Blog

How to Pick a TPA

01/17/2010

By Alison Wilder

Although I could easily answer this by saying: “Simple: just pick us”, I would imagine those of you listening to me might want a bit of justification. Mark Noonan has started a three part column (part 1) over at Risk & Insurance that will (hopefully) reinforce what I’d tell you about what we do, and why we’re the natural choice.

Mark makes mention of the “60% of costs these days are medical” issue, which represents a nationwide shift from almost the exact opposite (indemnity near 60% of total cost) a few decades ago. Wrapped up in this statistic somewhere is the actual cost differential from state to state. For instance, NH averages about 73% of claims costs in the medical category, while the average for the rest of New England is only around 49 (Data: NCCI NH State Advisory Forum 2009)

What this disparity means is that what TPAs may be used to in other parts of the country, or even right in our back yard isn’t what they would see here in NH. Mark does allude to the need for your TPA of choice to be familiar with the climate. I don’t think you can overemphasize this point enough when selecting a TPA here in NH.