Early renewal of policies can save on premiums

LONGMONT – Companies are finding that it’s less expensive to renew health-insurance plans now, rather than wait until 2014, as federal health-care reform rules go into effect.

Panelists discussed the trend in the panel “Will there be rate shock? What business needs to know” at Pulse: What’s Next with Health-Care Reform, presented Tuesday by the Boulder County Business Report Tuesday at the Plaza Convention Center in Longmont.

For his top 40 small-business clients, premiums would go up on average by 30 percent to 40 percent if they renewed their health-insurance policies in the first quarter of 2014, said Clair Volk, president of…