Brokers who are slow to respond to the rate increases are having a hard time keeping customers, but those who work hard to tell employers about all their options can solidify relationships, Mr. Williamson said.

Employer dissatisfaction with sluggish brokers is good for more active brokers, because aggressive brokers now have an easier time getting appointments to talk to group health prospects, he said.

The current climate “is definitely a time when we have a lot of opportunity,” agreed Tom Billet, a senior consultant with Watson Wyatt Worldwide in Washington. “Nobodys yelling at us. Theyre calling us and asking us for help.”

Steve Whitty, national sales director at Principal Financial Services Inc. in Des Moines, Iowa, recommends that benefits advisors prepare employers for challenging times by helping them with long-range benefits planning.

“Employers need to have a strategy,” Mr. Whitty said.

Employers that have thought about matters such as the percentage of payroll that ought to go to health care might have a somewhat easier time handling short-term price fluctuations, he said.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, August 26, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.