Expanding Automation Beyond Enrollment
Ricaurte, an early beta tester of Employee Navigator’s Bill Reconciliation tool, is optimistic about what it could mean for the reconciliation work his team already does by hand. “If reconciliation can be done in ten minutes and I can run that report every month, that’s huge time savings,” he said.
He also credits Employee Navigator’s biennial conference, his first time attending, with opening a door to payroll integration that he’d avoided since a rough payroll integration attempt years earlier. Meeting payroll vendors on-site changed his outlook, especially with a fast-growing client now asking for that capability. “We’ve had some calls, and I have more scheduled,” he said. “That connection with the vendors alone made the trip worth it.”
The Bottom Line: Why This Broker Made the Switch
Asked what he’d tell a broker still postponing a migration from Ease to Employee Navigator, Ricaurte didn’t hesitate:
“Employee Navigator is decidedly better in terms of what you can do with it. It has better reporting and significantly more integrations.” — Sebastian Ricaurte, Owner, CG Employee Benefits
For CG Employee Benefits, the impact is clear: carrier integrations have helped cut manual work roughly in half, while a centralized system of record has made it possible for a lean team to efficiently manage a growing book of business. With less time spent on administration, CG has more capacity to serve clients, pursue new business, and continue moving upmarket.
