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Benefits Chalk Talk: Registered Health Underwriter® (RHU®)

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Welcome back to another edition of “Benefits Chalk Talk.” In this series at our blog, we provide you with valuable, up-to-date, relevant information about health benefits planning so that you can put the things in place that make the most sense for yourself or your company. At Policy Advantage Insurance Services, we feel that informed consumers can make a really big difference in our industry.

Today we’re going to talk a little bit more about the Registered Health Underwriter® (or RHU®) designation. If you’ve been following along here at the blog, we’ve talked a little bit about insurance professional designations in the past. Instead of going back through what we covered in that previous blog post, we’re going to tell you more about the specific knowledge that a Registered Health Underwriter® has acquired in order to help clients.

Remember, as we had mentioned in the past blog post, these are robust designations. The holder of these designations has demonstrated a significant and advanced understanding of the concepts which apply. According to NAHU ( the National Association of Health Underwriters):

The Registered Health Underwriter® designation is the undisputed professional credential for persons involved in the sale and service of disability income and health insurance. Individuals earning the RHU designation demonstrate a high level of knowledge about the principles and practices governing the disability income and health insurance business.

Here is some of the specific knowledge that holders of the Registered Health Underwriter® (or RHU®) designation have obtained:

  • Federal Regulation: Assisting clients with things like COBRA, HIPAA, and ERISA.
  • Individual Health Insurance: Providing health insurance consultation outside of the workplace (ie: individual and family plans).
  • Employer Self-Funding: Advanced knowledge about administration, the TPA environment, and stop-loss coverage.
  • Group Health Benefits: Planning and design of group health insurance programs, benefits structure, tax incentives, Section 125 cafeteria plan administration, etc.
  • Consumer Directed Healthcare: Explaining how Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs), and High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) work together to help consumers retain funds.
  • Federal and Social Programs: A knowledge of things like OASDI (Social Security), Medicare, Medicaid, FEHBP (Federal Employees Health Benefits Program), TRICARE, etc.
  • Ancillary Benefits: Vision, dental, and hearing.
  • Voluntary Benefits: Hospital indemnity, accident indemnity, specified health event (critical illness), cancer indemnity, small face value term life (final expenses protection). Supplemental health insurance fits into this category.
  • Managed Care Organizations (MCO’s): PPO’s, HMO’s, POS plans, EPO plans, physician contracting, hospital contracting, accreditation, case management, disease management, managed behavioral health, performance based incentives, integrated health care delivery systems (IDS’s), hospital networks, physician networks, basic compensation of physicians, medical/surgical utilization, quality management.
  • Disability Income Insurance: Short term & long term disability.

As you can see, a Registered Health Underwriter® (RHU®) can be a valuable resource. These individuals have a wide variety of knowledge they can make available to you, to help you make good decisions when it comes to health benefits planning.

Thanks for stopping by, we hope you found our information to be valuable. Check back at our blog to get further information about funding healthcare. Also, please share with your friends, clients, colleagues, and family. Here are a few of our other information outlets:

Home Page: https://policyadvantage.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PolicyAdvantage

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PolicyAdvantage

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Professional Designations: RHU® and REBC®

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This blog post is about helping people understand insurance professional designations. Sometimes you’ll see a group (or grouping) of letters after a person’s name who works in the insurance industry. In most cases, these are advanced licenses and continuing education. The professional you’ve chosen has decided to further their education in the line of business that he or she works in (“lines of business” = life insurance, health insurance, property insurance, etc).

Today we’re going to take a closer look at the source of two of them:

  1. Registered Health Underwriter® (RHU®):
  2. Registered Employee Benefits Consultant® (REBC®):

The reason we’ve chosen these two is because they deal specifically in the areas of health insurance and employee benefits. If you’ve kept up with our content here at Policy Advantage Insurance Services, you’ll know that these are the primary areas where we work.

Professionals with these designations can be an extremely valuable resource for you. These designations are robust. These are individuals that have:

  • Passed rigorous examinations (this isn’t just a Saturday conference at the Holiday Inn… we’re talking about hundreds of hours of study, days of proctored testing, where the material needs to be known cover-to-cover, and all finals are final).
  • Have met experience requirements.
  • Adhere to strict ethical standards (ie: providing advise in the interest of the client).

According to NAHU ( the National Association of Health Underwriters):

The Registered Health Underwriter® designation is the undisputed professional credential for persons involved in the sale and service of disability income and health insurance. Individuals earning the RHU designation demonstrate a high level of knowledge about the principles and practices governing the disability income and health insurance business.

Here are some additional facts and information about these professional designations:

  • The RHU® and REBC® designations are issued by the Solomon S. Huebner School at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
  • The American College is a regionally accredited institution (the highest level of accreditation in the United States).
  • The college offers several professional designations, two types of master’s degrees, and a PhD program.
  • It is a non-profit private school that was established in 1927.
  • Solomon S. Huebner (who founded The American College) was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1900’s, and was a pioneer in the insurance industry. For more/additional information about Huebner, click here.
  • Although the University of Pennsylvania and The American College are completely separate institutions, the University of Pennsylvania maintains the prestigious S.S. Huebner Foundation and Geneva Association.

As illustrated, these professional designations can be an extremely valuable asset for someone seeking advice and consultation in the areas of health insurance and employee benefits. You can count on the information that you receive to be valuable, up-to-date, relevant, and ethical. In future blog posts, we’ll describe the specific skill sets and detailed knowledge that holders of the RHU® and REBC® designations have.

Thanks for stopping by, we hope you found our information to be valuable. Check back at our blog to get further information about funding healthcare. Also, please share with your friends, clients, colleagues, and family. Here are a few of our other information outlets:

Home Page: https://policyadvantage.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PolicyAdvantage

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PolicyAdvantage

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/PolicyAdvantage

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/PolicyAdvantage

Word Press: http://www.policyadvantage.wordpress.com