The Stakes: A midsize masonry contractor was using a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) for payroll and insurance. They suspected they were overpaying, but the PEO’s invoices were a “black box”—bundling taxes, fees, and insurance into one lump sum that made comparison impossible.
The Investigation: The Advisor cracked the code. They analyzed the invoices and mathematically “unbundled” the costs. They discovered the contractor was paying $59,000 a year for Workers’ Comp—a rate far above the market standard for their risk profile.
The Breakthrough: The Advisor calculated the contractor’s true Experience Mod at 0.95. Armed with this data, they took the account to the open market, bypassing the PEO’s inflated structure.
The Result: The new standalone policy cost just $34,000, saving the contractor $25,000 per year .