Hewitt Strengthens Health Care Benefit Capabilities for Mid-Size Companies

LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hewitt Associates, a global human resources services company, today announced it is expanding its suite of health care solutions targeted at the unique needs of U.S. companies with fewer than 15,000 employees. Building on the early success of its expanded benefits administration capabilities, Hewitt’s new offers, coupled with its deep HR expertise, enable mid-size companies to manage their most complex and pressing health care challenges — including controlling costs, managing health risks and seamlessly delivering benefits to employees — with greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Hewitt is gaining traction with its new health and welfare benefits administration offer — Core Benefit Administration — for companies with fewer than 15,000 participants. After acquiring RealLife HR in September 2007, Hewitt immediately signed and implemented its first new client, Pinnacle Airlines, in just 45 days, demonstrating one of the true benefits of this new, flexible offer.

“Hewitt has a reputation for providing world-class human resources expertise, and their Core Benefit Administration platform provided us with a scalable, flexible platform that improved the delivery and administration of benefits to our employees,” said Lorraine Grubbs, vice president of the People Department at Pinnacle Airlines, Inc. “From the moment we began working with them, Hewitt brought professionalism and commitment to our project by keeping the implementation on track and providing all the information and resources we needed. As a result, we were up and running in less than two months, spending less time on processes and installation and more time on maximizing the return on our benefits investment.”

Commenting on the early success, Jay Rising, president of Hewitt’s HR outsourcing business, noted “We’re seeing great momentum in this increasingly important market, and our clients — both current and prospective — are quickly realizing the value of the flexibility, scalability and speed-to-implementation that our new Core Benefit Administration platform provides. In addition, they are taking advantage of our world-class benefits consulting expertise and comprehensive benchmarking data, which provide them with a level of expertise that no other firm in the industry can match.”

Complementing its new administration capabilities, Hewitt is also offering a variety of new benefits consulting solutions tailored for companies in this market.

Hewitt has partnered with HighRoads to create a flexible and competitively priced platform for selecting and managing health and welfare plan vendors. HighRoads’ solution enables Hewitt’s consultants to execute competitive bids and renewals for select benefit plans and tap into best practices, providing mid-sized companies with more cost-effective health care solutions. In turn, Hewitt’s clients can gain added efficiencies that compound every year, as plans are automatically available for subsequent year renewals and procurements, and vendor performance is tracked online in a consistent and comparable format.

In addition, Hewitt recently launched the Hewitt Pharmacy Purchasing Group, a coalition that allows mid-size companies to obtain pharmacy program pricing typically reserved for Fortune 50 employers. Unlike some competitor coalitions, the Hewitt Pharmacy Purchasing Group offers transparent pricing, gives companies complete flexibility to customize their benefit plan design, and includes a comprehensive suite of pharmacy consulting services. Hewitt has named CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS) as its first preferred vendor for this arrangement.

Hewitt is also offering a variety of other solutions and services that cater to companies of this size, including benchmarking and data analysis capabilities, legal compliance services, vendor performance measurement, and patient advocacy services.

“As health care costs continue to rise, companies are looking to get a maximum return on the investment they are making in their programs. One way to accomplish this is to design their benefits programs in a way that encourages employees to use those benefits wisely,” said Perry Brandorff, president of Hewitt’s consulting business. “Hewitt manages health care programs for hundreds of mid-size companies. Our partnership with HighRoads and the launch of our Pharmacy Purchasing Group are just two ways we are further expanding into this market and helping these companies reduce overall benefits spending, manage risk, and attract, maintain and engage a productive workforce.”

About Hewitt Associates

For more than 65 years, Hewitt Associates (NYSE: HEW) has provided clients with best-in-class human resources consulting and outsourcing services. Hewitt consults with more than 3,000 large and mid-size companies around the globe to develop and implement HR business strategies covering retirement, financial and health management; compensation and total rewards; and performance, talent and change management. As a market leader in benefits administration, Hewitt delivers health care and retirement programs to millions of participants and retirees, on behalf of more than 300 organizations worldwide. In addition, more than 30 clients rely on Hewitt to provide a broader range of human resources business process outsourcing services to nearly a million client employees. Located in 33 countries, Hewitt employs approximately 23,000 associates. For more information, please visit www.hewitt.com.