How Full Grip Games Turned an 18% Health Insurance Premium Renewal Increase Into 52% Savings — on a Comparable Plan
I got a big health benefits rate increase, and I didn’t like the recommendations from my large, nationally recognized employee benefits agency, so I decided to speak with other agencies. None of them could provide the same level of solutions that Benefitra was able to. Now, we are saving 40% on both medical and overall costs while massively upgrading the health benefits.
Company Profile: Full Grip Games — a brick-and-mortar tabletop & video game retailer in Ohio with a small, tight-knit team. Their health benefits were placed through OneDigital — a large, nationally recognized employee-benefits brokerage — on a UnitedHealthcare Choice Plus POS plan ($3,000 deductible). They’ve been a Benefitra client since 2023.
The problem: a steep renewal and a big agency with one answer
- An 18% renewal increase hit the UnitedHealthcare plan — on top of an already-expensive premium
- The recommendations the firm got were to absorb the 18% or cut coverage — no alternative that actually moved the number
- They shopped it hard — the incumbent agency first, then others — before a structure finally surfaced that actually moved the number
The analysis: like-for-like, the market was 52% cheaper
1. Status quo — UnitedHealthcare POS (placed by OneDigital)
A UnitedHealthcare Choice Plus POS plan ($3,000 deductible) that had just absorbed a steep renewal, with no path offered to improve it.
✗ Status quo unsustainable2. Benefitra’s model — 52% cheaper on identical coverage
Benefitra modeled the market against Full Grip’s exact coverage — same $3,000 deductible, same plan tier. The apples-to-apples result:
52% lower premium — same deductible, same coverage
✓ The openingThe decision: upgrade the plan instead of just banking the cash
Rather than pocket the full 52%, Full Grip reinvested part of it into a better plan — moving to a richer $2,000-deductible PPO (lower deductible and broader network than the UHC POS). With health and admin/payroll bundled together, the total savings still landed at 40%:
- 52% available on a like-for-like (same-deductible) basis
- Chose a richer $2,000-deductible PPO instead — lower deductible, broader network
- 40% total savings across health and admin/payroll combined
Outcome: a better plan and 40% lower total cost
The rare renewal where the company spent less and got more — the opposite of the "absorb it or cut it" choice the firm felt it had been handed.
Full Grip made the switch in 2023 — and has renewed with Benefitra every year since (most recently the 2025–26 plan year). The savings held, and the plan stayed better.
40% lower total cost — with a richer plan
(52% on a like-for-like basis before the upgrade)
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