Renewal season, 2027 plan year
Your renewal letter came in high. Here’s what you can offset without touching your plan.
Every fix on the usual renewal checklist changes your plan or shifts cost onto your people. This one does neither. Type in two numbers from the letter on your desk and see how much of the increase comes back, up to $640 per enrolled employee. No email, and we don’t save what you type.
01 · Your number
Put your renewal next to what you’d get back.
Two numbers you already know: how many people you employ and the percentage on the letter. If you know what the plan costs you each month, add that too and you get the exact share.
For a 50-person company, that’s up to $31,998 a year against the increase, if all 50 enroll.
The question
How do I offset a health insurance renewal increase without changing my group plan?
Recover the FICA payroll tax you're overpaying and use it to fund care your employees actually use. SIMERP adds a pre-tax election alongside your existing plan, so your broker, carrier and coverage stay exactly as they are, and up to $640 per enrolled employee per year comes back to the business.
02 · The list
Every renewal checklist gives you the same six moves.
Search what to do about a renewal increase and you get the same list every time. We read the articles that come up first. Not one of them mentions payroll tax, and every move on the list changes your plan or your employees’ paychecks. Your people notice every change to the plan. They’d only notice this one on payday.
The question
What about switching to an ICHRA, going level-funded, or joining a PEO?
Each of those can lower the number on the letter, and each one changes your plan or your employees' paychecks: an ICHRA ends the group plan, level funding puts claims risk on you, and a PEO moves payroll and benefits into someone else's pool. SIMERP adds to what you have.
| The move | What changes |
|---|---|
| Shop the market | A new carrier, new networks, and employees who notice on day one. |
| Switch to an ICHRA | The group plan goes away and everyone buys their own coverage. |
| Go level-funded | You take on claims risk you didn't carry before. |
| Join a PEO | You hand payroll and your health plan to somebody else's pool. |
| Raise the deductible | Your people pay more before the plan pays anything. |
| Shift more of the premium to employees | Their paychecks shrink, participation drops, and your rate follows it. |
| Keep the plan and recover payroll tax | Nothing about your plan changes. Up to $640 per enrolled employee comes back to the business every year, and your people get care with no copay. |
If one of those six is the option on your desk, here’s what each one changes for your plan and for your people: Should I switch to an ICHRA, go level-funded, or join a PEO when my renewal goes up?
03 · Your people's families
Your employees and their families get a doctor who picks up, and you're the reason why.
Picture one of your people at his kitchen table on a Thursday night. His wife's blood pressure pills are almost gone, and the soonest appointment to renew them is three weeks out, so she's been cutting what's left in half to make them last. Their fourteen-year-old hasn't been himself since spring, and nobody's made a call about that, because who would they even call, and what would it cost? None of that reaches your desk.
With the care you put in place, that night goes differently. She opens the app, and a doctor picks up, typically in under 20 minutes. If her pills are among the over 1,000 medications at no cost, the refill ships to the house. She books the primary care visit she kept putting off, and she gets it in days with a board-certified physician. They make the call about their son to a licensed clinician who works with teens. They don't pay a copay, a deductible or a fee for any of it.
You make one decision, and every enrolled employee plus up to 6 legal dependents gets a doctor who picks up. Gross pay doesn't change, and your group plan doesn't change. The same election that lowers your payroll tax bill lowers the wages your people are taxed on, so their take-home pay goes up. SIMERP isn't insurance and doesn't replace your plan. It's medical care next to the plan you already have.
An illustration of one night with the care in place, not one family's real story.
AMN Healthcare's 2025 survey of 15 of the largest U.S. metro areas put a new patient's typical wait for a family medicine appointment at 23.5 days. Source below.
The question
What do my employees actually get with SIMERP?
With SIMERP, every enrolled employee, plus up to 6 legal dependents, gets urgent care around the clock, primary care appointments in days, mental health support from licensed clinicians, over 1,000 medications at no cost, and physician-supervised weight health, with no copay, deductible or fee. Take-home pay goes up. SIMERP isn't insurance, and the group plan stays as it is.
- Under 20 minUrgent careA doctor picks up around the clock, typically in under 20 minutes.
- Days, not weeksPrimary careYou get an appointment with a board-certified physician in days.
- 24/7Mental healthLicensed clinicians pick up at any hour for adults and teens, and the counseling continues after the first call.
- 1,000+MedicationsThere's no cost on over 1,000 medications. The ones you take every day ship to the house, and one-time prescriptions you pick up at the pharmacy.
- $0copays, deductibles or fees for the care itself
- Up to 6legal dependents per employee, at no added cost
- $160.88more take-home a month in the modeled Virginia example, after all program costs
“The day after Christmas I think every person in my house had the flu, and I think everybody in America had the flu. That was the one time I waited an hour for a call back. Within two hours I had prescriptions sitting at my local pharmacy, and my daughter, my granddaughter, my dad, my son and I had all been seen. Not one of us went to a doctor’s office.”
04 · The clock
Start now and you’re recovering payroll tax before the new rate hits.
It takes 30 to 60 days to launch, and your HR team spends under 5 hours on the whole thing. A company that starts in September has the first savings on a payroll before the new rate takes effect.
The question
Does a Section 125 plan help with a health insurance renewal increase?
It can offset part of it. A Section 125 election lowers the wages FICA is calculated on, so you stop overpaying payroll tax on those amounts. SIMERP adds medical care to that election and returns up to $640 per enrolled employee per year, which you can put against the increase while your group plan stays untouched.
- 01
A 20 minute Discovery Call
We run your headcount and payroll and tell you what you've been sending the IRS that the tax code never required. If it's worth pursuing, we ask for your census. Under 50 employees, it starts with the Wednesday briefing instead, a live group session that covers the same ground.
- 02
Your Recovery Ledger
We build your exact number from your payroll, line by line, and walk you through it on a follow-up call. No cost, no obligation.
- 03
Launch in 30 to 60 days
We prepare the plan documents, hand your payroll provider the exact codes, and sign your employees up. The first savings show up on the next payroll.
This sits alongside the health plan you already have. It isn’t insurance and it doesn’t replace anything. It pays for itself out of payroll tax you’re sending the IRS today.
05 · The catch
What the IRS warned about, and why this isn’t it.
In 2023 the IRS said that wellness arrangements which hand employees cash back whether or not they used any medical care are taxable wages. That’s the line. The statutes, the regulation and the plan documents are on the compliance page, and there’s a page for CPAs when the question comes from yours.
The question
Is SIMERP the wellness plan the IRS warned about?
No. The IRS warned about arrangements that hand employees cash back whether or not they use any medical care. SIMERP reimburses actual medical care under Treasury Regulation §1.105-2, the test the IRS enforces. The statutes, the regulation and the plan documents are at simerp.com/compliance.
Where the outside numbers come from
The full set of 2027 numbers, and where your renewal sits against them, is at How much are small-group health insurance premiums going up for 2027?
- 14%: median increase small-group insurers filed for 2027. KFF analysis of preliminary rate filings, reported by Healthcare Dive, August 7, 2026. Source
- 8.2%: Mercer's projected rise in employer health cost per employee for 2027, the largest since 2003. Mercer, Survey on Health and Benefit Strategies for 2027, August 31, 2026. Source
- 23.5 days: a new patient's typical wait for a family medicine appointment across 15 of the largest U.S. metro areas. AMN Healthcare / Merritt Hawkins, 2025 Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times, May 27, 2025. Source
See your number against your renewal.
The Savings Assessment takes three minutes. You get an estimate on the spot, and with 50 or more W-2 employees you pick a Discovery Call time right after. Nothing about your plan changes.