

Zenefits (YC W13) Gives Startups A One-Stop Shop For Employee Benefits - joshualastdon
http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/18/y-combinator-backed-zenefits-gives-small-businesses-a-one-stop-shop-for-finding-and-managing-employee-benefits/

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tednaleid
Are the health insurance benefits group or individual? If it's group, are you
aggregating everyone into a pool that's >50 people in size, or is each startup
it's own group?

If it's individual, what are you doing with the people in a startup that are
considered uninsurable (it's not 2014 yet so no guaranteed insurance). Some
states, like MN with it's MCHA program, have guaranteed-issue pools for people
who are denied, but that's only about 25% of states. Are you limiting your
exposure to those states till 2014?

I've spent a lot of time in the health insurance/health care space, so I can
appreciate the complexity in the benefits market. My last startup, Bloom
Health, was in a similar space (defined contribution health plans for small
employers) and we sold to Wellpoint, HCSC, and BCBS of MI in 2011. We started
with individual plans, but eventually switched to group plans because the
individual space was just too hard without PPACA in place. Lots of
opportunities here now that it's almost 2014 and Obama has been re-elected.
Good luck!

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parkerconrad
Wow, I am a big fan of bloom health (zenefits cofounder here), and would love
to meet / talk! (you can reach me at parker [at] zenefits.com

It's small-group right now, each company is its own group. Right now we are CA
only but plan to expand rapidly in other states -- although it might take
quite some time before we're everywhere.

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parkerconrad
Wow, thanks Hacker News! (One of the Zenefits Co-founders here). One quick
thing to point out -- we are actually YC W13, not w12 (small slip-up from
TechCrunch on this point).

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sabathmt
Pain point - plain and simple. Startups take note: this looks very promising

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rdl
Great idea.

I wish they'd publish more info about their vendors (i.e., is the 401k a bunch
of high load or expense ratio extortion, or is it Fidelity/Vanguard funds?)

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parkerconrad
401K is in invite-only alpha right now. There are a few vendors we work with
-- Schwab, The online 401k Company, Sharebuilder, and Vanguard. In practice,
these are the best options for small businesses out there.

We don't get paid by 401K companies, so we don't have an incentive to
recommend anything other than what we think is awesome for you.

Also, one thing we've promised our early 401K clients -- if they want to work
with a 401K company that isn't on our list, we'll build an integration
specially for them.

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abc3
Did you look at Employee Fiduciary:

<http://www.employeefiduciary.com/>

I haven't looked into it in a while, but if I'd been able to talk my employer
into adding/changing vendors this is the vendor I would have chosen. It would
be interesting to read your thoughts.

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bitsweet
We've been working with Zenefits over the last week and their level of
customer service so far has been ridiculously good.

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aashaykumar92
This seems incredibly useful. My dad recently started a company and was always
complaining about how long the employee packages take to setup...will let him
know there is a solution!

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randall
FYI: None of the quotes are loading for us... we're a Utah company... is that
why?

Edit: Melting servers. :) Just got a JSON response that looked failing.

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laks_srini_hn
We support CA only right now (insurance laws, broker licensing, quotes and
enrollment rules being different across states), but will be expanding slowly
to other states.

PS: And the server should be unmelted as of now. :)

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drewda
Or there's the option of a professional employer organization like TriNet:
<http://www.trinet.com/>

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parkerconrad
Yeah, the problem with TriNet and other PEOs, though, is that they cost
thousands of dollars per employee per year -- while Zenefits is free. They do
more than we do, of course, but a lot of small companies only need someone for
benefits administration, mostly.

If you need sexual harassment training, & other liability-reducing stuff,
TriNet makes a lot of sense.

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ckluis
What about the discounts on the benefits?

Doesn't TriNet have one of the deepest discount packages because they are
pooling 100,000s of people?

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Jplenbrook
I would bet start-ups get very competitive rates on their insurance
considering their demographics.

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rurounijones
Looks good but the "sign with your mouse and you're done!" bit made me laugh
out loud.

The idea that I can "just make a signature" with a mouse is hilarious from a
UI point of view and seems highly glossed over (both UI wise and legally).

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tekromancr
I think the act of giving a signature is more symbolic than anything else. It
says to the world "I agree to the thing I am signing"

