The Montana Auto Dealers Association (MTADA) has endorsed a handful of partners like American Fidelity that can significantly and positively impact your business. American Fidelity can work as an extension of your human resources department.

Why is it useful to have a company that can help with human resources? Maximizing profits consists of two strategies:

• Focusing on tasks that will make you money. For a dealership, the obvious focus should be on selling cars.
• Delegating work that can be handled better by professionals at other companies.

Dealerships in the automotive industry sometimes have high turnover. That high turnover is a problem for the following reasons:

• High turnover costs your dealership money. If your employees are happy, they are more likely to continue working for you.
• It can be challenging to keep up with ongoing education about benefits, never mind enrollment and administration tasks. It is often hard for sales or service employees to break away from their work because dealerships are focused on customers and potential customers.

American Fidelity knows how to work with different departments in a dealership to review benefits and enroll at convenient times that don’t slow down productivity. It also has a department to help you stay compliant with benefits laws such as those for the Department of Labor, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Section 125 Plans. This service is useful because the laws are always changing.

• Account managers give your dealership updated guidance and support about benefits every year by providing targeted education about compliance issues.
• Administrative service professionals look for ways to save you money on benefit plans for health and welfare. They have expertise in providing information about benefit plans and reviewing compliance for all dealership employers, both small and large.

American Fidelity has been working with dealerships for more than 60 years. It has established relationships with 40 different automotive associations that endorse it, and it has served more than 2,800 separate dealership employers. The company also maintains an A+ business rating. If that isn’t enough, American Fidelity appears regularly on Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work list.

Because American Fidelity is an expert in human resources for dealerships, it can deliver tailored plans with the right service level for your dealership. Account managers can:

• Help new employees learn about their benefits when they are hired, including ones that don’t require asking employees to answer medical questions
• Offer multiple ways for employees to enroll
• Enroll new hires in benefit programs throughout the year
• Provide ongoing education for employees

American Fidelity provides the following services for no additional charge:

• A web-based platform for enrollment, communication and administration
• Pre-enrollment education and individual benefit reviews for employees
• Administration of flexible spending accounts, health savings accounts and Section 125 plans
• Reviews to verify dependents

Popular compliance topics include:

• Wellness incentives: Encouraging healthy behaviors seems like an obvious win-win for employers and employees until you consider whether your workplace wellness programs comply with current federal law. AFAS can help you ask the right questions to evaluate any programs that encourage your employees to change behaviors and improve their health. That way, you won’t run into problems with, say, the ACA, the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) or the Genetic Information Nondiscriminatory Act (GINA).
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA): Do you know your responsibilities are under HIPAA? American Fidelity’s administrative services professionals can help you identify potential privacy issues. Also, they can write a plan to deal with those issues correctly.
• Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): The rules and procedures for the FMLA are challenging. Are you a covered employer? Do you know when an employee can take a protected leave? American Fidelity can help you decide on the appropriate policies and procedures you need for your dealership.

Still not convinced? The following stories about customers are taken from the American Fidelity blog.

• When Danny was 34, he was the first member of his family to be diagnosed with stage 2C colon cancer. His Limited Benefit Cancer Insurance from American Fidelity allowed him to focus on recovery instead of paying for treatment. What would he have done without the insurance? “I would probably have had to sell my car, sell my belongings, I don’t know,” he said.
• Lisa’s first pregnancy was in 2019. Her water broke during her second trimester, and she had an ambulance ride that cost about $2,800, six weeks of bed rest in the hospital, and an additional six weeks for her daughter in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. She had disability insurance from American Fidelity that covered expenses her health insurance wouldn’t, such as her ambulance ride and $500 in parking tickets that Lisa incurred while visiting her daughter. The money was also useful for paying other necessary expenses while Lisa was unable to work. Filing claims was “crazy easy,” said Lisa.