As a former thirty-year association executive until last summer, I know how important affinity programs are and how important employee benefit programs are to associations and their members. In the last two years I was President of Connecticut Energy Marketers Assn we worked on creating a private employee health insurance and benefits marketplace, opened last November [www.cemamarket.com] Since then we have opened another with the Connecticut Home Builders and Remodelers Assn and have contracts for six others - two in New York.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has made the lives of all of our members, and every taxpayer, more complicated and difficult to navigate. This places trade associations in a unique position to take what has been successfully used by single, large employers like Sears, Walgreen's and Anheuser-Busch and put it to work for the small businesses that dominate trade associations.
This isn't a theory, it actually works extremely well, as it does today for my former association at CEMA. I'd like to make a presentation to NYSAE about this as I think you'd find this vehicle successful in your associations as well. FMI see
http://gbacapg.com/pheib/index.php Cheers!
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Gene Guilford
GBAC Association Practice Group
Partner
North Haven CT
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