Consultants define their role with benefits carriers
Each month at BPM, we offer a slate of articles and content pieces that go deep on a particular topic. This month, we're focusing on consultants and the role they play in shaping benefits, pensions and investment outcomes.
Consultants and benefits providers like to call each other “partners,” but the reality of that relationship is far less tidy. It’s political, cost‑pressured, and can be defined by who carries the blame when things go wrong.
Across retirement and group benefits, consultants are trying to hold the line between provider economics and employer expectations. Yet what keeps them awake at night is much more basic. Like whether providers pick up the phone, whether a claim gets paid or whether a renewal feels fair.
On the group retirement side, June Smyth, senior actuary, practice leader, pension and retirement at Baynes & White emphasizes how consultants are really “the middleman” for their client.
“We’re really an advisor to our client,” she says. “We’re trying to encourage our clients to follow the CAP guidelines and use good governance when it comes to retirement committees and oversight of their pension or retirement plan. We find the providers provide great service and they do the tasks they need to do and the client often doesn’t really understand what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s a bit of strategy but it’s a lot of relationship building.”
While a retirement plan can technically operate without a consultant, consultants often play an important oversight role because providers may focus only on core administrative requirements and can miss broader governance needs, Smyth explains.
Where providers tend to work through a defined checklist, like producing reports and ensuring a pension committee meets at least annually, consultants, by contrast, take a wider role, Smyth suggests. They make sure regulatory filings are completed, annual member education obligations are carried out, and governance structures are properly established around the retirement plan.
She also suggests consultants add value by following up more persistently than providers often do. If a provider offers education and the client does not respond, the issue can stall. A consultant is more likely to keep pushing, find an alternative such as a recorded session, and help ensure the information still reaches plan members.
Gerrit Marais, benefits consultant at PBI Actuarial also frames the consultant as a practical intermediary when service problems arise. Because consultants tend to know the client well, they can help diagnose issues through tools like member surveys and identify where things are breaking down. Perhaps more importantly, however, they can use their network within the carrier to bypass standard channels and reach the right person faster.
It’s that access, he says, one that’s built on trust and familiarity on both sides, where consultants add their most tangible value when things go wrong.
“These relationships work best when consultants and providers collaborate on the long-term sustainability of the plans and not just annual renewals and checking the numbers,” he says, adding trust and transparency “is critical”.
“Both sides need to have some level of governance and accountability in place, knowing that you can trust somebody as we’re dealing with confidential information,” says Marais.
Meanwhile, Daniel Drolet, senior partner, group benefits at Normandin Beaudry stresses that sound consulting has to be grounded in evidence. Notably, plan design recommendations should be built on employee demographics, utilization patterns, and market data rather than instinct.
For example, if a client prioritizes an area like women's health, his team examines what's currently in place, what gaps exist, and what the market offers before making a recommendation.
“We just make sure it’s based on evidence and data, what’s available in the market and what’s going to be effective and useful for them and their employees. So there’s still some data and science behind what we do,” says Drolet.
Moreover, he believes consultants need to stay ahead of emerging trends. After all, information about new drugs, shifting employer priorities, and evolving benefit models now travels fast and crosses borders. Moreover, what surfaces in Europe or the US can quickly become relevant in Canada, and consultants who aren't tracking those developments risk falling behind their clients' expectations.
He also argues that the reasoning behind a recommendation matters as much as the recommendation itself. Clients and carriers need to understand why a particular change is being proposed - not just what it is.
“The ‘why’ is important,” he says. “Why do we recommend that? Why do we do that with the client and with the carrier and the employees? Why are we putting that in place? There’s a reason it’s important.”
Sally Hagan, managing director of group benefits and retirement at NFP, sees the consultant's role as a two-way conduit between carriers and plan sponsors. While carriers often want to know what sets them apart from competitors, she underscores how simplicity ultimately matters more than price.
"I come back to the ease of doing business. Make it easy for clients and advisors to do business with you. That doesn’t always mean come with the lowest cost. It means make my life easy to do business,” she says, highlighting smooth enrollment processes and clean administration carry more weight than a quote.
As for consultants, she frames it as a feedback channel that carriers need but don't always use well. Consultants sit close enough to employers to understand their real challenges — whether that's rising mental health needs, pressure around GLP-1 drug costs, or broader uncertainty about where to allocate benefits spending. That intelligence helps carriers make smarter decisions about product development and what they bring to market.
Massimo Nini, senior vice president of consulting, underwriting and actuarial services at AGA Benefit Solutions evaluates carriers by looking well beyond the initial quote. His starting point is understanding how a provider thinks about risk and underwriting over the long term, because aggressive pricing at implementation often masks what happens three or four years later.
He also probes areas that sit outside the financial discussion entirely. He wants to understand a carrier's community involvement, corporate values, and how those align with the client's own mission, since many employers care about who they're partnering with on a philosophical level.
On the product side, he pays close attention to how carriers handle infrequent, high-stakes claims, like critical illness, accidental death, emergency travel. While the numbers may look clean on those lines, when a claim does hit, the member experience has to be strong.
"There's a lot of carriers that are not fully equipped to manage those infrequent claims adequately, and that leads to plan members and plan sponsors that are frustrated," he said.
Yet, Alecia Henderson, senior vice president of benefit services at NFP underscores there’s a line between what carriers do and what consultants are responsible for. Carriers handle the operational mechanics — processing claims, interacting with employees, administering the plan. The consultant's job sits at a different level.
"I really think the consultant is the strategic driver of the relationship and of the benefit program with the customer," she says.
That strategic role means understanding what the client is trying to achieve, identifying possible solutions - sometimes before a carrier is even involved - and then sourcing and presenting the most relevant options. Carriers may or may not participate in those early-stage conversations depending on the client relationship, but the consultant is the one shaping the direction.
Still, Hagan underscores the relationship can't be one-directional as she says carriers need to push feedback back to consultants about where they can improve as partners. She frames the dynamic as mutually dependent - consultants have little to offer without strong carrier platforms behind them, and carriers need consultants to interpret what employers actually want.
Respect and honest feedback, in both directions, are what keep the partnership functional, she says.
“A good relationship is just productive, communicative and really caring about the clients and their employees so they can plan for and have a healthy retirement. That’s why we’re all in the business,” says Smyth.
