647-295-5079
Optimze your benefits
Optimize The Benefits Of Your Investments
What: Benefit Optimization is the process to achieve the right balance between your business investment
and the value it
delivers - ensuring your expenditures generate maximum return.
Why: To help you maximize
the value, efficiency, and impact of your business investments,
particularly in
one of your most significant resources - your people.
Where: The cost of the workforce is
often one of the largest expenses for any organization. Our primary focus is
on identifying and delivering solutions that optimize your employee workforce spend - helping you
get the most out of every
dollar invested in your most valuable resource.
Who: Greg Durant brings
35 years of experience in the Canadian employee benefits landscape, including
deep expertise in total rewards strategy, group benefits consulting, actuarial
valuations, and cost analysis.
He has the knowledge and insight to help you optimize
your employee benefits with confidence.
How: Get in touch to learn how we can help you optimize your organization's benefits and unlock greater value from your people.
BenefitOptima
Our Offerings
How we help
Employee Benefit Consulting
Smarter Cost Management for Sustainable Success.
Whether you have 5 or 500 employees, your people are one of your organization’s most valuable assets—and a key driver of business success.
Your total rewards program reflects how much your organization values and supports its people. Yet, balancing this investment while managing costs and meeting employee expectations is an ongoing challenge.
We help you evaluate which elements of your benefits program are driving real value, which are over-utilized, and which may no longer serve your business or your workforce.
By taking the time to understand your organization’s goals, culture, and challenges, we use our expertise and tools to help you design a benefits program that not only engages and supports your employees but also strengthens your bottom line.
Employee Benefit Audit
Ensuring Value, Transparency, and Performance.
An audit of your employee benefits program — and the broker supporting it — provides a clear, objective view of whether your organization is getting full value from its investment in employee benefits. It’s about accountability, insight, and optimization.
After a thorough review of your employee benefit program, including financials, vendors, compliance, performance and accountability, we will prepare a report card that will grade the key aspects of your current employee benefit program.
A benefits program audit will deliver clear results and provide you with the confidence and control to enable you to make informed decisions, improve plan efficiency, and strengthen the value provided to employees.
Vendor Broking & Management
Better Vendors. Better Benefits. Better Results.
The employee experience is directly shaped by the vendors you select to support your total rewards and employee benefits.
Choosing the right vendors is essential to optimizing your benefits program and ensuring long-term success. Since changing vendors can be complex and disruptive, it's critical to select partners who align with your organization’s needs from the start.
Equally important is having a trusted advisor by your side—one who can help manage these relationships, step in when needed, and provide ongoing stability for you and your team.
To ensure your benefit vendors remain optimized, we offer a full range of services, including:
- Cost competitiveness analysis
- Annual renewal negotiations
- Vendor marketing (as required)
- Contract review
- Assistance with insurance company issues
Group Benefit Actuarial Services
Actuarial Insights To Drive Smarter Benefit Strategies.
The cost of your total rewards and employee benefit programs is shaped by multiple factors: plan design, employee demographics, economic conditions, and the evolving impact of government programs. It’s complex - and constantly changing.
We help you navigate that complexity with expert actuarial support tailored to your organization’s needs. Our services include:
Post-retirement and post-employment benefit valuations for annual accounting reporting
DC pension consulting
Accurate assessments of core benefit costs
Multi-year program cost projections
Cost estimates for benefit plan changes, including those required for collective bargaining
With data-driven insights and precise valuations, we help you control costs, mitigate risk, and ensure the long-term sustainability of your benefit programs.
Employer Cost Optimization
Drive Efficiency. Control Costs. Optimize Investments.
Are you confident your employee benefit program is operating at peak efficiency?
- Is there hidden "leakage" in your current plan design?
- Are you paying more than necessary for your broker?
- Do you lack clarity around what you’re being charged—and why?
If any of these questions resonate, it may be time for a fresh perspective.
We provide independent audits of your current employee benefit arrangements, offering a clear, comprehensive view of your program’s financial performance. Our approach identifies inefficiencies and highlights opportunities to reduce waste, improve plan value, and ensure you're getting what you pay for.
But our expertise goes beyond benefits.
We help employers identify and implement cost optimization strategies across a wide range of people-related expenses—without sacrificing quality, service, or employee experience.
Let’s connect to explore how we can deliver practical, data-driven solutions that improve efficiency and deliver measurable results.
Benefit
Optima
Our Commitment
Our Goal
As a boutique employee benefits and actuarial consulting firm dedicated to delivering clear, practical solutions, our goal is to provide you with the support and expertise to protect and strengthen your most valuable business asset — your people.
Our Experience
With deep expertise in group insurance and employee benefits, we provide professional, precise, and tailored solutions designed to meet your organization’s unique needs.
Our Approach
We believe in keeping things clear and straightforward. Even the most complex issues are fully explained, clearly communicated, and confidently understood, so you can make informed decisions with ease.
no surprises - no hidden costs
Price transparency is at
the heart of how we work with our clients.
As an independent firm, we pass cost savings directly
to our clients through clear, competitive, and fully transparent fees. Every engagement
begins with an agreed fixed fee or commission so there are no surprises and no hidden costs.
Exceed Expectations
We don’t just aim to meet expectations, we strive to consistently exceed them. Through innovative solutions, reliable service, and measurable value, we help you achieve lasting results.
Benefit Plan Audit
The Case for a Benefit Program Audit
Why every employer should take a closer look at their benefit plan and broker performance
In today’s competitive environment, organizations invest heavily in employee benefits — yet few truly know if they’re getting full value from that investment. An employee benefits program audit provides an independent, data-driven review of both your plan and the broker who supports it. The result? Greater transparency, improved performance, and measurable savings.
1. The Purpose of an Audit
A benefits audit is not about finding fault — it’s about ensuring alignment, accountability, and effectiveness. It examines the structure, funding, and performance of your benefit programs while assessing how well your broker or consultant is delivering on their commitments.
In short, it helps answer the question: “Are we getting what we pay for?”
2. Gaining Financial Clarity
Employee benefits represent a significant portion of total compensation costs. An audit brings financial transparency by:
Identifying hidden or unnecessary costs.
Validating broker fees, commissions, and service arrangements.
Highlighting opportunities to reduce spending without reducing value.
When done properly, an audit can uncover inefficiencies that have gone unnoticed for years, or that may have recently emerged given the ever-changing environment surrounding health and dental care.
3. Performance &Accountability
An audit also serves as a scorecard for your broker or consultant. It evaluates:
The quality and timeliness of service delivery.
The strength of renewal negotiations and data support.
The alignment of recommendations with your organization’s goals.
Ultimately, it ensures your advisory partner is not only meeting expectations, but also adding measurable value to your business and employees.
4. Governance & Compliance
As the regulatory landscape evolves, employers are expected to demonstrate sound governance of their benefit programs. A formal audit helps ensure:
Compliance with employment, tax, and privacy laws.
Accurate contracts, renewals, and reporting.
Proper documentation of decisions and due diligence.
This proactive approach mitigates risk and reinforces fiduciary accountability — key elements in responsible plan management.
5. Continuous Improvement
Beyond oversight, an audit provides insight into what’s possible next. It identifies opportunities to:
Modernize plan design and introduce flexibility.
Incorporate wellness, prevention, and technology tools.
Enhance employee understanding and engagement.
Establish performance benchmarks for ongoing evaluation.
This creates a culture of continuous improvement — where your benefit plan evolves in step with your organization.
6. Confidence in the Outcome
Employers choose to conduct a benefits audit for many reasons — but they all come down to three key outcomes:
Clarity – Understanding exactly where every benefit dollar goes.
Confidence – Knowing that your broker and benefit providers are delivering fair value.
Control – Having the insight and data to make informed, strategic decisions.
A well-executed audit delivers more than numbers — it builds trust, transparency, and long-term value for both the organization and its people.
Greg Durant
Meet Greg Durant
Director and Group Actuary, BenefitOptima Consulting Inc.
Greg Durant is the Director and Group Actuary of BenefitOptima Consulting Inc. He brings over 35 years of experience across all aspects of employee benefit programs and total rewards.
Prior to founding BenefitOptima Consulting, Greg held senior leadership positions at several national consulting firms. Over the course of his career, he has:
Managed national consulting operations;
Served as Canadian Chief Health & Benefits Actuary and was a member of the Global Health & Benefits Actuarial Committee;
Was the SVP of Product for a benefits consultancy.
Throughout his consulting career, he was responsible for managing and overseeing employee future benefit valuations and managing all aspects of employee benefit consulting for clients across a variety of industries. As well, he was the lead for managing insurance company relationships and other group benefit vendors.
He has developed national peer review standards and internal standards of practice for various actuarial valuations and employee benefit consulting mandates.
Greg holds an honours Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Statistics from Queen's University at Kingston. He is a Fellow in good standing of both the Society of Actuaries and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and he holds a LLQP license.
He lives in Mississauga, Ontario with his wife and enjoys spending time with their three sons.
Contact Greg:
📧 Email: greg.durant@benopt.ca
📱 Mobile: 647-295-5079