Independent benefits brokers who fail to adapt to a rapidly shifting group health insurance market risk being displaced by both large aggregators and their own inaction.
That is the blunt assessment of Perry Braun, president and CEO of Benefit Advisors Network (BAN) in Beachwood, Ohio, who argues that complacency rather than regulation or competition, is the single greatest threat facing the independent brokerage model today.
"I think the first threat is complacency - leadership complacency," Braun told Insurance Business Benefits US. "I think the second is the aggregators get it right in what they're trying to do. And I think the third is the employers become complacent themselves."
Braun, who has more than 25 years in the employee benefits and healthcare industry, leads BAN, an international network of independent employee benefits brokerage and consulting firms with clients across 45 US states, Canada, and Guam. Founded in 2002, the organization focuses on improving the financial performance, operational efficiency, and organic growth of independently owned agencies.
Braun sees the current environment as defined by structural forces that go well beyond any single regulatory cycle.
Consolidation across both the insurance carrier market and the healthcare delivery system - hospital systems, physician groups, and pharmacy benefit managers - has created an unhelpful dynamic.
"The leveraging process has been working against consumers and against employers," he said. "Employers are struggling right now with a high level of frustration regarding the pricing of insurance products in the marketplace today."
He pointed to the example of CVS Health's ownership of Aetna, alongside its pharmacy benefit management capabilities, as emblematic of the kind of vertical integration that complicates pricing, profitability, and rebate structures for plan sponsors and their advisors.
Several major carriers have also begun exiting the Medicare Advantage marketplace as financial pressures mount, he noted - a trend visible in recent investor reports from publicly traded health insurers.
The situation is compounded, Braun said, by an aging US workforce driving higher demand for both medical services and pharmaceuticals. GLP-1 drugs are a prime example of how demand-driven cost increases are straining employer plans.
He identified just two levers available to advisors helping clients manage costs: reducing the demand for healthcare services or restructuring where and how those services are accessed.
Despite the macro pressures, Braun sees meaningful opportunity for brokers willing to think and act locally.
"There is tremendous room for flexibility and creativity if we accept the fact that healthcare is a local phenomenon," he said. "I think we get entangled in the white noise of having national networks and national problems but the medical delivery models and the medical delivery services are at a local level, and the solutions lie at a local level approach."
His prescription for independent advisors is to bring small to medium-sized employer groups together around a common mission, use the broker or consultant as a vehicle to build locally appropriate healthcare financing and delivery models, and rebalance the equation in favor of both providers and consumers.
"I think the creativity is in getting those small to medium-sized employer groups coming together and finding a common mission and a common vision," Braun said, "and then using the broker and consultant as the vehicle to create its healthcare delivery and healthcare financing model at a local market level."
He differentiates by geography with rural markets requiring hub-and-spoke models that feed into tertiary care centers, while more urban markets may be able to contain care more locally. And he argues that the distinction matters for how brokers advise clients on network and plan design.
On the revenue side, Braun sees significant untapped growth potential in ancillary and voluntary benefits - a gap he is now targeting directly through BAN's recently announced strategic partnership with GIS, a benefits operating partner specializing in ancillary, worksite, and voluntary products.
"Independent benefits advisors have an enormous opportunity to expand the value they provide to clients through ancillary, worksite and voluntary products, but successfully growing in these areas requires expertise, resources, and capacity," Braun said at the time of the announcement.
In his interview with IBB, Braun put a number on the opportunity. He estimates that only approximately 35 to 40 percent of a typical agency's clients are fully rounded out with a complete product set, meaning they carry medical and pharmacy coverage alongside dental, vision, life, and disability. That leaves roughly 60 percent of an agency's book with room to add coverage.
"And so I think there's an opportunity - and this is where I think GIS can be incredibly helpful - to mine the agency's client data and look for opportunities where there is rounding out or additional risk management product that could be made available to both the client and equally important, the employees of the client," Braun said.
He added that GIS's administrative and implementation support would help member agencies add those products without straining existing staff capacity, addressing what he sees as a critical operational challenge for smaller independent firms.
The partnership was announced on September 29, 2026. Under the arrangement, GIS will support BAN members across four primary areas linked to Braun's four organizational priorities: financial performance, operational performance, organic growth, and workforce skill development.
Braun also addressed encroachment of registered investment advisors (RIAs) and wealth managers into the employee benefits space - driven, he says, by revenue compression on the retirement advisory side caused by regulatory guardrails that have limited advisor compensation.
"Because of that revenue compression, they look towards diversification as a strategy," he said. "And I think we look at property casualty, and I think we look at employee benefits as a vehicle for some of those firms that have seen revenue compression and are looking to diversify to enter."
He noted that the barrier to entry for the benefits space is relatively low - a licensed individual can establish an agency with limited capital - which has contributed to a steady stream of new agency startups and former aggregator employees striking out independently.
The dynamic is not symmetrical, however. Braun said that many of BAN's existing member firms that carry an RIA or wealth management line of business are now actively looking to divest it, citing the compliance burden and operational complexity relative to the revenue it generates, particularly for smaller firms.
With midterm elections approaching and policy uncertainty around the Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits, pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) regulation, and international drug sourcing all in play, Braun says the question is not whether change is coming, but whether independent brokers and the employers they serve are prepared to meet it.
His advice to BAN members is consistent with the organization's founding mission: accept that change is non-negotiable, and invest in the skills, partnerships, and local strategies needed to compete.
"Are we prepared to adapt to an ever-changing future?" he said. "That's the true issue I see."
