Now my final site for this first group of posts – United Benefit Advisors (UBA). The only overall “4″ ranking I gave. They are the David among the Goliaths here with a focus, plan and strong local focus.

I am sure many of you readers from the large firms reviewed here are snickering at this comparison but be sure you read what is said here in its entirety.

Comparing UBA directly to all the largest US brokerage firms is impossible on one level – size – but very realisitic in terms of how an employer, looking for a real partner to help them would view them and their “local offices” or member firms.

Even Aon and Marsh have new initiatives in the mid market and most of the other firms all compete already in the 50-3000 employer space.  That is HRH’s sweetspot for Willis as well.

The reason I included them is that their firms compete solely in the employee benefits part of the business. Some are very small, most are mid sized and a few are larger. How each member firm’s expertise stacks up to all the other benefits brokers in their markets I cannot say but their local approach online is much more friendly and engaging than the Borg-like websites of the national brands.

To start with UBA describes themselves in a different and interesting way:

“Shared Wisdom. Powerful

Whenever one starts a research project they inevitably learn things they had not intended to. In the case of our broker survey we have learned a number of things that surprised us. A case in point is National Financial Partners (NFP). I frankly had never paid much attention to this broker rollup though several friends firms are part of this organization.

Over the weekend based on several email requests I decided to add NFP firms to our survey.

Their corporate website is nice and clean  and like all large broker sites they have a page where you can find firms in your area. They boast an impressive 170 NFP owned firms and 330 affiliates which would give them more physical locations than AON, Mercer and Willis/HRH combined.

On its homepage NFP describes its members in this way:

• Corporate and individual clients access benefits, insurance and investment solutions through our national network of independently-run financial firms.  NFP’s more than 170 owned firms and more than 330 members specialize in providing financial products and services to companies and high net worth individuals.

Sounds impressive. “High net worth individuals”…

When I went to their annual report looking for a list of firms I found some rather odd language describing their business in the CEO’s introduction to the annual report and status of the company.

• “Reduced same store operating expenses”
• “On a same store basis revenue from financial advisory was flat..”
• “On a same store