As employee benefit advisors, itis our responsibility to remain vigilant and well-informed onbehalf of our clients and their employees.  We should beaware of all regulatory, financial and product-centered changes inour industry, and communicate them in a timely manner. But it's even more important that we actively listen to our clientsif we want to maintain a truly consultative relationship withintheir organizations.  These five sentiments have alreadybeen expressed by decision-makers in 2019 regarding employeebenefits:

1. “It's still too expensive, but we can't just keeppassing the increases on to our employees.”

For some time now, the increasing costs of health care andmedical insurance have necessitated a passing of the buck fromemployers to their employees.  Employers are aware thatproviding a competitive medical plan is vital to attracting toptalent to their organization.  However, they also knowthat doing so becomes a thorn in the side of theirprofitability.  The consensus among decision-makers isthat they cannot continue to pass the almost inevitable annualincrease in benefit costs to their employees.  The buckmust stop here, they believe.