INSURANCE DILEMMA

A health insurance dilemma.


In January 2004, in a Knoxville hospital, Shannon van Tol gave birth to Tennessee's first quintuplets: Meghan, Willem, Isabella, Ashley, and Sean. Amid the cigars, balloons, and donated diapers, Guille Cruze--CEO of the White Stone Group, the software company where the quints' father, Willem, worked--was both elated and worried.

Willem van Tol had worked as a programmer at White Stone for more than three years and, like many of the firm's 70 full-timers, had enrolled his family in the company's health care plan. The year leading up to the quintuplets' arrival had included a great deal of medical care, including fertility treatments, three ultrasounds a week, eight weeks of bed rest in the hospital, and extended stays for the newborn babies.

All told, the medical bills added up to more than $2 million. Cruze knew that his insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, would pass some of the costs back to him. But when he received his renewal notice a few months later, he was stunned. His annual premium had shot up more than 30%, from $290,000 to $380,000. For a company with $8 million in revenue, that extra $90,000 was going to hurt. "Willem said he was sorry," says Cruze, who tried to reassure his employee. "I told him that it was okay, that we would live and die as a team."


Privately, Cruze wondered what to do. When he hired his first few employees in 1997, he covered 100% of their health care expenses. Every year since, insurance premiums had gone up, forcing him to scale back. By 2004, he covered 95% of expenses for single employees and 55% for families. With this latest increase looming, Cruze was fed up. What if premiums jumped another 30% next year? In a moment of frustration, he considered doing away with health benefits altogether, but he soon realized that such a drastic step would destroy the close-knit culture he had spent years cultivating.