Charlie Hopgood

COBRA administration isn't one deadline. Here's the exact notice timeline small business employers need to know — 90-day general notice, 30-day employer notice, 14-day election notice, and what the IRS charges when one is missed.

Most benefits brokers can run open enrollment entirely remotely now — a self-service portal, a few emails, maybe a webinar. Technically, that's enough to check the box. We still show up in person, every year, for clients around Norman and OKC. Here's why we haven't stopped. What "Full-Service" Usually Means Now A lot of the industry has moved open enrollment almost entirely online. It's efficient, it scales, and for a lot of brokerages, it's what "full-service" has come to mean. But it also...

At most small businesses, employee benefits runs through exactly one person. That works fine — until the week that person is out sick, on vacation, or has left the company entirely, and it happens to land during open enrollment, a new hire's eligibility window, or a COBRA deadline. Why This Job Function Ends Up as a Single Point of Failure Benefits administration tends to concentrate in one person almost by accident — usually whoever handled the initial carrier setup. None of that gets...