Gusto Builds on Payroll Foundation, Launches Integrated Platform to Simplify Health Benefits for Small Businesses

Gusto’s nationwide survey finds over 70% of small businesses do not offer health insurance, citing cost and complexity

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today Gusto launched a benefits offering to simplify and demystify health insurance for small business employers and employees. Gusto, already processing annual payroll for over 30,000 businesses, is using technology to create an integrated payroll and benefits platform to bring efficiency and simplicity to an industry that’s currently mired in paperwork, manual data entry, and errors.

“Employers and employees rely on health insurance to protect themselves and their families. It doesn’t make sense that choosing and managing such important benefits is so complicated, overwhelming and manual. I was shocked to learn that 60% of customers who transfer their existing health insurance coverage to Gusto arrive with legacy broker errors,” said Joshua Reeves, CEO and co­founder of Gusto. “Our benefits are entirely online and paperless. We combine the expertise of our brokers with proprietary software to automatically recommend the best plans for an employer’s budget. It's like Kayak for health insurance.”

A recent survey of more than 500 small business owners across the U.S. found that over 70% of small businesses do not currently offer health insurance to employees, citing high costs and frustration with traditional brokers. The first solution of its kind, Gusto simplifies the process of selection and enrolling in benefits from start to finish. One of the unique advantages of Gusto’s benefits offering is that it is seamlessly integrated with Gusto’s payroll service. By analyzing key information including company location, number of employees and average employee salary, Gusto is the only benefits solution on the market that leverages data and technology to match businesses and their employees with health plans that are just right for their needs and budget.

“As an employer, I take pride in taking care of my team – it’s not just a responsibility, it’s something I feel passionate about doing. Before Gusto, it was extremely difficult for a small business like mine to offer health benefits,” said Charles Bililies, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based fine-casual restaurant Souvla. “Gusto gave me an incredibly easy way to provide a range of health plans to my employees and managers, which has helped us recruit talented individuals and keep everyone healthy and happy.”

With Gusto’s benefits offering, businesses can now:

• Save weeks of time: While traditional brokers take at least four weeks for an application submission, the vast majority of employers (79%) completed the entire selection process with Gusto in a few days. One customer completed the process in 26 minutes.
• Provide employers with the best options for their budget: The majority (63%) of employers say they want their broker to help them find the best benefits package for their budget. By combining the expertise of their brokers and their engineers, Gusto’s proprietary software automatically recommends the best plans for an employer’s budget.
• Attract and retain top talent: Proprietary customer data from Gusto revealed that small businesses that offer health insurance grow four times faster (by number of employees) than those that do not.
• Stay compliant: Gusto’s software and broker operations are designed from the ground up to ensure that companies stay compliant with HIPAA, the Affordable Care Act, and ERISA.
• Give employees control of their data: Given the decline in lifetime employment – today, 45% of employees plan to change jobs in the next year – Gusto offers employees lifetime accounts so they can always access their personal information, even if they leave their company. Gusto’s benefits offering also allows employees to choose health plans, indicate qualifying life events, and add dependents, without having to discuss personal health information with their HR administrators.

Pricing and Availability

Gusto’s new benefits offering is available now for all customers in California. Customers can also transfer their existing policy to Gusto in 8 states, including California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Texas. For more information, visit: https://gusto.com/product/benefits.

About Gusto

Gusto is on a mission to bring life to work by reimagining payroll, benefits, and HR. Gusto serves over 30,000 companies nationwide and makes the most complicated, impersonal business tasks simple and delightful. Gusto has offices in San Francisco and Denver and its investors include Google Capital, General Catalyst, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and the founders of Instagram, Stripe, Nest, PayPal, Yelp, Dropbox, and Eventbrite, among others.

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Source: Gusto