Format for Presenting an Agenda Item

When moving through a board meeting agenda, effective use of time is crucial.  The board needs to be able to make quality decisions based on solid, complete information. When presenting an agenda item, therefore, an organized format is essential. The following is a sample of a recommended format for presentation.

Agenda Item:  Change in health insurance plan.

Background:  Our health insurance carrier has reported that the cost of our policy will increase 22% effective the first of next month.  The cost of this increase will be $67,000 for the balance of this year.

Relationship to Strategic or Operational Plan:  Our ten-year target was to reduce our costs of production.  Our first-year target was to go into the second year with no increases in costs, corrected for inflation.

Relevant Policies: Personnel Policies contain information about the health insurance available to our staff and its cost, deductibles and coverage.

Alternatives:

1. Accept the increase in health insurance costs and try to find costs elsewhere that can be reduced to meet our first year target of no overall cost increase.
2. Research other insurance carriers to see if we can maintain current coverage without increasing cost. We have done some initial research through an outside independent resource.  It was determined that although we might find a lower cost for health coverage in the first year as an attempt to lure us to a new insurance vendor, over the long term our current health insurance carrier has proven to be the best vendor for keeping costs of health insurance low.
3. Change our policy to raise the deductible that would be paid by employees from $500 to $1,000 before our coverage kicks in. This would result in a net reduction of  insurance costs to the organization of $5,000.
4. Implement a co-insurance program for employees that is implemented when their healthcare costs exceed $500 up to $1,000.  For that span, employees would be responsible for 20% of the costs or $100.  After that, coverage continues as it is now, paying 100% of costs. The net impact of this approach would be an increase of $6,000 per year in health insurance costs to the organization.

Recommendation: Alternative D — implement a co-insurance policy whereby employee and dependents pay for 20% of the expenses for their care between $500 up to $1,000.

Modify this sample or develop a format that works for you and the CEO.  Through policy, dictate that agenda items in the board packet all have a cover sheet that employs the format you have decided upon, like the one above, even if the presenter is someone from outside the organization.  You will find that doing so speeds up the meeting and improves the quality of your decision making.