Insperity review: good HR, bad math

What Insperity is selling, and what it is not

Insperity markets three tiers. HRCore is the lighter package, HR360 adds a broader HR technology and full-service PEO offering, and HRScale is aimed at larger companies. Every tier is a PEO arrangement: Insperity becomes a co-employer, provides payroll, workers' compensation and health coverage through its own arrangements, and charges a fee that is not published anywhere.

I want to be precise about what that means, because "PEO" gets used loosely. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce describes a PEO as a co-employer. Insperity's contract is the real thing: your employees appear under Insperity's employer identification numbers for payroll tax purposes, and health coverage runs through Insperity's master plans rather than a plan you own.

• You get payroll administration, HR consulting, compliance support, workers' compensation and access to Insperity's health plans.
• You give up ownership of the group health plan, the direct carrier relationship, and the simplicity of one vendor per function.
• You keep the employees, the culture and the operational decisions. Insperity is not going to run your company.

What Insperity costs, as far as anyone can tell

There is no published price. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce puts PEO fees generally at 2% to 12% of monthly payroll, or roughly $50 to $250 per employee per month. Insperity sits inside that market and does not narrow it. What you get is a bespoke proposal with an all-in service fee, a health plan cost rolled into it, and a workers' compensation component priced on your risk class.

This is where the incentives go wrong. A percentage-of-payroll fee means Insperity earns more every time you give someone a raise, and more when you hire senior people. Nothing about the work changes. The invoice does.

The health plan is the part you cannot inspect

Here is my real objection, and it is not about Insperity specifically. In a PEO, the health plan is not yours. You cannot request the full plan document and compare it line by line with three alternatives, because you are not the plan sponsor in the way you would be outside the arrangement. You get a rate sheet and a summary.

That matters at renewal, and it matters more as your team ages. KFF's 2025 survey put average annual employer plan premiums at $9,325 for single coverage and $26,993 for family coverage. Those are market averages. A PEO plan is one plan, in one risk pool with every other client in your state. If your team's claims are light, you do not capture that. If they are heavy, you find out at renewal.

• Ask for the plan document. Not the summary. The document, with the network, formulary and rate methodology.
• Ask how the renewal is set. Is it a loss-ratio calculation on your group, or a book-wide rate increase? The answer tells you whose performance you are paying for.
• Ask what happens if you have a bad year. A single large claim in a 40-person group can move next year's rate by double digits inside a PEO pool.

The HR pitch is real, and it is the only honest reason to buy

I will defend Insperity on one point: for a company with no HR function, a multi-state footprint and 40 people who need handbooks, leave policies and a place to call, the HR support is worth real money. Insperity staffs that function well. Founders who buy purely for the insurance are overpaying. Founders who buy because they are drowning in HR paperwork are buying something real.

So the question to ask is not "is Insperity good?" It is "what am I buying the co-employment wrappers for?" If the answer is payroll and paperwork, fine. If the answer is health insurance, you are paying for a warehouse when you wanted one product.

The trap is that the sales process blends the two so thoroughly that founders cannot separate them afterward. You are shown an HR portal, a compliance calendar, a payroll dashboard and a benefits page in the same hour, all under one price. By the end you believe the price is for the whole thing, and you cannot ask for the part you wanted. Ask anyway. Ask what the health coverage costs on its own, with the service fee removed, and watch how quickly the conversation returns to the portal.

• What you actually need from a PEO: payroll filings, multi-state registration, workers' compensation, and someone to call when a leave law changes.
• What you are being sold: all of that, plus an insurance program you did not shop.
• What the fee hides: which of the two got more expensive at renewal.

Leaving Insperity, in practice

Every PEO exit has the same shape and the same traps. Insperity's notice period is written into the service agreement and tied to your plan year. Miss the window and you are in for another year.

1. Find the notice date Read the service agreement for the cancellation window and the effective date. Put both in a calendar with a 30-day warning.
2. Get the replacement plan quoted first A group plan needs a start date that matches the day after coverage ends. Ask for a full rate table on your census.
3. Confirm who carries workers' compensation If it is inside the PEO, bind a new policy before the end date. Never let coverage lapse while you shop.
4. Re-register in every state Unemployment and withholding accounts outside the PEO. This takes weeks, not days, in slow states.
5. Move payroll on the same date One clean cutover. Running two payroll systems for a month creates reconciliation work nobody has time for.

The exit is a project, not a catastrophe. What makes people stay is that the exit happens to coincide with the moment the fee starts to hurt, so it feels like a bad deal either way. It is not. One is a one-time project. The other is a permanent percentage.

What to ask on an Insperity call

• Give me the service fee in dollars, per employee per month, and separately as a percent of payroll. I want both.
• What is the health plan's cost if I strip out the service fee, per tier of coverage?
• What is the renewal methodology, and what was the average increase for clients my size last year?
• Which carriers and networks are available, and can I see the rate table for my counties?
• What is the cancellation window, and what date does it attach to?
• If we outgrow HRCore, what changes in price and service?
• Who pays the transition costs if we leave?

Who Insperity fits, and who should not sign

If you want the health plan handled by someone who runs health plans, and you want to keep your payroll system, that is what we do. No co-employment, no percentage of payroll, one monthly cost in a quote.