Lori Cotner runs the office at Arbiser Machine, a job-shop manufacturer in Atlanta that's been building parts — everything from medical instrumentation to Department of Defense components — since 1967. She's also been the one person fielding every HR question, every benefits call, and every piece of paper that crosses that company's desk for over two decades. I sat down with her recently to talk about what changed when she finally went out to shop her PEO after eight years of staying put.
Why She Didn't Shop for 8 Years
Lori's answer was honest, and it's the answer I hear from almost every business owner: the renewals were staying in the single digits, so it felt like too much work to go looking. "Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know," she told me. That's rational — until you add up eight years of compounding single-digit increases and realize they add up to something much bigger than any one year suggested.
The Real Cost Wasn't the Premium — It Was Being the Middleman
Before her company was in a PEO, Lori was the one holding it all together manually. Five different vendors for medical, dental, vision, short-term and long-term disability, and 401(k) — and every single change had to be typed into each one, correctly, by hand. "If I hired someone, I had to contact five people," she said. Transposed social security numbers, employees who left but never got pulled off an invoice, new hires who fell through the cracks on enrollment — all of it landed on her desk, and all of it cost her time she didn't have.
What Changed the Second Time Around
When Lori finally agreed to do her due diligence, we narrowed her options down to two finalists. One offered a meaningfully better workers' comp rate. The other matched what she already had with her prior PEO and checked every box she cared about. She picked fit over the biggest number — and it paid off. Her words: the transition was "pleasantly surprising" for how painless it was. Direct communication with employees, fast turnaround on reports, and a team that answers instead of routing her through a ticket system.
The Takeaway for Any CEO Reading This
Lori put it best herself: "There's always that question in the back of your mind whether or not I should take a look at it this year." If you've been with the same PEO for years and haven't done a real comparison recently, that nagging question is worth answering — because the compounding cost of staying put is easy to underestimate until someone lays it out next to you on a spreadsheet.
If it's been a while since you've done that comparison, let's talk. No cost, no obligation — just an honest look at what you're actually paying for.
Suzanna Martinez, President | PEO For The CEO