Once you've decided which benefits you want to offer, you must begin the process of talking with benefit providers. Trying to figure out who to contact can be confusing. There are a few different ways that you can approach this:

• look in the phone book
• talk to an independent insurance agent
• ask other employers
• hire a consultant
• investigate purchasing alliances

Regardless of the method you're going to use, you'll need to prepare some information for the vendors you end up talking to so that they can give you a quote for your group's monthly premiums. You'll also want to figure out in advance what information to ask them for.

Once you've contacted those vendors and they've given you some quotes, you can begin the negotiation process.