SBW Wealth Management & Employee Benefits

When clients are making decisions about choosing a benefits consultant, the conversation often ends up centering on who is the brightest and the least expensive. As consultants, it’s important that we develop expertise in our area and it’s also important to ensure that the rates our clients pay are reasonable.

But there’s more to the story. The right benefits consulting firm is able to do three things exceptionally well:

Create a clear definition of a client’s requirements
Design a benefit and retirement plan that will meet those needs intelligently
Service that plan with confidence and reliability

While these may seem to be relatively simple, it’s surprising how many firms aren’t able to do all three successfully.

How we approach employee benefits and group retirement services

Our employee benefits team started working together 13 years ago, and our Partners – Rob and Peter – have both been in the benefits business for over 25 years. This isn’t a new venture for us. It’s one that we’ve spent a career developing and honing so that our clients can get the value they really deserve.

We’re firm believers (and there’s lots of evidence to show it) that employees who are not worrying about health-related, or retirement-related concerns can be more productive and engaged at work. It’s hard to be “at full sail” when your mind keeps drifting back to a concern with your own health or that of someone you love. A well-defined, well-designed and well-serviced benefits program keeps everyone’s attention where it should be – delivering great work.

That’s why we designed our firm the way we did. First, we aren’t a “one man band.” We have a team of eight professionals who are well organized and well trained. We’re consultants and we know that our clients count on us for practice leadership – they’re looking for experts and it’s our responsibility to make sure they get experts.

However, our “product” isn’t what people tend to think it is. It isn’t life insurance, disability insurance, health care or dental programs. It isn’t a retirement program either. What we bring to the table is our ability to find the best fit for our clients – to define it, design it and service it reliably. We’re creative about it, cost-effective about it, and pretty passionate about it. We're attentive when we’re working with our clients, and geeks when we’re designing the plans because we know, at the end of the day, that our clients simply want to know that they don’t have to worry about their health plan anymore.

That’s why we carefully craft programs that meet the needs of the business, and ensure that we benchmark those plans for our clients so they can see where they stack up in the industry. We bring new ideas, keep our clients informed, and make a point of not being a “single carrier” firm that is myopic in its advice. We have excellent relationships with numerous insurance carriers, which makes it dramatically easier when we want to access a different service for our clients, or design something unique that might be unusual for the insurance company.

At its simplest level, we bring accessible expertise. Our team is responsive, professional and smart. Benefits themselves, truly are not obtusely difficult. But understanding what’s required, how to develop a plan to meet those needs and then service them successfully is. And it’s what we love to do.

Our Providers

In order to ensure that we’re able to design the best group benefits programs for our clients, it’s important that we have strong relationships with all of the major local Group Benefit Providers, as well as many National Carriers. Our key relationships include:

Sun Life Financial	The Co-operators	Empire Life
Great-West Life	Manulife Financial	Blue Cross
Industrial Alliance	Quikcard Solutions	Desjardins
Greenshield	Standard Life	ClaimSecure
Benefits By Design (BBD)	RWAM	Shepell fgi
Chamber of Commerce	Maximum Benefit	Sutton Special Risk

Our Services

As independent benefit consultants we focus on our client’s individual needs, providing impartial advice and case-by-case solutions. Our years of experience, standing in the benefits community and flexibility enable us to bring cost containment and innovation to our clients; such as Flexible Benefits, Health Spending Accounts, ASO and Experience-rated Refund options. We provide advice on many different group benefit options, which include but are not limited to:

Health Benefits;
Dental Benefits;
Life insurance;
Accidental death and dismemberment insurance (AD&D);
Short-term disability insurance;
Long-term disability insurance;
Dependant Life insurance;
Optional Life insurance;
Critical Illness;
Registered Pension Plans;
Group RRSP’s;
Deferred Profit Sharing Plans;
Employee Assistance Plans (EAP);
Wellness Programs;
Salary Contribution Plan; and
Executive benefit enhancement.

SBW Wealth Management & Employee Benefits

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