Press & Interviews

  • Employ­ers’ work not done by just lin­ing up employ­ee benefits
    By Arrow advi­sors Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil, North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal Columnists
    For most work­ers, ben­e­fits are an expect­ed part of their total com­pen­sa­tion pack­age and are a key fac­tor in attract­ing and retain­ing tal­ent. Ben­e­fits pro­vide finan­cial and per­son­al val­ue to employ­ees and are a key fac­tor in attract­ing and retain­ing tal­ent. But should an employ­er stop there with their ben­e­fits pro­gram? Once a pro­gram is in place, is it set it and for­get it?

    The short answer is, no!

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal – March 2023

  • The Super­pow­er of Surveys
    By Mari­ah Shields

    Field­ing use­ful employ­ee feed­back can help you stay con­nect­ed to your team. Through­out my career, employ­ers have con­sis­tent­ly voiced a sim­i­lar concern—the strug­gle to recruit and retain employ­ees. Today, this issue is more preva­lent than ever. How do you com­pete with oth­er employ­ers to attract and retain a skilled work­force in a tight labor market?

    Read the entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – March 2023

  • How your busi­ness can sur­vive, avoid Labor Depart­ment ben­e­fits-com­pli­ance audits
    By ABG advi­sors Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil, North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal Columnists
    “Com­pli­ance” and “audits” — two words that strike fear in most busi­ness leaders.
    In addi­tion to the more well-known rules sur­round­ing finan­cial dis­clo­sures and human resources prac­tices, employ­ers have com­pli­ance require­ments relat­ed to their employ­ee ben­e­fits pro­grams as well. Being non-com­pli­ant can cost you sig­nif­i­cant pain finan­cial­ly and cause you and your team the major incon­ve­nience of spend­ing pre­cious time and resources to meet require­ments after-the-fact.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal – February 2023

  • Prepar­ing for Hos­pi­tal­iza­tion: What to Expect
    by Matthew Sohn

    It’s dif­fi­cult to pre­dict when and even how a per­son might end up in the hos­pi­tal. How­ev­er, you can take steps to plan so that your health insur­ance pol­i­cy takes care of the bills, and your focus can be on recovery.

    Read the entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – February 2023

  • Where employ­er-spon­sored ben­e­fits plans are head­ed in 2023
    From Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil, North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal Columnists
    As the costs of offer­ing ben­e­fits to employ­ees con­tin­ues to out­pace infla­tion, many employ­ers often have these ques­tions: Why are we offer­ing these to employ­ees? Why are we expect­ed to pick up the tab, when employ­ees can buy things like health insur­ance on their own? Why do we need to offer ben­e­fits when gov­ern­ments around the world take care of it and leave the employ­er out of it?
    All valid questions.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal – January 2023

  • Strate­gic busi­ness growth: You may be hap­py at hol­i­day time, but are your employees?
    From Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil, North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal Columnists
    Decem­ber is tra­di­tion­al­ly a time of reflec­tion for us all. Lead­ers in the busi­ness world know that strate­gic reflec­tion is a valu­able tool to up-lev­el a com­pa­ny. But one piece often over­looked when assess­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and suc­cess is the focus on employ­ee hap­pi­ness. We know even the very notion of think­ing — are our employ­ees hap­py — is tra­di­tion­al­ly not exam­ined in the busi­ness world. It should be.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Pho­to cred­it: Maslows­ki Marcin / Shutterstock

    North Bay Business Journal – December 2022

  • Ben­e­fit pack­ages: Think out­side the box
    From Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil, North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal Columnists
    Tra­di­tion­al ben­e­fits have become expect­ed. Tak­ing your ben­e­fits pro­gram “out­side the box” to devel­op a pro­gram tai­lor-made to employ­ees’ unique sit­u­a­tion is what lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions do to cat­a­pult them­selves above com­peti­tors in the tal­ent war. It’s com­mon for an employ­er to offer a tra­di­tion­al employ­ee ben­e­fits pack­age. That’s just not enough anymore.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Pho­to cred­it: One Pho­to / Shutterstock

    North Bay Business Journal – November 2022

  • Why employ­ee ben­e­fits bench­mark­ing dri­ves change
    By North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal colum­nists Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil
    Ever pon­der what your com­peti­tors are doing to attract and retain employ­ees? How your com­pa­ny ben­e­fits com­pare along­side oth­ers of sim­i­lar size or demo­graph­ics? Ben­e­fits bench­mark­ing is an in-depth analy­sis of how your employ­ee ben­e­fits offer­ings com­pare to those of oth­ers in your indus­try, sim­i­lar indus­tries, geo­graph­ic region.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Pho­to cred­it: Garage­stock / Shutterstock

    North Bay Business Journal – October 2022

  • Where tech­nol­o­gy fails the employ­ee ben­e­fits industry
    By North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal colum­nists Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil
    Tech­nol­o­gy is sexy. It sells. And, in the ben­e­fits indus­try, it attracts big ven­ture cap­i­tal invest­ment dol­lars. Many com­pa­nies have sprout­ed up in the last decade, promis­ing a panacea of ease and sim­plic­i­ty in exe­cut­ing ben­e­fits, HR and pay­roll pro­grams. We agree, to an extent, with their inten­tion of mak­ing employ­ee ben­e­fits eas­i­er with soft­ware and automa­tion. Where the major­i­ty of them fail is in inte­grat­ing the vital human component.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Pho­to cred­it: Fizkes / Shutterstock

    North Bay Business Journal – September 2022

  • New Lead­er­ship Roles: Can You Adapt?
    Arti­cle by Mari­ah Shields, ABG Ben­e­fits Consultant

    Cop­ing with the cur­rent busi­ness cli­mate takes imag­i­na­tion, inno­va­tion and no fear of change. These days, when teams don’t have the ben­e­fit of being phys­i­cal­ly togeth­er in an office, where men­tor­ship, train­ing and cama­raderie would tra­di­tion­al­ly hap­pen more nat­u­ral­ly, it falls on com­pa­ny lead­ers to estab­lish a more evolved com­pa­ny cul­ture and cre­ate mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions between co-workers.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – September 14, 2022

  • Beyond the Board­room fea­tur­ing Rosario Avila
    by Sum­mer Young

    Senior ben­e­fits advi­sor Rosario Avi­la has spent her life in the ser­vice indus­try.  She leads the Span­ish lan­guage divi­sion at Arrow Ben­e­fits Group, where she finds solu­tions for small busi­ness­es and helps her com­mu­ni­ty to under­stand the com­plex lan­guage of insurance.

    Read the entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — September 2022

  • Health Ben­e­fits and Cus­tom-Designed Plans
    by Matthew Sohn

    A com­mon con­ver­sa­tion I have with both employ­ers and employ­ees sounds some­thing like this: “Health insur­ance is too expen­sive. The cov­er­age doesn’t fit. I want the best plan you have avail­able, at the best price. There is a gap between what most peo­ple want out of health cov­er­age and under­stand­ing how it all comes togeth­er. There are solutions.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – August 2022

  • Not chang­ing from pre-pan­dem­ic times can lose you workers
    By North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal colum­nists Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil
    Com­pa­nies that have not lis­tened to their employ­ees (or for­mer employ­ees) have been los­ing peo­ple at an alarm­ing rate and, at the same time, have not been able to attract new mem­bers to replace the ones they have lost.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Pho­to cred­it: Eames­Bot / Shutterstock

    North Bay Business Journal – August 2022

  • Why you should reg­u­lar­ly reeval­u­ate your busi­ness ven­dor relationships
    By North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal colum­nists Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil
    We under­stand how com­fort­able and easy it can feel to work with a ven­dor with whom you have a long-estab­lished rela­tion­ship. So many busi­ness­es avoid re-eval­u­at­ing long­stand­ing asso­ci­a­tions for this and a vari­ety of oth­er rea­sons. How­ev­er, the bet­ter you know your ven­dors — and, more impor­tant, the bet­ter they know you — the more you will ben­e­fit from pre­mier ser­vices, spe­cial pric­ing and bet­ter terms.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Pho­to cred­it: One Pho­to / Shutterstock

    North Bay Business Journal – July 2022

  • Is your bicul­tur­al com­pa­ny com­mu­ni­cat­ing effectively?
    By North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal colum­nists Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil
    One employer’s work­force is 50% native Spanish–speaking, yet the 401(k) vendor’s pre­sen­ta­tion was done to the entire pop­u­la­tion in English.

    The art of com­mu­ni­ca­tion is dif­fi­cult for most peo­ple to mas­ter. Clear and con­cise exchanges are the key to influ­enc­ing oth­ers and cre­at­ing pow­er­ful teams, rela­tion­ships, and part­ner­ships to achieve suc­cess­ful out­comes in both busi­ness and in life.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Pho­to cred­it: Garage­stock / Shutterstock

    North Bay Business Journal – June 24, 2022

  • How employ­ees can thrive in a remote or hybrid workplace
    By North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal colum­nists Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila
    The Bay Area leads the nation in the num­ber of days employ­ees want to work from home. Accord­ing to a recent sur­vey con­duct­ed by Stan­ford eco­nom­ics pro­fes­sor Nico­las Bloom, work­ers want to cut days they spend in the office by more than 53% — and, after see­ing what employ­ees were able to accom­plish remote­ly since March of 2020, this makes sense…employers who have embraced this new way of work­ing are start­ing to run into some chal­lenges, espe­cial­ly when deal­ing with junior employ­ees who still need mentoring.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Pho­to cred­it: Insta_photos / Shutterstock

    North Bay Business Journal – June 2022

  • Mak­ing Space for Me-Time
    by Emi­ly Hodges Wallace

    In a Zoom call with a group of pro­fes­sion­al women last week, one of the par­tic­i­pants said, “I need to make space for me.” All the women nod­ded their heads in resound­ing agree­ment. As we enter COVID year No. 3, we have been asked to: “get used to the new nor­mal,” “roll with this cri­sis” and “face this new chal­lenge.” This bur­den has dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly fall­en hard on work­place lead­ers, espe­cial­ly many women.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – May 2022

  • Which health insur­ance is best for my employ­ees? Here are some tips
    By Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila
    In short, the main dif­fer­ences between HMOs and PPOs are afford­abil­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty, but which will work best for you real­ly depends on your cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. Employ­ers often ask us what oth­er com­pa­nies are offer­ing when it comes to their ben­e­fits program…we give a gen­er­al overview of the trends we see for small busi­ness­es (under 100 employ­ees) in 2022.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Image cred­it: (Vitalii Vodolazskyi / Shutterstock)

    North Bay Business Journal – April 2022

  • Why employ­ee men­tal health is your concern
    By Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila
    Accord­ing to Glass­door, “More than four in 10 work­ing adults (44%) say their cur­rent job has an impact on their over­all health, and 43% report their job has a neg­a­tive impact on their lev­els of stress” — and that was in 2018, before COVID-19!

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Image cred­it: (Ines Nepo / Shutterstock)

    North Bay Business Journal – March 2022

  • How employ­ers can build a work­er-cen­tric busi­ness — and why they must
    By Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil
    Nor­mal best prac­tices is a thing of the past. To sur­vive our new real­i­ty, a com­pa­ny must make inten­tion­al efforts to exceed what its com­pe­ti­tion is doing. Employ­ees are hard­er to retain and near­ly impos­si­ble to hire. What’s equal­ly as trou­bling is that tra­di­tion­al ben­e­fits and com­pen­sa­tion pro­grams seem to have less of an impact on an employee’s deci­sion to remain at a com­pa­ny or accept a new job.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Image cred­it: (Bear­Fo­tos / Shutterstock)

    North Bay Business Journal – February 2022

  • “A Night in Tus­cany” and the North Coast Wine Indus­try Expo

    “A Night in Tus­cany,” host­ed by Arrow Ben­e­fits Group at its 33rd annu­al event in Novem­ber for the North Bay Children’s Cen­ter, raised more than $420,000. About 160 guests vis­it­ed the Jacuzzi Fam­i­ly Vine­yards in Sono­ma to enjoy fine wines and tasty treats. Sen­a­tor Mike McGuire served as emcee and auc­tion­eer. [Pho­tos by Stu­art Lirette]

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – January 2022

  • Sono­ma Coun­ty-based Arrow Ben­e­fits Group receives a North Bay GIVES award
    Inter­view with CEO & Man­ag­ing Prin­ci­pal Joe Genovese 

    We keep our eyes and ears open to all non­prof­its because we believe that they are essen­tial part of this com­mu­ni­ty. We know we can’t give to every­one, but our team mem­bers have become a resource to bring atten­tion to orga­ni­za­tions that need help. We com­mu­ni­cate with our peo­ple to find out who they want to sup­port and are inspired by their pas­sions for these orga­ni­za­tions to assist them.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal – December 30 2021

  • Growth: Now is the Time to Be Bold
    by Joe Genovese

    Mul­ti­ple stud­ies indi­cate that the U.S. econ­o­my is going to expe­ri­ence a strong recov­ery as we rise out of the pan­dem­ic. In a new Forbes.com arti­cle, titled “The New Face of Growth in 2021” by Frank Sor­renti­no, chair­man and CEO of Con­nec­tOne Bank, wrote, “Look­ing ahead, busi­ness­es will have to plan for future growth in a much dif­fer­ent way than they were accus­tomed to…one of the biggest trends emerg­ing from the last year has been con­sol­i­da­tion.” I couldn’t agree more: The busi­ness land­scape has indeed changed for­ev­er, and now it’s up to us all to adapt and shift.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – December 2021

  • Think return­ing to a pre-pan­dem­ic work struc­ture is the answer? Big mistake
    By Andrew McNeil & Rosario Avila
    The most recent fall­out from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is the strug­gle to keep and main­tain our work­force. Busi­ness­es every­where are clos­ing their doors due to an inabil­i­ty to hire and retain peo­ple. This includes local pop­u­lar restau­rants like Crêperie Chez Solange in Lark­field, Bistro 29 in San­ta Rosa, and many oth­ers that became severe­ly stressed by this sit­u­a­tion. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, many of our clients are fac­ing the same dilem­ma. What can an employ­er do to get out in front of these challenges?

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Pho­to cred­it: Andrew Spear/The New York Times

    North Bay Business Journal – December 2021

  • The Tra­di­tion­al 9‑to‑5 Work­day is Finished—Now What?
    by Andrew McNeil & Rosario Avila

    The 9‑to‑5 workday—also com­mon­ly known as “the way we’ve always done it”—is how our work­force has behaved since Hen­ry Ford imple­ment­ed the pol­i­cy in the 1920s. But since the Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion, “work” has changed dramatically…the last 18 months brought the issue com­plete­ly into focus. A strong argu­ment can now be made that it sim­ply doesn’t make sense to con­tin­ue with a tra­di­tion­al 9 to 5 workday.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – November 2021

  • Petaluma’s Arrow Ben­e­fits buys Sebastopol insur­ance ben­e­fits firm Aita and Associates
    The North Bay Busi­ness Journal
    By Susan Wood
    Arrow Ben­e­fits CEO Joe Gen­ovese told the Busi­ness Jour­nal that Aita and Asso­ciates served as an ide­al fit with Arrow, with its 1,500 clients and 40 employ­ees. He also liked how Aita offered sim­i­lar employ­ee ben­e­fits, a cru­cial com­po­nent to retain­ing and attract­ing good tal­ent in the age of a coro­n­avirus-spawned labor shortage.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal – September 2021

  • Small and large busi­ness­es must deal with employ­ee vac­ci­na­tion issue
    North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal Month­ly Fea­tured Column
    By Andrew McNeil & Rosario Avila
    We appre­ci­ate that there are peo­ple who feel dif­fer­ent­ly about the vac­cine, be it for med­ical, reli­gious or oth­er per­son­al reasons.
    So, for employ­ers (no mat­ter the size) that sim­ply want to require that every­one to be vac­ci­nat­ed, we pose the ques­tion: Does that deci­sion real­ly make sense for the company?

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Pho­to cred­it: Rohn­ert Park, Calif — Jim Wilson/The New York Times

    North Bay Business Journal – October 2021

  • New work­place divide: Remote ver­sus office jobs in San Fran­cis­co Bay Area
    North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal Month­ly Fea­tured Column
    By Andrew McNeil & Rosario Avila
    Bring­ing peo­ple back to the office post-pan­dem­ic will be one of the most chal­leng­ing deci­sions a busi­ness will face this and next year. Since the begin­ning of this cri­sis, we’ve been debat­ing this tough shift in work­place culture.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal – August 2021

  • The strug­gle to put cul­ture into a neat­ly defined box
    Bro­kers know all too well that even the best ben­e­fits plan can be derailed by ill-fit­ting com­pa­ny culture.

    By Natal­ie Dolce | Ben­e­fit­sPro Mag­a­zine — August 2021

    Inter­view with award-win­ning Arrow advi­sors Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila.

    Be inten­tion­al on what you are try­ing to cre­ate cul­ture-wise and make sure your peo­ple believe in what you believe.
    Imag­ine, if you will, a com­pa­ny that makes cul­ture its top pri­or­i­ty instead of, say, rev­enue gen­er­a­tion or prod­uct devel­op­ment. What would such an ini­tia­tive look like? Sure­ly, it would be sim­i­lar in that it would be mea­sur­able with defin­able goals and ROI. Not nec­es­sar­i­ly, say the experts at a pan­el at Ben­e­fit­sPRO Bro­ker EXPO 2021. Many of the industry’s most rec­og­nized ben­e­fits lead­ers tack­led the hard ques­tions sur­round­ing the C’s in our not-so “new” nor­mal: cul­ture, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty. “I see a lot of clients want­i­ng to see imme­di­ate ROI on it and that isn’t pos­si­ble in my opin­ion,” said Andrew McNeil of Arrow Ben­e­fits Group.” If you see things work­ing smooth­ly, that is the ROI but it doesn’t hap­pen overnight.” 

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    BenefitsPro Magazine – August 2021

  • Let’s Talk Ben­e­fits in Eng­lish or Español!

    Did you know that many employ­ees don’t ful­ly under­stand their ben­e­fit plans? Accord­ing to a recent study by VOYA Finan­cial, Inc., 66% of employ­ees say they need their employ­er to help them bet­ter under­stand their employ­ee benefits…54% of Mil­len­ni­als say they don’t under­stand their ben­e­fit offerings.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – June 2021

  • Enhanc­ing Com­pa­ny Ben­e­fits for a Bet­ter Employ­ee Experience
    by A. McNeil & R. Avila

    Lets start with three ques­tions: How did you devel­op your com­pa­ny ben­e­fits pro­gram? Was it built with the employ­ee in mind, or was it to mir­ror what your com­peti­tors are offer­ing? And how do you know if your ben­e­fits pro­gram is tru­ly meet­ing the needs of your employ­ees and their fam­i­lies? When we ask employ­ers these ques­tions, the answer we most often get is: “I don’t know.”

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – April 7, 2021

  • Phil­an­thropy: COVID-19’s Sil­ver Lining
    by Mari­ah Shields

    While COVID-19 doesn’t con­jure pos­i­tive images, there is some­thing to be said about the con­struc­tive rip­ple effects of this pan­dem­ic. With every emer­gency or nat­ur­al dis­as­ter, there’s always an opti­mistic side to the dis­tress. This cri­sis is no excep­tion. The con­cept of com­pa­ny cul­ture and giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty is stronger than ever before—the pan­dem­ic has opened-up an entire­ly new con­ver­sa­tion about what it means to be civic minded.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – February 5, 2021

  • Read lat­est inter­view with award-win­ning Arrow advi­sors Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila.
    Think­ing About Diversity
    by Michael Barnes

    As the cur­rent social jus­tice move­ment and push for pro­gres­sive poli­cies reshape how soci­ety oper­ates, the sig­nif­i­cance of diver­si­ty in the work­place assumes new mean­ing. Recruit­ing employ­ees with diver­si­ty in mind is a process that is more than sim­ply “check­ing a box.” It’s a deci­sion informed by a unique cross-sec­tion of per­spec­tives, prac­tices and per­son­al­i­ties sought by employ­ers and employ­ees alike.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – February 2021

  • How to Deal with Open Enroll­ment Dur­ing COVID-19
    by A. McNeil and R. Avila

    There is no ques­tion the pan­dem­ic has changed the way we work, inter­act, and com­mu­ni­cate with our col­leagues. Some indus­tries no longer oper­ate in the rigid struc­ture once thought to be “the only” way to do business.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – December 2020

  • North Bay Com­mu­ni­ty Phil­an­thropy Awards 2020

    We’re proud to announce — Mari­ah Shields and Arrow Ben­e­fits Group were just award­ed The Busi­ness Jour­nal 2020 North Bay Com­mu­ni­ty Phil­an­thropy Award. As an out­stand­ing exam­ple of cor­po­rate giv­ing and com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment in Sono­ma, Solano, Marin, Napa, Men­do­ci­no, and Lake counties.

    Click here to watch the video…

    North Bay Business Journal – August 2020

  • Employ­ee Ben­e­fit News exclu­sive Video inter­view with Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avi­la: How tech­nol­o­gy can make or break client relationships.

    “Tech­nol­o­gy is the most vital issue for ben­e­fits bro­kers today…a lot of peo­ple that we see are not embrac­ing tech­nol­o­gy when clients want it.” In this Light­ning Round video, McNeil and Avi­la — Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Adviser’s 2019 Advis­ers of the Year — also dis­cuss bilin­gual employ­ee engage­ment and how they get over dif­fer­ences as busi­ness partners.

    Click here to watch the video…

    Employee Benefit News – January 2020

  • The Art of Attract­ing and Retain­ing Employees
    by Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila

    As the work­force gets younger and demo­graph­ics change, com­pa­nies across all indus­tries are look­ing for new ways to attract and retain their labor force. In Napa and Sono­ma coun­ties, winer­ies and oth­er busi­ness­es are cur­rent­ly com­pet­ing with the cannabis and con­struc­tion indus­tries for local work­ers. Along with com­pet­i­tive wages, many com­pa­nies now offer new, more mean­ing­ful ben­e­fits to their employ­ees beyond the tra­di­tion­al, run-of-the-mill med­ical plans and ben­e­fits package.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – March 2020

  • Cor­po­rate Culture
    Inter­view with Andrew McNeil & Rosario Avila

    “Every com­pa­ny has one, whether [it’s] good or bad,” says Andrew McNeil, prin­ci­pal and senior ben­e­fits advi­sor at Arrow Ben­e­fits Group in Petaluma, which pro­vides ben­e­fit pro­grams for more than 1,400 employ­er clients in Cal­i­for­nia. “If you have two peo­ple, you have a cul­ture. How you live and work in it defines it.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz – February 2020

  • Trans­paren­cy and Health Care Consumerism
    by Jor­dan Shields

    Ask any­one who has suf­fered a seri­ous injury or ill­ness, or is liv­ing with a chron­ic con­di­tion neces­si­tat­ing con­tin­u­al and con­sid­er­able expense, how they feel about the state of health care in the U.S. The inner work­ings of our health-care deliv­ery sys­tem remain a mys­tery. Trans­paren­cy is help­ful, but like all such leg­is­la­tion, it spawns addi­tion­al ques­tions. For exam­ple, what does the ter­mi­nol­o­gy mean? Does this include any con­tract or cash dis­counts? Are there alter­na­tive ther­a­pies or pro­ce­dures avail­able, and what do they cost?

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – February 2020

  • Ben­e­fits Influ­encer Podcast
    Com­mu­ni­ty over Com­pe­ti­tion: Bro­kers are Bet­ter Togeth­er w/ Andrew McNeil & Rosario Avila.

    In this episode, Senior Ben­e­fits Advi­sors who recent­ly won EBA’s Advi­sor of the Year, the first duo to receive the dis­tinc­tion,  dis­cuss how indus­try col­lab­o­ra­tion goes well beyond the walls of their agency. Andrew and Rosario can­did­ly share some of the inno­va­tions that have helped grow Arrow Benefits.

    Click here to lis­ten to the podcast.

    Benefits Influencer – January 2020

  • Tar­get­ing the Future
    by Stephanie Derammelaere

    “Being informed won’t help you design a com­pet­i­tive ben­e­fit pro­gram. Being advised will.” That’s the mis­sion of Arrow Ben­e­fits Group, a rapid­ly grow­ing employ­ee ben­e­fits con­sult­ing firm that has won mul­ti­ple awards and become a thought leader in the indus­try. More impor­tant­ly, it helps employ­ers and employ­ees nav­i­gate the world of com­pa­ny ben­e­fits with a flex­i­ble approach.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – October 2019

  • The pow­er of two: Advis­ers of the Year dri­ve inno­va­tion at their bro­ker­age and beyond
    by Car­o­line Hroncich

    On the cov­er of October’s Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advi­sor Magazine

    A new arti­cle and inter­view with award-win­ning Arrow advi­sors Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avi­la about their ground­break­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive work togeth­er – chang­ing the way they approach and work with clients.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    Employee Benefit Advisor – October 2019

  • Lead­ing the Way
    by Bo Kearns

    Rosario Avi­la & Andrew McNeil inter­viewed for a fea­ture in NBB Magazine:

    “In the wine, con­struc­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries with a high per­cent­age of Lati­no work­ers, there’s often cul­tur­al stig­ma sur­round­ing men­tal health, espe­cial­ly in group work­place set­tings,” said Rosario Avi­la, ben­e­fits advi­sor, Alian­za Span­ish Lan­guage Divi­sion. HIPAA (Health Insur­ance Porta­bil­i­ty and Account­abil­i­ty Act of 1996) pro­vides data pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty pro­vi­sions for safe­guard­ing med­ical infor­ma­tion. “Though HIPPA ensures employ­ee con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, some Span­ish-speak­ing employ­ees wor­ry about fil­ing claims. They’re afraid their employ­er might find out.” For employ­ees with those con­cerns, Arrow offers a hot­line where Span­ish speak­ers can call with questions.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – May 2019

  • Andrew McNeil & Rosario Avi­la have just been award­ed & inter­viewed by Employ­ee Ben­e­fit News for their inno­va­tion in ben­e­fits technology.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    April 2019

  • Ben­e­fit­sTV

    The aver­age U.S. life insur­ance pol­i­cy­hold­er is 74 per­cent under­in­sured. Are you among the under­in­sured? Advi­sors Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avi­la of Arrow Ben­e­fits Group launched Ben­e­fit­sTV in ear­ly Jan­u­ary to pro­vide this type of use­ful and easy-to-con­sume infor­ma­tion to view­ers about employ­ee ben­e­fits and oth­er insur­ance-relat­ed topics.

    McNeil, a prin­ci­pal at Arrow Ben­e­fits Group, is the first to admit that insur­ance and employ­ee ben­e­fits are gen­er­al­ly not the most excit­ing top­ic. “The goal was to pro­vide short snip­pets of infor­ma­tion, and not to be self-serv­ing. We’re try­ing to pro­vide val­ue, and not look­ing to just sell insur­ance,” he says. But the com­pa­ny is work­ing to bring val­ue to the insur­ance ben­e­fits employ­ees car­ry through their employ­ers to max­i­mize benefits.

    View Ben­e­fit­sTV videos here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — April 2019

  • Our two top inno­va­tors in advis­ing: Andrew McNeil & Rosario Avi­la are high­light­ed here in two arti­cles in Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advis­er Mag­a­zine – Jan­u­ary & April 2019 issues — for launch­ing the first if its kind YouTube chan­nel — Ben­e­fit­sTV! The chan­nel brings the pub­lic short enter­tain­ing & infor­ma­tive videos about all things benefits.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    January 2019

  • Con­grat­u­la­tions Mari­ah Shields, Principal!!

    Win­ner NBBJ 2018 Non-Prof­it Lead­er­ship Awards

    Notable Quote: I am extreme­ly proud to have co-found­ed 100 Sono­ma Peo­ple Who care, 100Sonoma.org. With­out grass roots board, we have engaged well over 500 com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and raised over $50,000 that has gone direct­ly into local non­prof­it organizations.

    Read more here…

     

  • Con­grat­u­la­tions Rosario Avi­la, Span­ish Lan­guage Divi­sion Lead, on win­ning two pres­ti­gious awards!

    We are cel­e­brat­ing her incred­i­ble work and advance­ment win­ning the EBA 2018 Top Women in Ben­e­fit Advis­ing. Addi­tion­al­ly, Rosario was award­ed The North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal 2018 Lati­no Busi­ness Lead­er­ship Award for her inno­va­tions in the industry!

    Click here to see full award details.

  • RECRUITING & RETAINING MILLENNIALS– by Andrew McNeil

    The Mil­len­ni­al work­force is no longer some­thing that is far away. It’s here, it’s grow­ing, and it’s impact­ful. In fact, their strong ethics and val­ues are rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing the way we think about busi­ness. It’s true, the youngest of the Mil­len­ni­als are in their ear­ly 20s and just get­ting their foothold in the work­force, but long gone are the days where we can dis­miss the entire gen­er­a­tion as shift­less, screen-obsessed kids.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — November 2018

  • Arrow’s new Span­ish Divi­sion Alian­za serves Span­ish-speak­ing employees
    by Cheryl Sarfaty

    Arrow Ben­e­fits Group in Petaluma has iden­ti­fied a need and tak­en action. In Jan­u­ary, Arrow launched a Span­ish lan­guage divi­sion called Alian­za, which means “alliance” in English.

    Read more here…

    North Bay Business Journal — July 6, 2018

  • Arrow Ben­e­fits Group, The Per­son­nel Per­spec­tive plan to open Napa office

    Arrow Ben­e­fits Group Man­ag­ing Part­ner Stephen McNeil said the com­bi­na­tion is an “evo­lu­tion of our part­ner­ship” to offer human resources and ben­e­fits under one roof. Arrow now has nine loca­tions in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area and South­ern California.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal – July 9, 2018

  • Arrow’s Span­ish Divi­sion Lead is inter­viewed by NBBJ Newspaper.
    by Cheryl Sarfaty

    Employ­ers whose insur­ance com­pa­nies offer Span­ish-speak­ing ser­vices for His­pan­ic and Lati­no employ­ees will not only have bet­ter-informed employ­ees, they may see reduced costs, like for work­ers com­pen­sa­tion, accord­ing to area insurers.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal – July 2018

  • Andrew McNeil, Prin­ci­pal inter­viewed here by Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advi­sor – June 2018- about find­ing the right social media plat­forms to serve your busi­ness best. Social media is key to stay­ing cur­rent in this day and age and strat­e­gy and thought must go into your pro­gram to get the most out of it.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    June 2018

  • Mari­ah Shields, Prin­ci­pal at Arrow Ben­e­fits Group and cur­rent Pres­i­dent of 100 Sono­ma, presents the back­sto­ry of her orga­ni­za­tion and how it helps oth­er local non-prof­its, where their fund­ing comes from to sup­port all the help they’re pro­vid­ing, and shares the specifics of their upcom­ing event!

    Click here to lis­ten to a record­ing of the interview.

    KSRO interviews Arrow’s Mariah Sheilds on the “100 Sonoma People Who Care” Event that supports other local non-profits

  • Our Span­ish Divi­sion lead Rosario Avi­la is inter­viewed here by Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advi­sor Mag­a­zine for the divi­sion launch, named Alian­za (alliance in Eng­lish), the inter­view focus­es on her break­through work in the indus­try trans­lat­ing the ben­e­fit in ben­e­fits to the His­pan­ic com­mu­ni­ty. Using native lan­guage and a famil­iar ver­nac­u­lar the pro­gram allows clients & employ­ees to make the most use of their ben­e­fits then pre­vi­ous­ly before.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    April 2018

  • New health-ben­e­fits trends for Cal­i­for­nia employers
    by Cyn­thia Sweeney

    The Busi­ness Jour­nal asked area insur­ance experts about changes employ­ers can expect in health insur­ance cov­er­age in 2018…Jordan Shields: If the asso­ci­a­tion is well-run there could be bet­ter rates, but his­tor­i­cal­ly, that has not been the case. The prob­lem is the asso­ci­a­tion has to start from zero and build under­ly­ing car­ri­ers. Also, if the larg­er mar­ket rates start look­ing bet­ter than the asso­ci­a­tion rates, mem­bers will start to leave.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal — February 7, 2018

  • Sono­ma, Napa winer­ies cov­er employ­ee health costs at high lev­el, report finds 
    by Cyn­thia Sweeney

    When it comes to recruit­ing and retain­ing tal­ent, one thing employ­ers want to know is what their com­pe­ti­tion is offer­ing employ­ees by way of benefits.
    A recent sur­vey of winer­ies in Sono­ma and Napa coun­ties reveals details about what kind of health ben­e­fits winer­ies are offer­ing their employees.
    “It comes down to ‘what are oth­er peo­ple doing?’” said Andrew McNeil, prin­ci­pal at Arrow Ben­e­fits Group in Petaluma, which con­duct­ed the bench­mark report. “When we go out and meet with win­ery clients or prospec­tive clients, they want to know what oth­er winer­ies are doing. This report shows them where most peo­ple are and what they offer so they can com­pete for tal­ent in a tight labor mar­ket, to recruit and retain tal­ent. Then they can fig­ure out if they need to kick it up a notch.”

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal — February 8, 2018

  • BEING HEART SAFE – An Arrow team inter­view — by Bon­nie Durrance

    Imag­ine this: You’re in your office work­ing at your desk and a cowork­er approach­es in dis­tress, col­laps­ing in front of you. What would you do? Your mind would prob­a­bly race: Is this a heart attack? Does any­one know CPR? Isn’t there a defib­ril­la­tor some­where? Where is it? Does it still work? Does any­body know how to use it? By now you’re shout­ing, “Call 9–1‑1!”  Every 27 sec­onds some­one, some­where in the U.S., is suf­fer­ing a heart attack or a sud­den car­diac arrest, accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion (AHA).

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — February 2018

  • What Works
    — Med­ical Insur­ance & Lan­guage Bar­ri­ers by Rosario Avila

    Ten­go Seguro medico, pero no se como usar­lo! Or as we say in Eng­lish– I have med­ical insur­ance, but don’t know how to use it. The employ­ee ben­e­fits world can be con­fus­ing, and pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion in an unfa­mil­iar lan­guage only adds anoth­er obsta­cle, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to under­stand and use. With so many types of med­ical plans and employ­er arrange­ments, it’s no won­der His­pan­ic employ­ees would rather go to a local clin­ic or emer­gency room than use the med­ical ben­e­fits giv­en to them by their employers.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — January 2018

  • Bal­anc­ing Act
    — Inter­view with Arrow Ben­e­fits Group Part­ners & Indus­try lead­ers on Bal­anc­ing life/work by Judith Wilson

    Andrew McNeil, prin­ci­pal at Arrow Ben­e­fits Group, a full-ser­vice employ­ee ben­e­fits firm in Petaluma, got a pic­ture of what hap­py, ful­filled employ­ees look like when he vis­it­ed Zap­pos, an online shoe and cloth­ing shop based in Las Vegas in 2016. As he walked around the cam­pus, he noticed that every­one got along well, and he learned that Zap­pos’ 1,500 employ­ees have to be a good cul­tur­al fit. The com­pa­ny is open about its cul­ture, pur­pose and mis­sion, and peo­ple don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly make a lot of mon­ey, but they stay, because they love what they do. “It’s about putting a smile on people’s faces,” he says.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — October 2017

  • North Bay employ­ers urged to get heart-sav­ing devices
    — Inter­view with team Arrow about the impact of the AED dona­tions to the com­mu­ni­ty by Cyn­thia Sweeney

    The No. 1 health-cri­sis death in the work­place is by heart attack. But hav­ing an auto­mat­ed exter­nal defib­ril­la­tor (AED) on hand can improve the chances for sur­vival of a heart attack vic­tim by about 70 per­cent.  So why don’t all work­places have one?

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal — August 2017

  • Plan now for pos­si­ble changes in employ­ee health coverage
    by Jor­dan Shields

    Pre-exist­ing con­di­tions. While it’s no doubt this term has been a hot top­ic in recent months — and notably mis­con­strued — one thing has not changed: Insur­ers can­not deny cov­er­age to any­one with a pre-exist­ing condition.

    Now that House Res­o­lu­tion 1628 has moved to the Sen­ate floor, what can employ­ers and indi­vid­u­als alike expect?

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal — July 2017

  • Cul­ture is key to retain­ing, recruit­ing employees
    by Andrew McNeil

    If you were asked what the sin­gle most-impor­tant fac­tor is in attract­ing and retain­ing top per­form­ers to your com­pa­ny, what would your answer be? Wages? Ben­e­fits? Time off?

    What about your com­pa­ny cul­ture? Is cul­ture real­ly that impor­tant to the suc­cess of your business?

    The short answer is yes.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal — June 2017

  • Petaluma com­pa­ny gives $100K for North Bay busi­ness­es’ AEDs

    The lat­est effort to reduce Sono­ma Coun­ty deaths from car­diac arrest comes from a Petaluma com­pa­ny that recent­ly pledged $100,000 to pur­chase auto­mat­ed exter­nal defib­ril­la­tors for North Bay busi­ness­es. Sta­cy Gib­bons, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion North Bay, called the move by Arrow Ben­e­fits Group “unprece­dent­ed.”

    Arrow Ben­e­fits Group’s first for­ay into reduc­ing car­diac arrest deaths was in late 2014, when the com­pa­ny asked the Petaluma Health Care Dis­trict to teach its employ­ees hands-only CPR. Read entire arti­cle here…

    The Press Democrat — June 2017

  • Prin­ci­pal Andrew McNeil inter­viewed by Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advi­sor in May 2017. The inter­view exam­ines the work of this young inno­va­tor at Arrow and his lead­er­ship toward future trends for his indus­try and company.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    May 2017

  • Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advi­sor mag­a­zine inter­views Arrow Ben­e­fits Group around the launch of the Cul­ture Insights Pro­gram which devel­ops per­son­al­ized plans for employ­ers to oper­ate at their high­est poten­tial, using six key angles includ­ing, cor­po­rate pur­pose, mis­sion, val­ues, cul­ture, HR and employ­ee ben­e­fits. The pro­gram was inspired by a 2016 tour of Zappos.com by Andrew McNeil, Prin­ci­pal and advis­er with Arrow Ben­e­fits Group. Anoth­er source of moti­va­tion was a sur­vey the firm did of mil­len­ni­als, Gen-Xers and baby boomers.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    May 2017

  • We are hon­ored to announce that our Man­ag­ing Part­ner, Stephen McNeil was just award­ed the North Bay Busi­ness Journal’s 40 under 40 award & inter­viewed by the paper.

    They asked him about:

    • Respon­si­bil­i­ties with your com­pa­ny: Over­see day-to-day oper­a­tions, finance, and Shared Ser­vices (FSA, Den­tal, and COBRA department)
    • How do you exem­pli­fy the spir­it of being a top Forty Under 40 pro­fes­sion­al?: I try and bring ener­gy, fresh ideas, and inno­va­tion every day into an indus­try where these things have his­tor­i­cal­ly been deficient.
    • Great­est pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenge: Nav­i­gat­ing our clients through a con­tin­u­al­ly tumul­tuous time in Amer­i­can health care.

    Read entire inter­view here…

    North Bay Business Journal — May 2017

  • Arrow’s Well­ness Ini­tia­tive CPR/­First-aid com­mu­ni­ty class­es in the News!

    Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advi­sor Mag­a­zine high­lights, in this arti­cle from April 2017, the First aid class­es offered on a quar­ter­ly basis to the com­mu­ni­ty for free. Inter­view also talks about the impact of the class­es and what it means to the com­mu­ni­ty to have them available.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    April 2017

  • Arrow Ben­e­fits Group wins Com­mu­ni­ty Phil­an­thropy Award!

    Giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty where employ­ees live and work is a hall­mark of the Arrow Ben­e­fits Group. Arrow sup­port­ed a num­ber of non­prof­its by con­tribut­ing $100,000 in 2016. Many of the company’s 32 employ­ees donate their time as vol­un­teers, and man­agers and the own­er­ship team have cre­at­ed inno­v­a­tive well­ness pro­grams while becom­ing per­son­al­ly involved. Arrow’s lead­ers are active­ly engaged in a vari­ety of local projects in and around Petaluma, includ­ing por­tions of south­ern Sono­ma Coun­ty and north­ern Marin Coun­ty. Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal — March 2017

  • Top 3 Ques­tions to Make the Most out of your Den­tal Plan — by Jen­nifer Wardell & Stephen McNeil

    For many den­tal patients, den­tal insur­ance annu­al max­i­mums replen­ish on Jan­u­ary 1.  To make sure you get the most bang for your buck on your den­tal plan, we rec­om­mend you ask these three vital ques­tions before hav­ing any upcom­ing procedures.

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — February 2017

  • Arti­cle about Sono­ma chap­ter co-founder & chair, Prin­ci­pal, Mari­ah Shields non-prof­it  — 100 Sonoma!

    The con­cept is sim­ple: Gath­er 100 peo­ple and have each one bring $100 to donate to a wor­thy non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion; invite three to five eli­gi­ble non­prof­its to present at the meet­ing; each non­prof­it pro­vides a one per­son, four- to five-minute oral pre­sen­ta­tion — each attend­ing mem­ber of the giv­ing group has one vote and must pro­vide their $100 dona­tion regard­less of what orga­ni­za­tion wins; the non­prof­it that secures the most votes is gift­ed the entire amount raised. Read entire arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — January 2017

  • North­Bay biz Mag­a­zine asked busi­ness & com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers to share their picks for young peo­ple mak­ing a dif­fer­ence & our Andrew McNeil, prin­ci­pal was chosen…

    Andrew has led Arrow in embrac­ing the con­cept of shift­ing his own company’s cul­ture and is lead­ing the charge by help­ing oth­er employ­ers do the same. His efforts result­ed in many pos­i­tive changes and are attract­ing a lot of promis­ing tal­ent to the employ­ers he serves. Andrew believes that a unique com­pa­ny cul­ture is what will attract and retain the work­force of the future.

    Mil­len­ni­als want to feel good about where they work, believe in the pur­pose and mis­sion of their employ­er, feel appre­ci­at­ed and have fun at the same time. To many mil­len­ni­als, this is worth more than mon­ey and tra­di­tion­al ben­e­fits. Com­pa­nies late in fig­ur­ing this out will have a hard time com­pet­ing for the work­force they need. —Karen Alary, the Per­son­nel Perspective

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – November 2016

  • A Fresh Look at Ben­e­fits: What You Need to Know
    by Stephen McNeil, GBA

    You’re a brand new human resources direc­tor and you’ve been review­ing the ben­e­fits your com­pa­ny offers its employ­ees. You’re imme­di­ate­ly curi­ous about sev­er­al points: “Why is there no PPO (pre­ferred provider orga­ni­za­tion) option to offer out-of-net­work ben­e­fits? Why aren’t we offer­ing a vision plan? Should we be out­sourc­ing our ben­e­fits admin­is­tra­tion?” These are great ques­tions that aren’t asked near­ly asked enough.  Read arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine – November 2016

  • Casu­al dress becomes the work­place norm — an inter­view with Kei­th and Andrew McNeil

    We may have Mark Zucker­berg to thank for bring­ing the hood­ie into the work­place, but less for­mal attire has been creep­ing past casu­al Fri­day to include the rest of the week in even the most for­mal of offices. Accord­ing to new research, 50 per­cent of senior man­agers said employ­ees wear less for­mal cloth­ing than they did five years ago. Kei­th McNeil is a part­ner at Arrow Ben­e­fits, an insur­ance office in Petaluma with about 30 employ­ees. After 30 years of wear­ing a suit, he quit wear­ing one every day two years ago. Read arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal — October 2016

  • This Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advi­sor arti­cle from Octo­ber 2016 exam­ines work­place cul­ture as a need­ed new ben­e­fit. EBA inter­views Andrew McNeil, Prin­ci­pal about the new move­ment to gain and retain qual­i­ty team mem­bers in an envi­ron­ment that they want to see, a car­ing work­place culture.

    Read entire arti­cle here…

    October 2016

  • This Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advi­sor inter­view from Sep­tem­ber 2016 dis­cuss­es our unique Umbrel­la part­ner­ship pro­gram that gives a life­line to small CA bro­ker­ages – the inter­view is with found­ing part­ners Kei­th McNeil & Jor­dan Shields. The pro­gram is a com­pre­hen­sive sys­tem for han­dling renewals and real­is­tic suc­ces­sion plans for own­ers, their employ­ees and clients and has expand­ed ABG’s reach and client base across California.

     Read entire arti­cle here…

    September 2016

  • Pro­mote Employ­ee Strengths: Ask What They Want

    By Prin­ci­pal, Mari­ah Shields

    Many look at devel­op­ing employ­ees from an HR per­spec­tive: an employ­ee is doing well, their man­ag­er lets HR know and togeth­er they cre­ate a new job descrip­tion with increased func­tions, devel­op a pro­mo­tion­al lev­el, clear a pay­roll increase with finance and then let the employ­ee know. But in that process, you’ve over­looked two game-chang­ing ideas.  Read arti­cle here…

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — July 2016

  • Dis­abil­i­ty insur­ance pro­tects a work­ers most impor­tant asset

    By Prin­ci­pal, Andrew McNeil

    When peo­ple think of employ­ee ben­e­fits, the first thing they usu­al­ly think of is health insur­ance because it pro­tects them and their fam­i­ly from exor­bi­tant med­ical bills which could deplete their family’s nest egg and pos­si­bly force them into bank­rupt­cy. Read arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal – July 2016

  • Arrow Ben­e­fits Group — Women in Busi­ness in North­Bay­Biz Mag­a­zine — May 2016 People

    The May issue of North­Bay­Biz Mag­a­zine focus­es on suc­cess­ful and influ­en­tial North Bay women, and our own Karen Alary, Man­ag­ing Part­ner at The Per­son­nel Per­spec­tive — HR divi­sion at Arrow Ben­e­fits Group was fea­tured. “My advice: Don’t be deterred when faced with seem­ing­ly insur­mount­able obsta­cles. Nev­er give up on your dream; even if you have to make adjust­ments, fol­low your passion.”

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — May 2016

  • Telemed­i­cine insur­ance valu­able to employ­er and employ­ee — by Prin­ci­pal Andrew McNeil

    With an ever-increas­ing appeal for on-demand ser­vices and resources, telemed­i­cine fits per­fect­ly in the fast-paced world in which we live. Telemed­i­cine is the lat­est in tech­nol­o­gy that brings indi­vid­u­als imme­di­ate, on-the-spot access to state-licensed physi­cians. By using ICT (infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy), telemed­i­cine brings patients and doc­tors togeth­er via video-based resources, for con­sults and vis­its any­time, any­where in the world. Read entire arti­cle here….

    North Bay Business Journal — May 2016

  • Holis­tic health­care plans are grow­ing rapid­ly, and Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advi­sor inter­viewed Arrow about this for their May 2016 issue explor­ing the new types of plans from lead­ing insur­ers like telemed­i­cine strat­e­gy – a great tool to offer espe­cial­ly ben­e­fi­cial for ful­ly insured and self-fund­ed groups, and par­tic­u­lar­ly for rur­al areas.

    Read entire arti­cle here….

    May 2016

  • Arrow Ben­e­fits Group — All in the Fam­i­ly in North­Bay­Biz Mag­a­zine — April 2016 People

    The com­pa­ny is fam­i­ly based, with chil­dren from both part­ners’ sides work­ing at the com­pa­ny togeth­er.  Kei­th McNeil says that the younger gen­er­a­tion brings fresh ideas, dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives and a bet­ter under­stand­ing of tech­nol­o­gy issues…Stephen McNeil, the son of Kei­th McNeil, echoes the sen­ti­ment, say­ing, “We don’t have the nor­mal issues a fam­i­ly busi­ness has. It’s brought us clos­er as a fam­i­ly. Both fam­i­lies inter­act real­ly well.”

    NorthBayBiz Magazine — April 2016

  • Arrow Prin­ci­pal Andrew McNeil wins North Bay Busi­ness Journal’s Forty Under 40 Professionals.

    How do you exem­pli­fy the spir­it of a top 40 under 40 pro­fes­sion­al: “It’s all about my long-term out­look and my work in build­ing our company’s brand for the future here local­ly and out­side of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia.” Great­est pro­fes­sion­al accom­plish­ment: Mar­ry­ing my wife, Lind­sey, whose sup­port and encour­age­ment has been a dri­ving force for me for almost 10 years. Best advice received: Save your mon­ey and nev­er stop learn­ing. Read more here…

    Meet the North Bay Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 Professionals

  • Arrow Ben­e­fits Group Wins North Bay Busi­ness Jour­nal Com­mu­ni­ty Phil­an­thropy Awards. Accept­ing are prin­ci­pals Andrew McNeil and Mari­ah Shields.

    We are pleased to announce receiv­ing this respect­ed award and humbly accept. We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing our lega­cy of com­mit­ment to our com­mu­ni­ty and spir­it of always giv­ing back! See all the win­ners here…

    Community Philanthropy Awards Luncheon — March 30, 2016

  • North Bay employ­ers learn new lan­guage of Afford­able Care Act compliance
    Inter­view with Andrew McNeil

    “We are still get­ting new clients, peo­ple we should have been talk­ing to about this a cou­ple of months ago,” said Andrew McNeil, prin­ci­pal, Arrow Ben­e­fits. McNeil’s advice to employ­ers is to track employ­ees on a month­ly basis. “Then their records will be in bet­ter shape,” he said. Penal­ties for non-com­pli­ance with the man­date are $2,000 per employ­ee. Read Entire Arti­cle Here…

    North Bay Business Journal – April 2016

  • Employ­ee Ben­e­fit Advi­sor explores the con­cepts of well­ness with­in a com­pa­ny cul­ture. Cul­ture can bond a busi­ness to a local com­mu­ni­ty in mul­ti­ple ways includ­ing offer­ing increased health and well­ness for everyone.

    Read Arti­cle Here…

  • Guest Com­men­tary by Andrew McNeil

    When con­sid­er­ing employ­ee ben­e­fits that will appeal to mil­len­ni­als — you need to think like one. A Met Life sur­vey shows mil­len­ni­als are more like­ly to work for a com­pa­ny based on the offered ben­e­fits pack­age, rather than just a high­er start­ing salary. Read entire arti­cle here…

    North Bay Business Journal – February 2016

  • The Ben­e­fits of Giv­ing by Mari­ah Shields

    I real­ize run­ning a suc­cess­ful busi­ness means your plate is piled-high with dai­ly pri­or­i­ties but there’s one often-over­looked busi­ness act that can ful­fill, enrich and reward you if you make time for it: phil­an­thropy. Read full arti­cle here

    North Bay Biz — January 2016

  • Read our inter­view on the usage of Ben­e­fits Apps…Petaluma-based health care insur­ance bro­ker­age Arrow Ben­e­fits Group released a mobile app and accom­pa­ny­ing web­site por­tal for peo­ple to get infor­ma­tion on their care plans wher­ev­er they are. Read more…

    North Bay Business Journal – November 2015

  • Arrow Ben­e­fits Group just fea­tured in North Bay Biz Mag­a­zine arti­cle – Health Care Check-up

    North Bay Biz – September 2015

  • Prepa­ra­tion is key for Depart­ment of Labor Audit

    North Bay Business Journal – July 2015

  • Petaluma Health Care Dis­trict Launch­es Heart­Safe Com­mu­ni­ty for Busi­ness­es as Arrow Ben­e­fits Group Part­ners for CPR/AED Training

    North Bay Business Journal – June 2015

  • Allowed and Dis­al­lowed: Grum­bles about Health Insur­ance Costs Breed New Solu­tions by Kei­th McNeil & Jor­dan Shields

    North Bay Biz Magazine – May 2015

  • Work Well­ness Pro­grams Progressing

    North Bay Business Journal – April 2015

  • Health Indus­try Offer­ing Free Well­ness Programs

    North Bay Business Journal – April 2015

  • Petaluma – A Healthy Role Model

    North Bay Business Journal – February 2015

  • North Bay Bro­kers Out­line Trends in 2015 Health Insurance

    North Bay Business Journal – November 2014

  • Bro­ker SSM Group Renamed Arrow Benefits

    North Bay Business Journal – October 2014

North Bay Business Journal - 2022 Winner Best Places To Work 2022 Excellence in Benefits Awards NBBJ Gives Awards Winner Email Badge NBBJ Community Philanthropy Award 2017-2022
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