MB Benefits is bringing disruption and change to the employee benefits industry.
Having grown at 10 times the industry average since their inception, the MB team represents a fundamentally different image than your average Canadian insurance brokerage.
McNeill is the Founder and CEO of MB Pension and Benefits, the first and only all-female-owned and operated employee benefits brokerage in Canada to hold their B-Corp certification. With the average age of their team being 32, this sits a full generation behind the average age of an insurance broker within the employee benefits space.
McNeill founded MB Pension and Benefits after graduating from St. Francis Xavier University where she earned her Bachelor’s with a first class honors distinction in psychology, and later went on to have her undergraduate research published in a peer reviewed publication. Upon graduating she began working for an insurance company while waiting to go to graduate school for psychology. Instead of returning to graduate school, McNeill decided to use her knowledge of psychology and the information she acquired working in the insurance industry to bring changes to the way mental health coverage was being provided to companies and employees throughout the nation.
MB Group’s B-Corp mission and mandate is to provide the most comprehensive, evidence based and innovative mental health solutions in the marketplace. This means not accepting the status quo when it comes to traditional mental health offerings through benefits and expanding the search for tailored mental health solutions by going directly into some of the best psychology research labs across the country and seeing how these programs can be brought into employee benefit plans.
A secondary layer for enhancing mental health offerings within a benefits program is to make it easy for companies to deploy a significantly higher amount of psychological coverage through their paramedical offering. At a minimum we encourage companies to provide $2,000 dollars of psychology coverage on their plans regardless of where the maximum of the other paramedical services sit.
“There’s a strong body of research to support that financial barriers are typically the number one reason why someone will not seek mental health care for themselves. This is a very easy one to overlook, but it is pennies to the dollar to add on thousands of dollars of additional care and I don’t think this knowledge is commonplace for consumers.”
The next piece for us is to make accessibility to mental health services easier and frictionless. It wasn’t until the pandemic that we really started to see a drive in digital mental health solutions, but there are many other areas of mental health offerings that can be immensely enhanced through technology. With Calgary now being a major tech-hub in Canada, we’ve been so fortunate to be able to work in conjunction with some amazing vendors who are looking to leverage technology to empower change.
In addition to providing companies with better coverage rates for psychological services, McNeill works to maximize other areas of the benefits program which are indirectly related to mental health, but which have a major impact on mental health outcomes.
“Fertility coverage is not something that often gets emphasized within the employee benefits narrative, however, the implications this can have for a couple’s mental health is substantial. We really emphasize maximizing this benefit whenever possible and more importantly, making this visible to staff.”
With the premise of the B corp movement being grounded in profit and purpose, the social lens of MB’s business model has propelled the MB group towards the top of both their industry as well as the B-Corp movement itself, having been recognized on B-Corp’s Best for the World List in 2021 and 2022, an award which recognizes B-Corp’s who score in the top 5% worldwide within their cohorts for their social impact scores.
“Our numbers and growth are a reflection of our emphasis and push towards advancing mental health and wellness solutions in the workplace. Business leaders of today are looking at the benefit programs and offerings they have in place for staff as an investment, we’re not looking at this as a stand alone expense anymore, we’re looking at how we can make this a better investment.”
When asked about what role the unique demographic differences of MB Group have to play in their success,
“ I think it’s played a role in how we approach our work and who we work with - we’re representing industries where you traditionally do not see employee benefit plans available; hair salons, cleaning companies, companies in the performing arts, restaurants, and these companies are not only setting the watermark in their fields, but a significantly higher standard for benefit plans in general by setting up best-in-class plan designs and offerings for their staff. These are changemakers who are taking the ship in a different direction. It’s a privilege to represent leaders and companies who are holding health to a higher standard for their staff and at the same time moving the dial within their industries.”
Media Contact:
Name: Shannon Junor
Email:[email protected]
Original Source of the original story >> How the MB Benefits Group is disrupting through change.
