Anyone doing contract administration work from home for a TPA?

[Guest Regina Venegas]

Is there anyone out there who is doing contract administration work from home for a TPA/TPAs? How does this work? How do you get set up? Who provides E and O insurance / software? How is the pay structured? By Plan? By # of participants? Any information or advice anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated. [Edited by Pat on 09-20-2000 at 10:15 PM]

[bn]

I'm glad you asked about contract work for TPAs. I myself don't have any answers, but I would like to start doing this myself. I have just started researching the subject - maybe we could share information? I talked to some headhunters who called me and asked if they ever got any contract jobs. Most were not very encouraging, but I took that with a grain of salt because they would only be hurting their commissions if they referred me to contract jobs. One lady told me that it is possible to earn a lot more money, but I would need to earn at least 50% more than my current salary to break even, because I would have to pay for my own health insurance (she didn't even mention E & O.) There are lots of job postings and message boards for contract work, but I haven't seen any for TPAs - they're all for computer programmers. I plan to incorporate because I understand that this can help avoid IRS problems with independent contractors vs. employees issues. Other than that, I have registered with many temporary and permanent staffing agencies, concentrating on those that specialize in human resources and accounting. I have also worked up a "marketing letter." Any information anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated.

bbpension@surfree.com

[thepensionmaven]

I will offer what I can.

What exactly do you mean by "contract administrator"?

Working as an independent contractor trying to set up your own business which hopefully will grow and prosper over the years?

Or working for a firm on a case by case basis, and being paid by that firm on a 1099 basis?

I started my business about 20 years ago as a sideline to supplement my income while working in the pension department of a large insurance company. You just have to put out the word that you are a pension administrator, you are available, your prices are reasonable and your turnaround time is faster than the big guys. Word of mouth helps as well.

Develop a fee schedule you can live with. There are a lot of surveys out there and a lot of different prices.

Align yourself with a group of professionals, either attorneys, accountants or insurance agents. When I first started I got a lot of referrals from insurance agents.

As a contract person, you are an independent contractor. You have to buy the equipment, the software (it ain't cheap, either, that's why I developed my own) and you absolutely positively need E & O insurance, which is very expensive.

Subscribe to a monthly service to keep abreast of what is going on and join the Technical Answer Group, TAG for short--$95 per month. You ask a technical question, they get back to you within 24 hours with the answer and the citation.

Hope this helps.

[Guest Mike Morris]

My company's operations are done from 4 different home offices in 3 different states. The employees came to us typically from pension departments located in insurance companies and they wanted to 'work from home'.

They are classified as employees and only supplied a computer when they started. We then provided a fax machine, software, supplies, and a phone line.

Insurance Brokers that bring us the business do not seem to have a problem with our concept as the fact we don't have to pay for an office is reflected in the fee schedule and they can sell more plans.

But, we may be experimenting with the independent contractor avenue soon as through growth we can't justify another full-time employee yet but are at the point our staff is stretched.

Hope this gives you another viewpoint.