UBA Spring 2026 Speaking Recap
A recap of my session at the United Benefit Advisors Spring 2026 Conference — covering AI in employee benefits, self-funded plan strategy, and what employers need to know right now.
VP of Employee Benefits · BHC Insurance · Independent Benefits Consultant
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to present at the United Benefit Advisors (UBA) Spring 2026 National Conference. UBA is one of the largest independent employee benefits advisory networks in the country, and their national conferences bring together benefits consultants, brokers, and advisors from across the U.S. to share what is actually working in the field.
This was my fourth consecutive year presenting at a UBA national conference, and the topic this time was one I have been building toward for a while: practical applications of artificial intelligence in employer health plan strategy.
Here is a recap of what I covered and why it matters for plan sponsors right now.
The Core Argument: AI Is a Tool, Not a Strategy
The benefits industry is full of vendors selling AI-powered solutions. Most of them are using the term loosely — what they mean is a rules engine, a decision tree, or a basic matching algorithm dressed up in modern language.
My session was not about vendor AI. It was about how employers and their advisors can use AI tools — specifically large language models — to do things that used to require expensive consultants or were not possible at all: reviewing stop-loss contracts for red-flag language, analyzing PBM agreements for hidden spread pricing and gag clauses, summarizing SPD documents for plan members who will never read 80 pages of legalese, and benchmarking plan design against peer employers using publicly available data.
The point I kept coming back to: AI does not replace the judgment of an experienced benefits advisor. But it dramatically lowers the cost of doing the analytical work that good judgment requires.
Self-Funded Plans and the Information Gap
A significant portion of my session focused on the information asymmetry that keeps most mid-market employers stuck in fully insured plans they have outgrown.
The traditional insurance model is built on opacity. Carriers do not want employers to know their actual claims experience. PBMs do not want plan sponsors to understand their contract terms. TPAs vary wildly in quality, and most employers have no framework for evaluating them.
Self-funded plans flip this dynamic — but only if the employer has access to their own data and knows how to use it. That is where AI tools become genuinely useful. When you can feed a claims file into a model and get a plain-language summary of your top cost drivers in minutes, the barrier to acting on that information drops significantly.
I walked through a live demo of the AI SPD Review tool available at employerbenefitsiq.com — which takes a Summary Plan Description PDF and returns a structured analysis of coverage gaps, compliance issues, and member-facing language problems. The reaction from the room was consistent: why does not every employer have access to this? The answer is that most employers do not know it exists. That is the gap this site is designed to close.
PBM Reform: Still the Biggest Lever Most Employers Are Not Pulling
I also spent time on pharmacy benefit manager reform — a topic I have been covering on this blog for years and one that continues to be the most underutilized cost-containment lever in employer health plans.
The FTC 2024 report on PBM practices confirmed what independent advisors have been saying for a decade: spread pricing, rebate manipulation, and formulary steering are systemic, not exceptional. The three largest PBMs — CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and OptumRx — control roughly 80% of the commercial market and have financial incentives that are structurally misaligned with plan sponsors.
The good news is that the tools to address this exist. Pass-through pricing contracts, transparent rebate arrangements, carve-out specialty pharmacy programs, and independent PBM audits are all available to mid-market employers today. Most just need an advisor willing to push for them.
What Advisors in the Room Took Away
The feedback after the session was consistent across a few themes.
I knew AI was coming to benefits, but I did not know it was already here. The tools I demonstrated are not prototypes. They are live, they are free, and they work. The gap between what is available and what most advisors are using is significant.
The PBM framework is something I can use with clients immediately. Several advisors asked for the contract review checklist. It is available on the site.
The self-funding information gap is real, and it is getting worse. As fully insured premiums continue to climb, more employers are asking about alternatives — but most do not have a trusted source of independent information. That is the problem this site exists to solve.
About the UBA Network
United Benefit Advisors is a network of more than 200 independent employee benefits advisory firms across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Member firms collectively advise on more than $35 billion in annual benefits spend. UBA national conferences are among the most substantive professional development events in the independent benefits advisory space — the sessions are practitioner-led, not vendor-sponsored, which makes the content meaningfully different from most industry conferences.
I am grateful to UBA for the platform and to the advisors who engaged with the material.
The tools and frameworks covered in the session are all available at employerbenefitsiq.com. If you are an employer or HR professional trying to make sense of your health plan — or an advisor looking for independent resources to share with clients — everything on this site is free.
— Corry Hull, REBC® CSFS® | VP of Employee Benefits, BHC Insurance | Rogers, Arkansas
Sources & Further Reading
- United Benefit Advisors (UBA): Network Overview and Member Resources — Overview of the UBA network — the professional context for the speaking engagement and the advisor audience discussed in the recap.
- FTC Report: Pharmacy Benefit Managers — Revenues and Fees (2024) — The FTC findings on PBM economics that informed the PBM reform content presented at the UBA event.
- Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 — Transparency and Fiduciary Provisions — The legislative framework for the CAA 2026 transparency content covered in the speaking presentation.
- KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey 2024 — Benchmark data referenced in the presentation on employer health plan cost trends and the information gap in self-funded plans.
- PBGH: High-Performance Health Plan Principles — Employer coalition framework referenced in the presentation on what advisors can help employers build toward.
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About the Author
Corry Hull, REBC®, CSFS®
VP of Employee Benefits · BHC Insurance
Corry Hull, REBC® CSFS®, is VP of Employee Benefits at BHC Insurance and the founder of Employer Benefits IQ (www.employerbenefitsiq.com). He is a Certified Health Rosetta Advisor — one of fewer than 200 nationwide — and a multi-year presenter at United Benefit Advisors (UBA) national conferences. He specializes in self-funded health plan design, PBM contract strategy, stop-loss structuring, group medical captives, and ACA/ERISA compliance for mid-market employers. His work has been recognized by Health Rosetta (Rosie Award, 2026), UBA (Producer Peak Performer, 2025–2024), and BHC Insurance (Producer of the Year, 2021–2025). His employer-education content has been referenced in BenefitsPro and cited within the Health Rosetta advisor community. All consulting and brokerage compensation is fully disclosed.