Sometimes people ask me, Alan, why can't I partner with another company and then save money because we'll be a bigger group on their employee benefit programs. Alan Friesen here certified Employee Benefits specialist. I've been asked that question many times. And the fact is, sometimes there's opportunities when you can partner with others and make it work. But many times it does not work. And here's why.

One issue that you have is that if there's Company B, company C, they don't have a common ownership stream. They're just different companies, and they want to band together in order to be a bigger group and save money. So if they do that, and there's no common ownership, if company A's usage is really high, Company B, and C will be subsidizing company a, well, that's usually not that comfortable of a situation and Company B and C really aren't going to be that crazy about continuing to do that normally. Now they all have a common ownership, that's a different deal. A second thing is that if you have it where it's an association plan, so let's say you have a number of franchises that are all linked together that way, well, then that bigger group probably makes more sense. They have another tie, besides just wanting to join forces, they already are tied in as franchisees of that organization.

So that often works in terms of that. Sometimes those franchisee appropriate programs or Association type programs do provide better value. And then there's some associations that are linked specifically for an occupation. As a as an example, the Canadian bar Insurance Association, so that's only for lawyers and staff of legal offices is extremely good value on life and disability type benefits. Well, they've got a kind of the best risk out there and they operate on a not for profit basis. So on a non profit basis, they've taken out all of the profit component that the insurer would normally build in further if they have good results, even though they're already offering a not for profit basis, they return those savings to their members or to their their policyholders.

So there are times when Association type programs do make sense or combining with others do make sense. But in most cases, if there's not an ownership, common ownership stream, or linkage between the companies, they don't, if there is a common ownership linkage, of course, it does make sense because then the owner, Bob, who owns all three companies, he's really not too concerned that company is using more than one company See, he's looking at his totality and wants to get the best value for all of his companies. So I've set up Association programs before I have access to some great insurances associations such as the Canadian bar Insurance Association, and if you would like some more information about that, I will gladly help you give me a call contact me and I look forward to chatting with you in the future. Keep well