A New Way to
Do Group Benefits

Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs) are a relatively new form of employer-sponsored health coverage that was introduced January 1, 2020.  

Traditionally, HRAs are commonly used with group health plans. Before the Affordable Care Act (A.K.A. "Obamacare") passed in 2010, it was common for small employers to use HRAs to reimburse for individual health insurance. However, unintended regulations that spun out of the ACA put a halt to the practice of reimbursing (and even penalized employers who continued doing it). Although it took a while, congress finally addressed the problem. In December 2016, a hodge-podge bill called the 21st Century Cures Act was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Obama. The bill created the Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangement (QSEHRA), making it permissible for small employers to reimburse for individual insurance if the employers (and employees) met several strict guidelines. 

With QSEHRA gaining traction, the Trump Administration issued additional guidance to expand the use of HRAs. The team behind SureCo was instrumental in lobbying for this change, and in October 2018, the U.S. Departments of the Treasury, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Labor proposed new regulations to expand the usability of health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). The rules were finalized in June 2019 and created two new types of HRAs: the Individual Coverage HRA (ICHRA) and the Excepted Benefit HRA. 

The HHS estimates that by the end of 2025, roughly 800,000 employers will offer ICHRAs to pay for insurance for more than 11 million employees.  

SureCo provides the most advanced platform for large companies to administer an ICHRA at scale. 

SureCo's Enrollment Platform provides the most advanced technology for companies to administer an Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement (ICHRA) at scale. Most of our customers have a minimum of 150 eligible employees, and we've onboarded organizations with more than 2,500 employees.

Enrolling hundreds of employees in individual plans might sound daunting, but SureCo's Enrollment Platform makes the migration and onboarding process even easier on HR teams than enrolling every employee in a traditional group health insurance plan.

Many HR professionals have longstanding relationships with their brokers, and we understand just how valuable they can be. We are a broker-first company, meaning we prefer to get brokers involved sooner rather than later in the process. 

We provide robust incentives for our broker partners to help them maintain their relationship with you. They are also encouraged to continue writing their own ancillary benefits, which we can then incorporate directly into our Enrollment Platform. 

With SureCo and your broker, you’ll have a powerhouse team behind you! 

Download our Partner Guide for more information on how SureCo works with brokers to create a winning scenario for all parties.