We are an extension of your HR team, not just a broker you hear from at renewal.
We have been independent since 2007 and provide dedicated teams of five on every account.
Benefits Consulting by Company Size
Small Group
No employer mandate yet, but every compliance rule underneath it still applies.
Mid-Market
The mandate applies and your claims data finally means something.
Large Group
Self-funding, annual stop-loss marketing, multi-state populations.
Enterprise
Carve-outs, captives, and a vendor stack that has to talk to itself.
A 30-person employer and a 400-person employer have almost nothing in common at renewal.
The rules, the funding options and the leverage all change as you grow. Every band above is a different conversation — and a different set of numbers.
Most renewal conversations only cover the first of these four.
Cost
What the renewal asks for, and how much of it is enrollment mix rather than rates.
Plan Performance
Whether the design you bought is still matched to how your people use it.
Risk
What you are carrying, what the carrier is carrying, and whether that split still suits you.
Administration
The eligibility file, the eventual audit, and everything nobody quotes on.
Benefits specialists. A compliance bench. One number to call.
Renewal & Funding Strategy
Fully insured, level-funded and self-funded modeled against each other with your own numbers — so the decision is arithmetic, not a pitch.
Compliance
ACA, ERISA, COBRA, HIPAA, PCORI and Form 5500, with CPAs and attorneys available through the firm when a question warrants it.
Benefits Administration
Platform selection, open enrollment build, and the eligibility files between payroll, ben-admin and the carrier that quietly cost employers money.
Claims Advocacy
Your people call us, not the carrier. Billing mismatches, denied claims and enrollment problems come off your HR desk and onto ours.
Benchmarking
Your plan measured against our survey of nearly 1,000 employers, so “competitive” is a number you can take to your CFO rather than an adjective.
Multi-State & Multinational
Licensed in the states our clients hire into — because a carrier strong in your home market is often thin where you just hired, and that is a plan-design question.
Pharmacy Benefit Consulting
PBM contract and rebate audits, specialty drug management, and formulary strategy — the line item that now moves faster than medical trend.
Voluntary & Ancillary Benefits
Dental, vision, life and disability rarely get the scrutiny medical gets, which is how they quietly renew for years at rates nobody has tested.
Wellbeing & Population Health
Programs chosen against your own claims and biometric data, built toward outcomes rather than participation credits.
Alternative Funding & Stop-Loss
Level-funded, self-funded and captive options modeled side by side, with the stop-loss relationship managed every year after.
Executive Benefits
Supplemental life and disability, nonqualified deferred compensation, and key person coverage for the people standard group limits do not reach.
Leave & Absence Management
FMLA, state paid-leave mandates and disability benefits coordinated on one calendar instead of three that quietly conflict.
ICHRA Strategy & Support
Modeled against your own census, with class design, compliance and employee transition handled end to end.
PEO Advisory
An honest comparison of staying direct versus a professional employer organization, on your actual numbers.
Fiduciary & Governance Services
Health plan sponsors are ERISA fiduciaries too. We help build the process and the record that shows you met the duty.
Taft-Hartley & multiemployer benefits
Contribution schedules, hours-bank eligibility and delinquency risk for employers signatory to a jointly trusteed welfare fund.
FSA & HRA Administration
Substantiation, runout periods and nondiscrimination testing handled correctly, so a routine plan never becomes an audit risk.
HSA & Consumer-Driven Health Plans
Plan design, HSA vendor selection and the employee education that determines whether the savings actually show up.
COBRA Administration
Qualifying event notices, election windows and premium collection, handled on the calendar the law actually requires.
Medicare & Retiree Benefits Guidance
Real guidance for employees turning 65 and for employers who offer retiree coverage, not a pamphlet.
Group Retiree Medical
A retiree plan is not the active plan with older people on it. Which retirees you keep, what Medicare pays first, and what the promise costs to carry are three separate decisions, and running them as one is how the number gets away from you.
Medicare Maximization
Some of your retirees under sixty-five already qualify for Medicare through disability, which makes your plan the second payer for them. Nothing in ordinary plan administration surfaces those people, so somebody has to go looking.
Claims Audit & Recovery
Most claims are paid on trust, so we audit what you already paid and pursue what is recoverable before the correction window closes.
How a Claims Audit Runs
What decides whether an audit is worth running, what we ask for, and what comes back to you at the end of it.
Direct Contracting & Centers of Excellence
Buying particular care at a price and a quality standard you set, where volume and geography make the contracting worth the work.
Total Compensation Statements
A personalized statement showing employees what their salary plus benefits are actually worth, delivered at open enrollment.
Employee communications
The messaging that makes an open enrollment or plan change land the way it was actually designed to, not however it happens to be read.
HR Consulting & Advisory
The handbook that drifted from practice, the classification question, the policy nobody applied twice the same way — the workforce problems that arrive attached to a benefits question.
Compensation Strategy & Total Rewards
Pay priced against the market rather than set by instinct, and costed as a whole package, because that is what an offer is actually accepted or declined on.
Employee Benefits Concierge
A quick, correct answer at the hour the question occurs — because most of what an employee needs is not a claim, it is an answer before it becomes one.
Lifestyle & Specialty Spending Accounts
Commuter, dependent care and education accounts: not medical, but carrying the same substantiation rules, and failing the same way when those are skipped.
Where we work
Michigan is home. The work is not.
These are the states where we run benefits programs today. A workforce that crosses state lines stays with the same team, the same analyst and the same service desk.
- Bloomfield Hills, MI
- Colorado Springs, CO
- Houston, TX
Employers come to us at one of six moments.
Not an industry list. These are the situations that actually send an employer looking for a different benefits consultant — and the ones we handle most.
Offering Benefits for the First Time
No history, no benchmark, no idea what is normal. We build the first plan and the budget around it, and set the expectations your staff will hold you to for years.
A Renewal That Came Back in Double Digits
Before you accept it or move the whole plan, someone should be able to tell you which part is your own claims, which part is trend, and which part is still negotiable.
Just Crossed Fifty Employees
The employer mandate applies, 1094-C and 1095-C reporting starts, and funding options that were closed to you are suddenly open. Most service models do not change to match.
Growing Across State Lines
One carrier, several states, and a network that gets thin the moment you hire outside the home market. We are licensed in the states our clients hire into, and build for that.
An HR Team of One
Benefits sit alongside recruiting, payroll, onboarding and everything else. We take ACA reporting, COBRA and eligibility-file problems off that desk entirely.
Changing Carriers Mid-Stream
A move between carriers is where deductibles reset, eligibility files break and employees lose confidence. It is a project, and it needs running as one.
You don’t call a broker. You call your dedicated team of five.
Five people assigned to your account, drawn from a team of benefits professionals. Nobody goes on holiday and takes your renewal with them.
Account Executive
Owns the strategy and the carrier relationship.
Account Manager
Runs the day-to-day and the renewal calendar.
Plan Analyst
Reads the claims through the year, not at renewal.
Customer Service
Takes your employees’ calls so your HR team doesn’t.
IT
Owns eligibility files, payroll integration and the ben-admin platform — the seat most brokers don’t have.
What it looks like when it goes right.
“In those 3 years we have not had a rate increase on any of our benefits.”
“We began offering employee benefits with CFH’s help when we had eight employees. In three years we’ve grown to have employees in seven states, and two countries… CFH has guided us through every step and we know whenever we have a question or our employees do, they have answers.”
“They make us feel like we are their only client.”
“We always felt comfortable with our old broker and we had been with them for over ten years without a hiccup, but we never felt special… For many of our employees English is a second language. CFH makes sure that those employees get multi-lingual access and explanations of the programs that we offer, there is no drop off because of language barrier.”
We do not go to market to find out what your plan should cost. We go to confirm it.
Marketing a plan is one instrument. Which instrument to use, and whether to use it at all this year, is the part that decides your cost.
The Number Is Set Before the Market Sets It
Your renewal is taken apart before anyone is asked to quote: how much is trend, how much is your own claims experience, how much is simply who joined and who left. Measured against filed rates where they exist and against your own history where they do not. That number is what every proposal then gets held to.
Whether to Go Out Is Part of the Advice
Going to market every year is not automatically in your interest. A plan with credible experience and a carrier pricing it fairly is sometimes better renegotiated than moved, and disruption has a cost that never appears on a rate sheet. Telling you which year is which is the job.
Comparable, Not Merely Collected
When we do go out, every proposal is restated against the same enrolled count and the same benefit volumes. A carrier can beat your current plan on every per-unit rate and still cost more, because it priced on its own estimate of your payroll and lives. We have seen exactly that, and it is invisible until the volumes are normalized.
You Get an Answer, Not a Comparison to Interpret
Which option to take, what it costs to take it, and what you give up if you do. Plan design, administration and disruption weighed against price, because the cheapest quote and the right decision are frequently not the same quote.
The questions employers ask us most, answered in full.
Written for the person who has to present the decision internally, not for a search engine.
Self-funded or fully insured?
What actually changes when you take on the claims risk — cash flow, stop-loss, and the point at which the arithmetic starts to favor one over the other.
The ERISA Compliance Checklist
Plan documents, summary plan descriptions, Form 5500 and the notices with deadlines attached. What is required, who it applies to, and when.
What Benchmarking Actually Tells You
Comparing your plan to employers your size is only useful if you know which comparisons mean something. These are the ones that do.
Reference-Based Pricing, Without the Sales Pitch
What it is, what the published research actually shows, and an honest read on when it fits a group and when it does not.
Looking for an employee benefits broker Bloomfield Hills employers can actually reach?
Most January 1 renewals land in October or November. The rate increase shows up, open enrollment is weeks away, and there is little time to shop. If that sounds familiar, you need an employee benefits broker Bloomfield Hills companies can call. You should get a real answer the same day, not next week.
CFH Insurance Consultants is an independent employee benefits consulting firm. We have been in business since 2007, and no carrier owns us. Our office is at 41000 Woodward Avenue, Suite 350 East, in Bloomfield Hills. We work with employers in Birmingham, Troy, Southfield, Royal Oak, West Bloomfield and across Oakland County. We also serve employers across the whole state of Michigan, with offices in Colorado Springs and Houston too. We are a member of the Birmingham Bloomfield Chamber.
Who’s the best employee benefits broker near me?
The best broker for you is the one who does the work after the sale. Plenty of firms along Woodward Avenue can quote a plan. Fewer stay with you through claims, audits and the next renewal. Here is what to check before you hire an employee benefits broker in Bloomfield Hills:
- Are they independent? An independent broker can quote many carriers, not just one.
- Who answers the phone? Ask who helps when an employee’s claim is denied in March.
- How are they paid? A good broker tells you plainly.
- Can they explain your renewal? Ask them to walk you through last year’s rate increase line by line.
For proper coverage of an account, we work in teams of 5. Each team has an account executive, an account manager, a plan analyst, customer service and IT. You get a team, not one person who might be out of the office. That is the standard we hold ourselves to as an employee benefits broker Bloomfield Hills employers rely on.
Health Insurance Agency
Group health insurance is the biggest benefit cost for most employers. As a health insurance agency, we quote the carriers Michigan employers use. These include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Priority Health, Health Alliance Plan (HAP), UnitedHealthcare, Aetna and Cigna. We compare plans side by side and explain the trade-offs. Our Health Insurance Agency page covers this in more detail.
More on Health Insurance Agency →
Life Insurance Agency
Group life insurance pays a benefit to an employee’s family if the employee dies. As a life insurance agency, we set up basic life the employer pays for and extra life employees can buy. One tax rule to know: employer-paid group term life above $50,000 is taxable to the employee. Our Life Insurance Agency page explains more.
More on Life Insurance Agency →
Dental Insurance Agency
Dental coverage is one of the benefits employees ask about most. As a dental insurance agency, we compare dental plans, networks and yearly maximums. The goal is a plan that fits your budget and your people. We can set it up as employer-paid or employee-paid. Our Dental Insurance Agency page has the details.
More on Dental Insurance Agency →
Income Protection Insurance Agency
Income protection means disability insurance. It replaces part of a paycheck when an employee cannot work due to illness or injury. Michigan has no state disability program, so group short-term and long-term disability matter here. As an income protection insurance agency, we quote and set up both. Our Income Protection Insurance Agency page goes deeper.
More on Income Protection Insurance Agency →
Employee Benefits Consulting
Employee benefits consulting means looking at your whole benefits program, not just one policy. We review cost, plan design, contributions, compliance and how your plan runs day to day. Then we give you a plan for the next renewal and the one after. Clients in Birmingham, Royal Oak and Rochester Hills use it to budget a year ahead. This is the core of what an employee benefits broker Bloomfield Hills employers hire should do.
More on Employee Benefits Consulting →
Mid-Market Benefits Consulting
Once you pass 50 employees in Michigan, your own claims start to count in your rates. The ACA employer mandate also applies at 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees. FMLA applies at 50 or more employees within 75 miles. Mid-market benefits consulting helps companies in this range manage all three at once.
More on Mid-Market Benefits Consulting →
Corporate Benefits Consulting
Larger employers often have more locations, more plan options and a benefits committee to report to. Corporate benefits consulting gives you a team that can prepare the numbers, explain the options and keep records of the decisions. Our team of 5 model gives larger accounts steady, day-to-day support.
More on Corporate Benefits Consulting →
Employee Benefits Design
Employee benefits design is choosing what goes in your plan: HMO, PPO, or a high-deductible plan with a health savings account (HSA). Some employers add direct primary care, a flat monthly fee for a doctor. IRS guidance in 2026 lets it sit alongside an HSA within monthly limits ($150 individual / $300 family). A Society of Actuaries study found it lowered care use but did not lower net employer cost on average.
More on Employee Benefits Design →
Renewal & Funding Strategy
Your funding model is how you pay for health claims. Small groups of 50 or fewer are fully insured, with rates set by carrier filings, ages and ZIP codes. 2027 small-group rate filings with Michigan’s Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) average close to 10%. Larger groups can look at level-funded, self-funded with stop-loss, or group health captive plans. We start renewal work early, well before the October rush. An employee benefits broker Bloomfield Hills employers hire should never hand you a renewal the week it is due.
More on Renewal & Funding Strategy →
Benefits Benchmarking
Benchmarking shows how your plan compares with other employers like you. We can show you what peers in your size and industry offer, based on our survey of nearly 1,000 employers. It helps you decide where to spend and where you are ahead of the market.
More on Benefits Benchmarking →
Benefits Compliance
Benefits compliance is the set of federal rules your plan must follow. We help keep you ERISA compliant. Key dates: Medicare Part D creditable coverage notices by October 15. Form 5500 and the PCORI fee by July 31 for calendar-year plans that must file. Forms 1095-C early each year for ACA-covered employers. We can help you with the filing. An employee benefits broker Bloomfield Hills companies use should track these dates so you do not have to.
Fiduciary & Governance Services
ERISA is the federal law for employer plans. Under it, the person running your plan is a fiduciary. That means a legal duty to act for plan members. We help you set up a simple process: regular reviews, written decisions and vendor checks. Our clients also get access to CPAs and ERISA attorneys through the firm. Michigan now licenses pharmacy benefit managers under Public Act 11 of 2022.
More on Fiduciary & Governance Services →
Multi-State & Multinational Benefits
If your team works in more than one state, your plan needs a network that reaches them. National carriers like UnitedHealthcare, Aetna and Cigna can cover staff across the country. We have offices in Bloomfield Hills, Colorado Springs and Houston. If some of your people work outside the US, tell us early. We can look at coverage for them next to your US plan.
More on Multi-State & Multinational Benefits →
PEO Advisory
A PEO (professional employer organization) co-employs your staff. It puts them on its own benefit plan. We are not a PEO. We advise on the pros and cons of using one. If you decide to leave, we help coordinate the move and place replacement group coverage.
Taft-Hartley & Multiemployer Benefits
A Taft-Hartley plan is also called a multiemployer plan. It is a benefit plan run by a board of union and employer trustees. Employers pay in under a union contract. We work with trustees and contributing employers on plan reviews, market checks and compliance questions.
More on Taft-Hartley & Multiemployer Benefits →
Claims Advocacy
When an employee’s claim is denied or stuck, they should not have to fight the carrier alone. Our customer service team works with the carrier on the employee’s behalf. We find out why the claim was denied and what is needed to fix it. Your HR team gets the problem off its desk.
Claims Audit & Recovery
If your plan is self-funded or level-funded, you pay the claims, so errors cost you directly. A claims audit is an independent check of what your administrator and pharmacy benefit manager paid. When overpayments turn up, we pursue recovery. We can also check that every dependent on the plan is eligible.
More on Claims Audit & Recovery →
Benefits Administration
Benefits administration is the day-to-day work of running a plan: enrollment, new hires, life changes and terminations. We give you an online enrollment platform, set it up and connect it to your carriers. For COBRA, FSA and HRA, we find, set up and oversee the administrator. We hold the administrator to its contract.
More on Benefits Administration →
Benefits & Payroll Integration
Payroll deductions should match what employees chose at enrollment. We connect your enrollment platform to your payroll system so changes flow through and fewer mistakes happen. We do not run payroll. We do the connection between benefits and payroll so your team is not typing the same data twice.
More on Benefits & Payroll Integration →
Employee Benefits Communications
A good plan only helps if employees understand it. We build benefits guides, open enrollment materials and short explainers in plain language. We can also help run open enrollment meetings in the fall. Clear communication means fewer questions for HR and better use of the plan.
More on Employee Benefits Communications →
Employee Benefits Concierge
Employees have questions all year: which doctor is in network, why a bill looks wrong, how to add a new baby. Our concierge service gives them a team to call. A chat assistant also answers around the clock. HR stops being the benefits help desk. For a small office in West Bloomfield or a larger one in Auburn Hills, that time adds up fast.
More on Employee Benefits Concierge →
HR Consulting & Advisory
Benefits and HR rules overlap. Michigan’s Earned Sick Time Act has been in effect since February 2025. FMLA applies at 50 or more employees within 75 miles. We help you sort out which rules apply to you. When a question needs a specialist, our clients can reach CPAs and ERISA attorneys through the firm.
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Compensation Strategy & Total Rewards
Total rewards means pay plus benefits plus everything else you offer. When you hire in Troy or Southfield, candidates compare the whole package. We help you look at pay and benefits together, using benchmarking data. That way your offer holds up against other employers hiring the same people.
More on Compensation Strategy & Total Rewards →
Total Compensation Statements
Most employees do not know what their benefits cost the company. A total compensation statement is a yearly report for each employee. It shows pay plus the employer share of health, dental, life and disability premiums and HSA contributions. We help you build them so employees see the full value.
More on Total Compensation Statements →
Lifestyle & Specialty Spending Accounts
A lifestyle spending account (LSA) is money the employer sets aside for employees. They can use it for things like gym fees, child care or home office costs. It is taxable to the employee, but it is flexible. We help you design the rules, then find, set up and oversee the administrator.
More on Lifestyle & Specialty Spending Accounts →
Voluntary Benefits
Voluntary benefits are plans employees choose and pay for through payroll deduction, often at group rates. Common ones are accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity and extra life coverage. They cost the employer little and give employees more choice. We help you pick a short, useful list.
Pet Insurance
Pet insurance helps employees pay vet bills for a sick or injured pet. It is usually offered as a voluntary benefit that employees pay for. It is a popular add-on that costs the employer little. We can add it to your enrollment so employees sign up with everything else.
Employee Insurance
Employee insurance is the full set of group coverage you give your team. That means medical, dental, vision, life and disability, plus any voluntary plans. We quote, place and service all of it in one place. One employee benefits broker in Bloomfield Hills for every line makes renewal season simpler.
What do I do if my renewal comes back high?
Do not sign it yet. A high renewal is a starting point. Here is what to do:
- Check the census. The census is the employee list the carrier used to price your plan. Errors in ages or ZIP codes can raise your rate.
- Ask for the breakdown. If you have more than 50 employees, ask how much came from your claims. Then ask how much came from trend, the general rise in medical costs.
- Get a market check. Have your broker quote other carriers before November, when January 1 deadlines get close.
- Look at plan design and contributions. Small changes can bring the number down without dropping coverage.
If your current broker has not done this, you can switch. It takes one broker of record letter. Your carrier, plan, cards and rates stay the same. Any employee benefits broker Bloomfield Hills employers trust should be able to explain this in plain words.
Talk to an Employee Benefits Broker Bloomfield Hills Employers Can Count On
Send us your renewal, or book a 30-minute call with an employee benefits broker Bloomfield Hills employers have worked with since 2007. We will review it and tell you what we see. Visit us at 41000 Woodward Avenue, Suite 350 East, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304, or call 248.370.8853. We serve Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, Troy, Rochester Hills, Auburn Hills, Pontiac, Novi, Detroit and employers across Michigan.
Send us your renewal.
We’ll tell you whether it looks competitive, where we see opportunity, and the five questions we’d put to your carrier. No cost, and no obligation to move anything.
The renewal letter
Your current plan summary
Contribution split by tier
Enrolled counts by tier
Four documents — two more if your group is 50 or more. Nothing else; every extra one is a reason to postpone.
Get the next issue.
Once a quarter: what Michigan carriers filed, what employers are actually paying, and what it means for your next renewal.
An independent employee benefits consulting firm. We look at the entire benefits program — cost, plan performance, risk and administration.
Switch to CFH. Unhappy with your broker? Your employees won’t notice. You will. →
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304
248.370.8853
Colorado Springs, CO 80921
719.425.2649
Houston, TX 77084
281.404.5670