Published by ALKEME Insurance Services · Licensed Insurance BrokerageLast updated October 2026

Guide

Open Enrollment Planning Guide

How we run enrollment administration, plan renewal strategy ahead of time, and place your group in the right market for its size.

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Open enrollment is where benefits administration either holds together or quietly comes apart. What decides it is rarely the calendar — it is whether eligibility data is accurate, whether the renewal was planned months earlier, and whether the group is in the right market for its size.

We run enrollment on Employee Navigator

Benefits administration fails quietly. A termination that never reaches the carrier keeps someone on the plan for months. A mistyped dependent surfaces as a denied claim at the pharmacy counter. Neither shows up on a report; both show up as a phone call to HR.

We run enrollment and ongoing administration on Employee Navigator, configured and maintained by us rather than handed to you as a login. Eligibility, carrier feeds and life-event changes stay accurate without your team reconciling spreadsheets against carrier portals.

●Enrollment, eligibility and carrier connectivity in one system
●Carrier feeds that reconcile, so the plan reflects who is actually on it
●New hires, terminations and life events handled year-round, not just at renewal
●Configured and maintained by us, not left for your HR team to administer

Renewal strategy starts at the beginning of the year

Most renewals are reactive. The increase arrives six weeks out, and the only remaining decision is how much of it to pass to employees.

We plan against a multi-year view instead. That means knowing before the year starts what we intend to test in the market, what a plan-design change would actually cost your people, and which decisions this year constrain next year. By the time the renewal lands, the options already exist.

●A renewal strategy set at the start of the plan year, not the end
●Multi-year modelling, so this year's decision does not cost you next year
●Market testing on a schedule rather than only when something has gone wrong
●Plan-design changes costed against employee impact, not just premium

The right market for your size

A thirty-life group and a thousand-life group are not the same buyer and should not be taken to market the same way. Placing both through the same channel means one of them is leaving something on the table.

For small to mid-size groups, PEO relationships provide pooled purchasing power and administrative infrastructure that a group that size could not command alone. For large groups, captive arrangements turn a fixed premium into a structure you have visibility into and influence over.

●PEO relationships for small to mid-size groups
●Captive arrangements where scale justifies them
●Funding structure reviewed as the group grows, not fixed at onboarding

The timeline itself

Open enrollment timelines vary by group size, carrier, funding arrangement and how much change is happening in the plan year. Rather than publish a generic calendar, we build yours around your renewal date and walk you through it directly.

If you want that conversation now, the fastest route is to tell us your renewal month.

Frequently Asked Questions

Most employers offer a two to three week enrollment window, though some extend it to four weeks for larger or more geographically dispersed workforces. The window should be long enough for every employee to review materials, attend an information session, and make informed elections, but short enough to maintain urgency and allow adequate time for post-enrollment data reconciliation before the new plan year begins. If your enrollment is entirely online, a shorter window is generally workable because employees can complete their elections at any time.

Active enrollment, where every employee must make affirmative elections, typically produces better engagement and more appropriate plan selections. However, it requires more robust communication, support, and follow-up infrastructure. Passive enrollment, where employees who take no action are re-enrolled in their current plan, is administratively simpler and prevents coverage gaps but may result in employees keeping plans that no longer suit their needs. Many employers use a hybrid approach, requiring active enrollment when plan designs change significantly and allowing passive enrollment in years with minimal changes.

If an employee misses the enrollment deadline under active enrollment, they may lose coverage entirely unless the employer has a grace period or default enrollment policy. Under passive enrollment, the employee typically continues in their current plan. Outside of open enrollment, employees can only change their benefits elections if they experience a qualifying life event such as marriage, divorce, birth of a child, loss of other coverage, or a change in employment status. Employers should clearly communicate the consequences of missing the deadline in all pre-enrollment communications.