Managed Benefits · Alternatives
Your broker gave you a solid tool, and your broker should stay. BEG Managed Benefits, powered by isolved, adds what software alone cannot: a dedicated team that runs enrollment, changes, and compliance for you, with a monthly estimate on screen in about 90 seconds.
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Credit Where Due
Employee Navigator is one of the most widely used benefits administration platforms in the country, and it earned that position honestly. It gives insurance brokers a single platform to run online enrollment, ACA reporting, new hire onboarding, and HR recordkeeping for their employer clients, with hundreds of carrier, payroll, and TPA integrations. Its published tier comparison, Enhanced through Platinum, is refreshingly transparent about what each plan includes, with plan pricing handled through its sales team.
One thing worth saying plainly: if your broker set you up on Employee Navigator, that is a good sign about your broker. It means they invest in modern tooling for their clients instead of pushing paper enrollment forms. The tool is good, the channel is legitimate, and nothing on this page argues otherwise.
The comparison with BEG is not software versus software. It is software versus service: who actually does the administrative work that the software organizes.
The Real Question
None of this is a flaw in Employee Navigator. Software organizes work; it does not perform it. These are the jobs that stay on the employer's desk with any benefits software.
Someone on your side builds plans, keys life events, chases incomplete enrollments, and reconciles carrier discrepancies. The tool makes those tasks cleaner; it does not make them disappear from your week.
Enrollment windows, employee reminders, election corrections, and payroll deduction syncs all need a project owner. In a software model, that owner is your HR person, in Q4, on top of everything else.
Employee Navigator has real ACA reporting features, with variable-hour tracking and 1094/1095 support. Features still need an operator: someone must watch eligibility all year, validate the data, and stand behind the filing.
Brokers advise on plans, negotiate renewals, and support their clients generously. But the daily administrative hours inside the system were never the broker’s job, and it is not fair to expect them to become it.
Side by Side
| Factor | BEG Managed Benefits | Employee Navigator |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A managed service on the isolved platform | Benefits administration software distributed through brokers |
| Who does the admin work | A dedicated team on the Fully Managed plan | Your HR team, in the software |
| Your broker | Stays; we work alongside them | Stays; brokers license and run the platform |
| Open enrollment | Handled start to finish on the top plan | Strong tools your team drives |
| ACA reporting | Tracked and produced for you | Reporting module your team operates; some services carry added fees per its pricing page |
| Pricing visibility | Instant on-screen estimate for employers | Tier features published; plan pricing through sales, sold to brokers |
| Payroll connection | Same platform as BEG managed payroll | Payroll integrations |
| COBRA administration | Coordinated as part of the Fully Managed service | Not built in; typically a separate COBRA vendor or your team |
| Carrier / 834 feeds | Monitored and corrected by a Benefits Auditing Analyst | Supported feeds; a per-employee fee applies on some published tiers |
| PEO or co-employment? | No. Not a PEO; you remain the employer of record | Not applicable; it is software, not an employment model |
| Best-fit company profile | Broker-supported employers whose team is out of hours for enrollment, ACA, or carrier cleanup | Employers whose broker actively runs the platform and whose team has capacity to do the data work |
| Getting started | 15-minute call after your estimate | Through your broker |
Honest Answer
If you have a capable person who genuinely owns benefits administration, your broker runs Employee Navigator well, and the workload fits inside that person's week, keep exactly what you have. The combination of a good broker and a modern platform is a strong setup, and paying for a managed service to replace work your team handles comfortably is spending money on a problem you do not have. Employee Navigator's breadth of integrations and its published tier structure also make it easy for your broker to grow the setup as you add carriers or products.
The time to look at BEG is when the tool is fine but the hours are not: when enrollment season swallows your HR person, ACA filings feel like a gamble, and the administration needs an owner whose whole job it is.
Which Fits You
Under 50 employees with a broker who logs into Employee Navigator, builds your plans, and answers questions quickly? Stay put. A managed service adds cost you likely do not need yet.
One person owns benefits, payroll, and half of HR, and open enrollment already eats two weeks of their quarter. This is the profile where a Fully Managed team pays for itself in reclaimed hours, not features.
If 1095-C season means scrambling, or carrier discrepancies surface at renewal instead of in real time, the gap is not the software, it is having someone dedicated to watching the data all year.
None of these situations argue that BEG "wins" universally. They argue that the right choice depends on whether your bottleneck is missing software or missing hours. If it is hours, that is what a managed service is built to solve.
The BEG Alternative
BEG Managed Benefits, powered by isolved, comes in three plans: benefits admin software your team drives, software plus ACA compliance with Forms 1094-C and 1095-C produced for you, and Fully Managed, where a dedicated Managed Benefits Specialist runs enrollment and changes while a Benefits Auditing Analyst checks your data for costly errors. Your broker keeps advising and placing coverage exactly as before; what moves is the operational load. Full detail on the managed benefits overview.
Your monthly estimate on screen - no call required
Comparing the software camp side by side? See the PlanSource alternative, or the service camp via the WEX benefits alternative.
Questions
Not your broker, ever. Your broker keeps advising you, negotiating renewals, and placing coverage no matter which administration system sits behind the plans. What BEG Managed Benefits, powered by isolved, changes is who does the administrative work: instead of your team running it in software, a dedicated team runs it for you.
Employee Navigator is benefits administration software that insurance brokers license and provide to their employer clients; the employer team does the day-to-day work in the tool. BEG Managed Benefits is a service: on the Fully Managed plan, a dedicated Managed Benefits Specialist runs enrollment, life events, and carrier updates, and a Benefits Auditing Analyst checks your data.
It publishes a tier comparison, Enhanced through Platinum, with plan pricing available through its sales team, and it notes a published per-employee fee for 834 EDI carrier feeds on some tiers. Its plans are built for and sold to brokers. BEG shows employers a monthly estimate on screen in about 90 seconds.
Because the software was never the cost; the hours were. Every enrollment chased, life event keyed, carrier discrepancy fixed, and ACA form checked comes out of your team’s week. If those hours are cheap for you, keep them in-house. If they are not, a managed service usually costs less than the internal time it replaces.
The service is powered by isolved, the HCM platform behind thousands of American employers. Benefits and payroll live on the same data, so deductions, eligibility, and ACA hours tracking stay in sync instead of drifting across systems.
Employee Navigator itself is not a COBRA administrator; COBRA notices, elections, and premium collection are typically handled by a separate COBRA vendor or by your broker and HR team working outside the platform. On the Fully Managed plan, BEG coordinates COBRA-related administrative work as part of the service. Either way, the employer stays legally responsible for meeting the notice deadlines described on the Department of Labor COBRA page below.
Carrier feeds, often called 834 EDI feeds, move enrollment data from the benefits platform to each insurance carrier. Employee Navigator supports these feeds and lists a per-employee fee for them on some of its published tiers, but when a feed breaks or a carrier rejects a record, someone still has to notice, diagnose, and fix it. In the Fully Managed plan, BEG's Benefits Auditing Analyst is the one watching for those discrepancies.
No. BEG Managed Benefits, powered by isolved, is not a professional employer organization and there is no co-employment relationship. Your company remains the sole employer of record, keeps its own EIN and benefit plans, and keeps its broker. BEG provides software plus a dedicated team that operates it, not a leased-employee arrangement.
Compliance references: U.S. Department of Labor, COBRA continuation coverage and IRS ACA employer information reporting. This page is general information, not legal advice.
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