Maine Brewers' Guild seeks benefits provider for members
File Photo / Tim Greenway
Sean Sullivan, executive director of the Maine Brewers' Guild.
The Maine Brewers' Guild is in the market for a health and dental benefits provider for 1,500 people who are employed at its members throughout the state.
It's looking to pick a provider by May 1, with a request for proposals open until March 1.
"We're not doing a [New England] Brew Summit or planning beer festivals this year," Sean Sullivan, executive director of the Maine Brewers' Guild and a 2016 Mainebiz Next List honoree, said by phone on Tuesday.
Instead during this turbulent time, "we're trying to brighten the light at the end of the tunnel for our members by letting them know we're not only going to help them get through this, but by creating health insurance for all member breweries and their staff."
Sullivan said the move was prompted in part by queries from members, and the fact that the industry has grown but is still made up of many small businesses with just a few employees.
The Maine Brewers' Guild is a nonprofit trade association founded in the mid-1990s and whose members make 99% of the beer brewed in Maine. According to the Guild, Maine is home to more than 150 breweries producing hundreds of beers.
By lining up a benefits provider for its members, the group aims to help breweries by reducing the time and hassle that owners and operators have to spend evaluating, enrolling and managing health care plans for staff, while allowing each business to select the right plan for its needs.
"Given that we represent so many small business, as a Guild we need to be able to serve as the economy of scale for our members," he said. "When we started to look at things like cooperative buying, we realized that health insurance is very time-consuming for folks, both difficult and costly."
Provider requirements
Providers applying to the RFP are required to have an understanding of the Maine beer industry, the ability to offer coverage to every Maine Brewers' Guild member and businesses from one to 100-plus employees and experience developing association benefits plans.
Besides offering a hand to its members, the Brewers' Guild also hopes to share in the financial success of the program that ends up being chosen.
For those who are interested in submitting a proposal, a two-page questionnaire with 25 questions can be obtained from and returned to info@mainebrewersguild.org.
The search comes two months after Portland-based Allagash Brewing Co., the state's largest brewer in terms of annual production, signed on with a local mental health therapy provider to add free counseling to its workplace benefits package.
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