If you’re evaluating FrankCrum as a PEO partner, or you’re already a client trying to get more out of the platform, understanding how their benefits administration actually works in practice matters a lot more than the sales pitch.

Benefits administration is one of the primary reasons small and mid-sized businesses turn to a PEO in the first place. The promise is real: access to large-group health plans, streamlined enrollment, and less administrative burden on your HR team or yourself. FrankCrum delivers this through a co-employment model where your employees technically become co-employed under FrankCrum’s master health plan. That structure changes how enrollment works, what your employees can access, and critically, what happens if you ever leave.

This guide walks through the benefits administration process step by step, from initial setup through annual open enrollment to what you actually manage day-to-day. It’s written for business owners and HR decision-makers who want a clear operational picture, not a brochure.

If you’re still in the evaluation phase, this walkthrough will also help you ask sharper questions before signing. And if you’re comparing FrankCrum against other PEOs on benefits specifically, the decision points flagged throughout each step are worth paying close attention to.

Step 1: Understand the Co-Employment Structure Before Enrollment Starts

Before you touch a single enrollment form, you need to understand what the co-employment model actually means for benefits — because it’s where most business owners develop false assumptions.

FrankCrum operates as the employer of record. That means your employees enroll in FrankCrum’s master health plan, not a plan you purchase directly as an employer. This is standard PEO structure, but the implications are real. Plan options, carrier relationships, and coverage tiers are set by FrankCrum. You don’t negotiate them. You don’t bring your own broker. You work within the framework they’ve established.

Your role as the worksite employer is to define your contribution strategy: how much you’ll cover versus what employees pay out of pocket. That’s where your cost control lives. But the underlying plan architecture isn’t something you customize per your workforce’s specific preferences.

This distinction matters for a few reasons. First, if your current benefits package is highly tailored — specific carriers, specific plan designs, or supplemental options your employees are used to — you need to honestly assess whether FrankCrum’s plan menu is a reasonable substitute. Second, if you have a strong broker relationship you’ve relied on for years, that relationship doesn’t carry into the PEO arrangement. FrankCrum manages the carrier relationships directly.

The exit risk is the part most business owners underestimate at this stage. When you leave a PEO, employees lose access to the co-employment health plan. You’ll need to secure replacement coverage, often mid-year, which is operationally complex and frequently more expensive than what you were paying inside the PEO. That’s not a reason to avoid FrankCrum — it’s a reason to go in with clear eyes about the long-term commitment you’re making.

A common misconception worth naming directly: business owners often assume they can bring their existing carrier or broker into the PEO arrangement. That’s typically not how FrankCrum’s model works. Clarify this explicitly during your sales conversations before you get attached to a specific plan design.

If you want a broader grounding in how PEO employee benefits work structurally before diving into FrankCrum specifically, our foundational guide on PEO employee benefits covers the mechanics in more depth.

Step 2: Review the Plan Menu and Set Your Contribution Strategy

Once you understand the model, the next step is reviewing what FrankCrum actually offers and deciding how you’ll fund it.

FrankCrum typically offers medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, and supplemental benefit options. That’s a solid core lineup for most small to mid-sized employers. But the specific carriers, plan tiers, and network structures can change over time, so confirm current carrier partnerships during your sales process rather than relying on outdated information.

Your implementation rep will walk you through available plan tiers. Evaluate these against your current benefits spend and your employee demographics. A workforce that skews younger and healthier may prioritize lower-premium, higher-deductible options. A workforce with families and older employees may need richer plan designs. Make sure the options on the menu actually match your people before you commit.

Contribution strategy is where the real financial decision-making happens. You’ll decide what percentage or flat dollar amount you’ll cover per employee, and often separately for dependent tiers. Higher employer contributions improve enrollment rates and employee satisfaction, but they directly increase your per-employee cost inside the PEO fee structure. There’s no universally right answer here — it depends on your budget, your competitive position in hiring, and your workforce’s expectations.

A practical tip worth using: request a benefits benchmarking comparison from FrankCrum during implementation. Understanding how your contribution levels compare to similar-sized employers in your region or industry gives you a reference point for calibrating your strategy. Most PEOs have this data and will share it if you ask.

Also watch for minimum participation requirements. Most PEO health plans require a minimum percentage of eligible employees to enroll for certain plan options to remain available. If your workforce is small or you expect low voluntary participation, some plan tiers may not be accessible. This is a practical constraint that smaller employers sometimes run into unexpectedly.

Finally, confirm FSA, HSA, or HRA availability during this step if those are part of your current or planned benefits strategy. Not all PEO plan structures are compatible with every account type, and this is easier to sort out before you’ve committed to a contribution approach than after.

Step 3: Complete Implementation and Employee Data Setup

This is the unglamorous but operationally critical phase. Benefits administration lives or dies on the quality of your data setup.

FrankCrum’s implementation team will collect employee census data: names, dates of birth, addresses, dependent information, and current coverage details. Accurate data here is non-negotiable. Errors create enrollment delays, incorrect premium deductions, and employee frustration on day one — which is exactly the wrong way to introduce a new benefits platform to your team.

Payroll deduction schedules are established during this phase as well. Benefits premiums are deducted through FrankCrum’s payroll system, so payroll and benefits are integrated by design. That integration is one of the real operational advantages of the PEO model, but it also means that payroll setup errors can cascade into benefits errors. Double-check deduction amounts against the contribution strategy you defined in Step 2.

If you’re switching to FrankCrum mid-year, coordinate carefully around COBRA obligations for employees transitioning off your prior plan. There are specific notification timelines under federal law, and mid-year transitions can create gaps if the handoff isn’t managed cleanly. Your prior carrier and FrankCrum’s implementation team both need to be on the same page about effective dates.

Employees will receive enrollment access through FrankCrum’s employee self-service portal once implementation is complete. Confirm the timeline and communication plan with your implementation contact early — employees need adequate notice to make informed elections, not a 48-hour window before the deadline closes.

The most common pitfall at this stage is assuming implementation handles itself. It doesn’t. Assign an internal point of contact — whether that’s you, an office manager, or an HR coordinator — to verify data accuracy before go-live. One person who owns this process prevents the kind of cascading errors that create headaches for months.

Plan for 30 to 60 days minimum for a clean implementation. Mid-year switches with complex dependent situations or COBRA coordination can take longer. Build that buffer into your planning timeline rather than discovering it under pressure.

Step 4: Walk Employees Through the Enrollment Portal

FrankCrum provides an online self-service portal where employees complete their benefits elections. Before you communicate anything to your team, spend time in the portal yourself so you understand what they’re looking at.

Employees use the portal to select plan options, add dependents, and submit their elections within a defined enrollment window — typically 30 days from hire date or during the annual open enrollment period. As the employer, you won’t make individual elections on behalf of employees, but you are responsible for communicating deadlines and making sure your team understands what they need to do and why it matters.

Hosting a brief internal Q&A session when onboarding new employees or entering open enrollment is genuinely worth the time. Employees who don’t understand their options often default to waiving coverage entirely. That hurts participation rates, which can affect plan availability (see the minimum participation issue from Step 2), and it leaves employees without coverage they may later wish they had.

FrankCrum’s HR support team can assist employees with portal navigation questions. Know the support contact process before employees start asking you questions you can’t answer. Being able to say “here’s exactly who to call and what to ask” is more useful than trying to troubleshoot portal issues yourself. For a side-by-side look at how another PEO handles the same enrollment experience, the Justworks benefits administration walkthrough offers a useful point of comparison.

Missed enrollment windows are a real operational problem and one that creates friction disproportionate to the actual error. Employees who miss their window typically must wait until the next open enrollment period unless they experience a qualifying life event. That’s a meaningful gap in coverage. Build reminders into your internal process — calendar alerts, a second email before the deadline closes, whatever works for your team’s communication style.

Also verify whether FrankCrum provides benefits guides or summary plan descriptions in formats your workforce can actually use. If you have employees with limited English proficiency or limited digital access, a portal-only enrollment experience may create real barriers. Ask about this during implementation rather than discovering it when enrollment opens.

Step 5: Manage Ongoing Changes, Life Events, and Terminations

After initial enrollment, benefits administration shifts into a steady operational rhythm. Most of what you’re managing day-to-day is change events: new hires, terminations, marriages, births, address changes, and the occasional qualifying life event that allows mid-year coverage adjustments.

New hire enrollment should be triggered automatically when you add a new employee to FrankCrum’s system. Confirm this workflow during implementation — don’t assume it happens. If the trigger requires a manual step on your end, that’s something your internal checklist needs to capture so new hires don’t fall through the cracks and miss their enrollment window.

Qualifying life events — marriage, birth, adoption, loss of other coverage — allow mid-year changes outside the standard enrollment window. Employees must submit documentation within a defined window, typically 30 days of the event. Make sure your team knows this rule and knows how to submit documentation through the portal. A birth that goes unreported for 45 days creates a coverage gap that’s difficult to retroactively correct.

Terminations need to be processed promptly. When an employee leaves, benefits termination must happen quickly — delays create billing errors and potential compliance exposure under COBRA notification rules. Federal law requires COBRA notices to be sent within specific timeframes after a qualifying event. COBRA administration is typically handled within the PEO relationship, but confirm explicitly in your service agreement what FrankCrum manages versus what remains your responsibility. For a detailed look at how COBRA obligations flow through a PEO arrangement, the Paychex Oasis COBRA administration guide walks through the mechanics in practical terms.

ACA reporting is another area to verify contractually. As co-employer, FrankCrum typically handles 1094-C and 1095-C filings. This is standard in the PEO industry, but “typically” is not the same as “confirmed in your specific agreement.” Get this in writing before you sign. Understanding your PEO benefits compliance reporting obligations is essential before you finalize any service agreement.

Building a simple internal checklist for whoever manages HR tasks in your organization is one of the highest-value things you can do at this stage. Cover what to do in FrankCrum’s system when an employee is hired, changes status, or is terminated. It doesn’t need to be elaborate — a one-page reference document reduces errors significantly and protects you from compliance exposure when things move fast.

Step 6: Navigate Annual Open Enrollment Without the Chaos

Open enrollment is the highest-stakes period in the benefits administration calendar. Plan options may change, premiums adjust, and every active employee needs to review their elections. Managing it well is largely a communication and timing problem, not a technical one.

FrankCrum will communicate plan changes and rate adjustments to you ahead of open enrollment. Review these carefully before you pass anything along to employees. Assess the impact on your contribution budget first — if premiums increased, you need to decide whether you’re absorbing that cost, passing some of it to employees, or adjusting your contribution strategy before the window opens.

If plan options or carriers change year-over-year, understand the default enrollment rules in FrankCrum’s system. Employees who don’t actively re-enroll during the window may be auto-enrolled in a default plan or, in some configurations, lose coverage entirely. Know which scenario applies so you can communicate it accurately to your team.

Communicate early and clearly. Send employees a plain-language summary of what’s changing, what they need to do, and the deadline. Don’t rely solely on the portal notification to carry this message. A direct email from you or your HR contact — even a brief one — reinforces urgency in a way that a system-generated notification often doesn’t. Reviewing your PEO benefits communication tools before the enrollment window opens can make this process significantly smoother.

After the enrollment window closes, pull an enrollment report and audit it. Verify that every active employee has either elected coverage or formally waived it. Gaps in this report create billing discrepancies and compliance problems that are much easier to catch in the first week after enrollment closes than three months later when payroll deductions don’t match expectations.

Open enrollment is also a natural evaluation point. If you’re looking at meaningful premium increases, plan changes that don’t serve your workforce well, or a portal experience that frustrated your employees, this is the right moment to assess whether FrankCrum is still the right fit — before your contract renews, not after. Comparing PEO options at renewal is far less disruptive than switching mid-year.

Putting It All Together: What to Evaluate Before You Commit

The six steps above describe the actual operational workflow of FrankCrum’s benefits administration from the moment you’re evaluating the platform through your first full year of open enrollment. Here’s the condensed decision checklist.

Before signing, ask FrankCrum directly: What carriers are currently on the plan menu? What are the minimum participation requirements for each plan tier? How is COBRA administration handled, and what’s specifically in the service agreement? What does the employee portal experience look like — can you see a demo?

Understand the exit risk clearly: Co-employment benefits plans don’t transfer when you leave. Employees lose access to the FrankCrum health plan, and you’ll need to secure replacement coverage on a compressed timeline. This isn’t a dealbreaker, but it’s a material factor in how you think about the long-term commitment.

Evaluate the fit honestly: FrankCrum works well for businesses that want a streamlined, hands-off enrollment experience and access to group coverage they couldn’t negotiate independently. It’s a less natural fit for businesses with highly customized benefit needs or strong existing broker relationships they want to preserve.

If you’re still comparing FrankCrum against other PEOs, don’t rely on individual sales conversations to make that comparison. The plan structures, pricing models, and service agreements vary enough across providers that a side-by-side evaluation is worth doing before you commit. Compare your options using an independent platform that breaks down benefits structure, pricing, and contract terms across providers — so you’re making the decision based on data, not sales momentum.