Bob Cummings Reelected as President of NAPBA

American Benefits Group CEO and Founder Bob Cummings Reelected as President of NAPBA May 28th 2019 - Bob Cummings has been reelected to serve as President of The National Association of Professional Benefits Administrators (NAPBA). A NAPBA Trustee since 2007, Cummings was first elected NAPBA president in 2015, and has been an instrumental force in the emergence of the Consumer Directed HealthCare industry over the last 20 years, orchestrating the growth of NAPBA as the primary compliance standards and best practice organization for third party employee benefits administrators serving the consumer directed healthcare industry.

As CEO and Founder of American Benefits Group (ABG), a leading national employee benefits administrator located in Northampton, Massachusetts, Cummings has been a pioneer of the consumer directed healthcare industry before the term even existed, ABG was one of the first administrators of Flexible Spending Accounts or FSAs in 1989. COBRA administration and Commuter benefit accounts were added in the 1990’s, and Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRA) were enabled under the Internal Revenue Code in 2002. This marked the official birth of the Consumer Directed Healthcare industry as pre-tax account based plans became a lynchpin of most
employer benefit plans designs along with High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs).

Today ABG administers over 1600 employer clients nationwide representing more than 250,000 eligible employees. Clients include many high profile national and global organizations as well as hundreds of small and middle market employers across the United States. Since 2002 ABG has been a subsidiary of NFP Corp, a leading global insurance and corporate benefits provider and the 3rd largest private insurance broker in the US.

All NAPBA member organizations are Third Party Administrators (TPAs) focused on the administration and service of employer sponsored plans for Consumer Directed Pre-Tax accounts such as Flexible Spending Accounts, Health Savings accounts, Health Reimbursement Arrangements and Commuter benefits as well as COBRA administration services.

Collectively NAPBA member organizations provide services to more than 30 million employee healthcare consumers nationwide. Speaking passionately of NAPBA’s mission and roots, Cummings reflects on the journey:

Almost 20 years ago when NAPBA was founded, a number of forward thinking industry pioneers saw the need to help create the map for this emerging industry. We recognized that benefits administration companies who focused on these pre-tax account based programs could also gain from aligning and sharing though leadership, establishing the benchmarks for best practice operational excellence as well as promoting compliance standards and emerging technology innovation. NAPBA has emerged as the sole organization dedicated specifically to the TPA benefits administration industry, with a mission to unleash the full potential of consumer directed healthcare. As we contemplate the future of how consumers engage with healthcare in a much more personal and intelligent way, we recognize that we’ve made tremendous progress, and yet we still have many miles to go. Rapid technological and changes in the healthcare delivery system are creating unprecedented marketplace disruption but also unprecedented opportunity. As an organization, NAPBA is dedicated to helping our members adapt to these changes and maintain their pivotal role as key stakeholders in the story. We’re creating the future roadmap for the empowered healthcare consumer – getting to consumer directed healthcare 2.0 requires vision and innovation, NAPBA members understand that it’s our responsibility to lead the charge. We’re going to not just deliver the road map, we’re creating the intelligent digital GPS navigation system.

Cummings will assumed the post in a ceremony at the NAPBA national conference in Denver Colorado on June 24th.