Until 2011, the church offered its employees a standard benefits package, including major medical coverage with a modest deductible, life insurance, and optional group dental and vision coverage. But it wasn’t cheap. The church’s last annual premium increase, Neil says, was a little more than 50 percent of the previous year’s premium. “That plan was just cost prohibitive,” she says.

To save money, the church’s broker moved them to a major medical plan with a higher deductible, plus a discount plan.

“We thought it would be a nice buffer, a way of easing the burden a little of going to a higher-deductible major medical plan,” says Danny O’Connell, a partner at the Dallas-based Benefit Resource Group and the church’s broker.