Managed Benefits · Trades
HVAC, electrical, plumbing, roofing: trades businesses mix year-round field crews with seasonal surges, and every busy-season hire and slow-season layoff is a benefits event. BEG Managed Benefits, powered by isolved, tracks eligibility through the swings, runs enrollment from the field, and handles the notices while your broker keeps placing your coverage.
Your monthly estimate on screen - no call required
The Trades Benefits Problem
Sources: IRS, employer shared responsibility provisions and BLS JOLTS.
What Gets Handled
Field crews do not sit at desks, and enrollment packets left in the shop get enrolled by whoever wanders past the counter. The Benefits Admin Software plan puts plan comparison and enrollment on the phone: crew members research options, get AI-guided recommendations that balance cost and coverage, and enroll between jobs. Life events run through self-service workflows, and deductions sync to payroll so a coverage change never turns into a Friday paycheck argument.
The Software + ACA Compliance plan runs lookback measurement continuously: summer overtime and winter slowdowns average into a defensible eligibility answer, seasonal hires are evaluated under the rules written for them, and returning crew members are classified under IRS break-in-service rules instead of whatever the office did last year. Forms 1094-C and 1095-C are produced for you at filing time from hours the system tracked all year.
When the season ends and the roster shrinks, every covered separation opens continuation obligations on federal deadlines. Election notices go out on the required timelines, windows are tracked, and coverage end dates flow to carriers, whether it is one tech leaving in July or fifteen at the end of the season. State continuation rules for smaller shops are scoped exactly on your discovery call.
In most trades businesses, benefits administration belongs to whoever also does billing, permits, and dispatch. On the Fully Managed plan, a dedicated Managed Benefits Specialist runs open enrollment start to finish, processes the seasonal adds and drops, and chases carrier updates, while a Benefits Auditing Analyst checks your data for the errors churn creates: laid-off crew still on the invoice, elections that never reached the carrier, dependents past eligibility. The office runs the business; the benefits team runs benefits.
A trades shop typically runs apprentices ramping up hours next to licensed journeymen at full schedule, sometimes across separate state licensing requirements if the shop works multiple jurisdictions. Both classes measure under the same IRS lookback method, so an apprentice's hours during their first measurement period drive their own stability-period eligibility, independent of the journeyman crew around them. That distinction is easy to blur by hand and it does not blur in the system.
How It Plays Out
An HVAC shop measures a service tech at 46 average weekly hours across the summer stability period and offers coverage. Come February, the same tech drops to 24 hours a week as call volume falls. Because the IRS lookback rule locks in full-time status for the whole stability period once earned, coverage stays in place through the slow months instead of being cut the moment hours dip, an ACA compliance mistake shops make when they measure by the pay period instead of the stability period. If the tech is laid off entirely in March, the COBRA clock and premium billing pick up the same day, in the same system alongside active enrollment.
How You Buy It
Benefits Admin Software puts enrollment in the field. Software + ACA Compliance adds seasonal-hour tracking and Forms 1094-C and 1095-C. Fully Managed puts a dedicated specialist and auditing analyst on all of it. Full detail on the managed benefits overview.
Your monthly estimate on screen - no call required
Job costing and certified payroll the bigger fire? That is managed payroll for the trades; for crew policies and safety-adjacent HR, see trades HR outsourcing.
Questions
Plan setup, online enrollment crews complete from the truck, ACA eligibility tracking through seasonal hour swings, Forms 1094-C and 1095-C produced for you, rehire classification handled under IRS rules, life-event changes, carrier updates, and COBRA support.
IRS rules allow a lookback measurement method: hours are averaged over a defined period, and employees at 30 or more per week on average must be offered coverage for the following stability period. A tech who slows down in February does not automatically lose eligibility mid-stability-period.
IRS break-in-service rules decide whether a returning worker is a continuing employee or a new hire for ACA purposes, based on the length of the gap. The system applies those rules consistently, so seasonal rehires do not reset eligibility by accident or by habit.
No. Your broker keeps advising you and placing your coverage. BEG Managed Benefits handles the administration behind those plans: enrollment, eligibility data, changes, and compliance filings. Most brokers welcome it.
No. There is no co-employment and your plans stay the plans you and your broker chose. BEG Managed Benefits, powered by isolved, administers them while your company stays the employer.
A monthly per-employee cost far below an internal benefits hire. Answer five questions in the estimate form and your monthly range appears on screen; exact pricing is confirmed on your discovery call.
On the Fully Managed plan, COBRA administration, including premium billing and collection, runs in the same system alongside active enrollment. Elections, notices, and payment tracking stay in the same system as active enrollment instead of a separate spreadsheet someone checks when they remember.
Apprentices are measured the same way as any variable-hour employee under the IRS lookback method: hours worked during the measurement period determine full-time status for the following stability period. A first-year apprentice ramping up hours through a program does not get a special exception, so the averaging has to be tracked from day one, not backfilled at renewal.
Ready?
Answer a few questions, get your exact number in about 90 seconds. No call required, no commitment.
Your monthly estimate on screen - no call required
