Health Insurance

How public sector HR leaders can give $3K+ raises without touching the budget

Read Time

5 Minutes

Written by

Team Curative

Featured Insights by

Curative Sales and Account Management Leadership

Published

Feb 11, 2026

Your health care plan can be the key.

Talent retention is more important than ever, and it’s tough to do when public sector budgets are tight (and private sector ones seem limitless). But you might be able to improve compensation and keep your team on board by adjusting your health plan.

John Bock, our Regional VP of Sales, and Chris Gravitt, our Director of Enterprise Accounts, have decades of experience in health insurance, and they’ve learned that $0 deductible health plans can actually work as tax-free compensation increases for public sector organizations.

You might be able to give employees (the equivalent of) $3,000-4,000 annual raises — without needing any budget approvals or salary negotiations.

Key takeaways:

$0 deductible plans function as tax-free raises.
You need to communicate strategically with employees to make sure they enroll in a plan.
The benefits of a $0 deductible plan extend beyond talent retention.

Transforming your benefits into a retention strategy

As an HR leader in the public sector, you're caught between impossible demands.

It’s something Gravitt sees repeatedly across Texas municipalities and school districts. An organization's revenues from tax dollars increase by single digits (if at all), while health care costs surge every year by double-digit percentages.

Those renewals can eat up your whole budget.

And as modest pay increases struggle to keep up with health care costs, you lose talented employees to private sector competitors that can offer salaries as much as 20% higher.

That means high turnover, especially among your lower-wage employees.

Even if you know that a benefits change can alleviate compensation problems, you still need to convince finance committees, boards, unions, and employees of that fact.

The fight for budget increases is tough. But when you eliminate deductibles and copays from your health plan, you’re offering employees serious take-home value.

For example, Bock says, "Teachers are underpaid as it is. We can literally give each one of your teachers a $3-4K raise by removing their deductible, and it's not going to cost the district a dime."

It’s common to treat benefits as an expense, but think of them as compensation tools. Tell the decision-makers: "We found a way to increase everyone's take-home pay without touching the salary budget."

How public sector HR leaders can give $3K+ raises without touching the budget

4 steps for implementing $0 deductible benefits to retain talent

Step 1: Do the math to prove your case

Show higher-ups that your benefits decisions can boost take-home pay without pulling from the budget by sharing some simple math.

First, calculate how much money employees save by not having a deductible (on every employee tier). You can look at the previous year’s claims data to show what employees actually paid out-of-pocket.

Then, make a compensation analysis chart. For example: "The cost of a collective 3% raise: $1.2M. The additional cost of a zero-deductible plan: $0."

Remember to also flag any turnover costs you’re dealing with to further strengthen your argument.

Step 2: Get pre-RFP meetings with key stakeholders

Your math is ready. What’s next? Your compensation analysis should be brought to higher-ups before the procurement process begins.

To start this process, note your organization's decision timeline (up to 12 months if you’re a larger organization, or around 45-60 days if you’re a smaller one), and then brief your CFO and city manager/superintendent ahead of time. Give board members a one-pager that focuses on the financial and cultural impacts of retention.

You can also prepare union leaders by offering them member-specific examples, such as "A maintenance worker with diabetes could save $4,000 annually."

Step 3: Develop communication that works across your workforce

Gravitt acknowledges that different people have very different understanding of health insurance and how it works. That’s why it’s important to make sure that, during the onboarding phase for your new health plan, employees in different roles get information that meets them where they are.

You’ll need to make the case for why this $0 deductible approach matters to people from varying backgrounds and levels of knowledge.

For example, you might promote it in a number of ways:

For maintenance/operations staff: "Free doctor visits. Free prescriptions. Free hospital stays."
For professional staff: "Elimination of deductibles equals $3,000+ in income."
For skeptical lower earners: “You can save $250 every month.”

Everyone then knows the benefits most applicable to them, and can approach the 2-3 week enrollment period with confidence.

Step 4: Get employees on board with the plan by sharing peer stories

Now, it’s all about enrollment momentum.

Encourage the HR team to hold department-specific sessions instead of all-hands meetings to address the particular needs and questions of different teams, and share their stories of why they picked this health plan during the vetting process.

Employees will ask: "What's the catch?" Make sure your team’s prepared to address that question. You should also set up a rapid response team for enrollment period questions to make sure employees don’t opt out (or miss the deadline) while they’re waiting for clarification.

If you’re working on renewing your health plan with Curative, recruit "benefits champions" from each department who've experienced medical events and can share how the new plan helped them: Maybe someone’s ER visit dropped from $1,500 to $0.

What $0 deductible wins look like

“It's not often as an HR representative that I hear employees say, ‘Thank you for our benefits,’ but we're beginning to hear that,” Gravitt says.

With the new plan, HR departments report unprecedentedly positive feedback. It’s easy to understand why: Gravitt shares that teachers have called to express gratitude over $0 childbirth costs, and that a maintenance staffer told HR about affording diabetes medication for the very first time.

"When you can offer a $0 deductible plan, you keep them from going across the street and working for a different company,” Bock adds. Their good experience is key to retention.

And your company budget benefits too. Organizations with 2+ years of a $0 deductible plan see ~$100 PMPM savings in their second year. Plus, predictable costs enable better long-term planning — and you can redirect savings into creating an even better environment for employees, ensuring they want to stick around.

FAQs

How can a $0 deductible plan save money if it costs more upfront?

By switching to a $0 deductible plan, you're shifting costs from employees' pockets to the plan itself. That functions as raises across the board, no budget changes required. After 2+ years, organizations typically see savings of around $100 per member per month.

How do I address employees’ concerns?

Use real examples from peer employees, like an ER visit dropping from $1,500 to $0, or someone affording diabetes medication for the first time. Having a rapid-response team during enrollment to answer questions immediately prevents opt-outs caused by confusion.

How do I convince decision-makers to approve this change?

Start with the math. Create a comparison chart showing the cost of a 3% salary raise versus the cost of a $0 deductible plan. Use previous years’ claims data to calculate actual out-of-pocket savings for each employee tier.

Frame it as: "We found a way to increase everyone's take-home pay without touching the salary budget."