Spokane medical benefit broker VEBA Service Group is planning to open a call center division here on Jan. 1, says Mark Wilkerson, area president for VEBA. 

The company, located in 8,400 square feet of space at 906 W. Second downtown, will be hiring six call center employees to start, Wilkerson says, to add to its current staff of 24. It also has a few employees who work remotely in other cities in Washington, he says. 

“We are just starting the process of looking for employees with call center experience and employee benefit plan experience,” Wilkerson says. 

VEBA, a division of Gallagher Benefit Services Inc., which is a subsidiary of Itasca, Ill.-based Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., will use part of its existing office space for the call center, he says. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. employs more than 18,000 people internationally, he says.  

The call center will function as a support service for both employees and employers who have questions about their benefit plans, Wilkerson says. 

The call center will be for VEBA’s clients specifically, and not for other Gallagher-affiliated offices. 

“It’ll be support for participants who request information about their plan benefits and their claims processing, and employers as well, who need assistance with administering and offering the benefits to their employees,” Wilkerson says.

VEBA is a consultant group for general employee benefits, but has a niche market in helping governments set up funded health reimbursement arrangements, or HRAs, he says. 

“The key word there is ‘funded,’” he says. In a traditional HRA, an employer sends a reimbursement from the company’s general funds to a third-party processor after an employee makes a claim. In a funded HRA, the employer sets the funds for claims outside of the company’s books, usually in a trust, Wilkerson says. 

“Once it’s in that trust, it’s irrevocable; the employer can’t get it back,” Wilkerson says. “For employees, it’s great, (because) their employer can’t defer it to other uses.”

It’s typical for governments in the Northwest to use funded HRAs, Wilkerson says. He says about 900 governments in Washington and Idaho currently have funded HRAs.  

“And around the country, it’s becoming more common,” he says. 

In total, VEBA serves about 100,000 HRA participants across about 1,000 employers, most of which are government employers in the Northwest, and about 100 schools in the state of Indiana. 

Its call center functions are currently outsourced.