Lost in the debate around Senate Bill 382 is recognition of a major win for small businesses across the state. The legislation contains a change to the current Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangement (MEWA) statute to broaden the type of organization that is eligible to offer a health insurance product to its members to include a statewide chamber of commerce.

This is an incredible step toward the NC Chamber’s years-long efforts to launch a small business health product in North Carolina. Designed to offer health insurance to small businesses with 2 to 50 employees, we are working to serve a substantial market that currently suffers from incredibly high health insurance costs. Our product will fill a need in the small business health insurance market and give business owners the opportunity to grow their business while providing high-quality benefits to their employees.

The legislation includes several guardrails to ensure legitimacy, solvency, and robust coverage and our product will be licensed and regulated by the Department of Insurance.

Following in the Footsteps of Surrounding States

Georgia Chamber of Commerce Chief Experience Officer Morgan Law spoke about the success of their organization’s MEWA health plan last year. At the time, the SMART Plan had been operating for five years and covered 50,000 lives.

“The SMART Plan is a response to many of our members asking us for help in securing affordable, quality health care insurance for their employees,” said Law. “Our members are very supportive of the effort as it is a meaningful employee retention solution and filled a gap in the market.”

Large businesses and government employers traditionally have access to higher value, lower costs plans, which smaller businesses in the current health care infrastructure cannot afford. However, MEWAs allow both the local Georgia chambers and small businesses that participate in the program to band together and offer similar caliber health benefits as large company health plans.

Chambers Uniting for Success

One of the local Georgia chambers, Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, has been part of the SMART Plan for several years, receiving positive feedback from its small business members who take part in the plan.

David Bradley, president and CEO of the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, provided one such example saying last year, “We have a restaurant member that has two locations with 40 employees, and this plan saved them $40,000 in the first year. This plan made our Chamber relevant to businesses where we were irrelevant before.”

The NC Chamber Federation, made up of local chambers of commerce across the state, will be a critical part of this success in a mutually beneficial win for all parties involved and North Carolina’s economy as a whole.