100+ Companies, Zero Clients Lost Due to Migration: How 19:21 Consultants Transitioned from Ease to Employee Navigator
A Broker Built on Trust
19:21 Consultants sits right on the I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio, a location that puts the firm at the center of some of the fastest-growing business in Texas. What started as an Aflac office in 2018 grew into a full-service insurance brokerage in 2020, and the firm’s client base has grown right along with it. Early on, 19:21’s book was built on blue-collar construction accounts. Today, the firm has expanded into working with emergency service districts, restaurant groups, municipalities, and private schools, with most clients landing between 75 and 250 employees.
Migrating from Ease to Employee Navigator
Nearly all of 19:21’s book of business lived inside Ease in the early 2020s, so when the acquisition by Employee Navigator was announced in the spring of 2023, the firm’s leadership didn’t wait to see what would happen next. They acted decisively and with buy-in from all of the 19:21 team.
Within weeks, 19:21 had purchased an Employee Navigator license and started moving its entire book, well before Employee Navigator’s migration tool even existed.
A Migration Built Group by Group
Starting that summer, 19:21 pulled census and plan data out of Ease and rebuilt every group directly inside Employee Navigator, timed to each client’s own open enrollment. 19:21 made a point of loading both a group’s existing coverage and its new plans side by side, so when employees logged in for open enrollment, they saw their existing benefits first, exactly as they’d left them in Ease.
“If it was a 7/1 renewal, we built in the existing 7/1 coverage as well as the new open enrollment options. So when the employee logged in, they saw their existing coverage right alongside their new choices.” — Mikayla Strauss, 19:21 Consultants
19:21 spent about a year moving roughly 100 groups this way. A straightforward group with standard medical, dental, and vision could be rebuilt in under three hours; more complex cases took longer. It was, by Strauss’s own account, a lot of work. It was also well worth it.
Today, Employee Navigator’s Ease Migration Tool makes the process much faster so brokers can get the benefits of migrating with less time spent.
Learning a Platform That Doesn’t Let You Guess
Part of what made the migration demanding was also what made it valuable: Employee Navigator asks for more data. Rounding rules, effective-date logic, rate structures. These details that Ease had quietly (and sometimes incorrectly) assumed on 19:21’s behalf now had to be entered and confirmed before a plan could go live.
“Ease was so simple, it took nothing to build a plan. Employee Navigator requires more data on the backend, but that extra work has made our whole team more confident in our plan builds because we know everything is going to round correctly.” — Mikayla Strauss, 19:21 Consultants
19:21 didn’t navigate that learning curve alone. The firm’s first test build inside Employee Navigator wasn’t for a client, it was for 19:21’s own internal benefits. Employee Navigator’s support team advised 19:21 every step of the way, helping them to work through any challenges with their own benefits before they moved on to their clients’ migrations.
“I figured if we were going to mess something up, it was going to be for my coworkers, not my clients,” Strauss said. Working through the firm’s own full suite of plans surfaced most of the edge cases 19:21 would later see across its book, with expert support close at hand the whole way.
Client Impact: Building Trust Through Education
The extra rigor pays off where clients see it most: at enrollment. Where an Ease benefit summary might have run six lines, Employee Navigator lets the team load an entire Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC) into the system, giving employees a far more complete picture of their coverage. For a firm that considers employee education central to its mission, that depth has changed what’s possible.
“Employee Navigator lets us educate our employees in a way that other ben admin systems just don’t allow. This has led to increased participation.” — Mikayla Strauss, 19:21 Consultants
Clients who were initially unsure about the switch came around quickly once they saw what the platform could do. “They were continuously surprised at how much more they could do with Employee Navigator,” Strauss said, pointing to reporting, streamlined employee profiles, and richer plan detail as key improvements.
Bringing Clients Along for the Ride
19:21 didn’t leave migration timing decisions up to the customers, they simply moved each group at its own open enrollment, leaning on the trust they had already built. 19:21 recorded their own walkthrough videos so HR contacts and employees knew what to expect, groundwork that made the difference. The transition was, in large part, due to the collective buy-in from every member of the 19:21 team. Account managers worked closely with clients to talk them through the process and ensure that post-open enrollment, HR managers felt confident navigating the new system.
“We have some groups that used tasks and onboarding heavily inside of Ease, and they made the transition easily with the support of their account manager and our build team.” — Mikayla Strauss, 19:21 Consultants
19:21 is now planning to use Employee Navigator’s new I-9 experience with a handful of clients ahead of a broader rollout.
Integrations, AI Plan Build, and AI Support
19:21 has leaned into Employee Navigator’s broader toolset just as aggressively as it approached the migration itself. The firm connects every integration available and keeps a standing reminder for the build team on the first of each month to activate any newly enrolled carriers.
“If it integrates, we integrate.” — Mikayla Strauss, 19:21 Consultants
19:21 also relies heavily on the AI Plan Build Tool. “It has cut down our build time significantly,” Strauss said. The AI support chat tool has also proven especially useful for team members, giving them fast answers and links to relevant knowledge base articles for all broker users – from the build team, to account managers, to producers, and the eligibility team.
“When it was up for debate on if the AI Plan Build tool was going to cost money or not, we were going to pay for it. I knew it wasn’t an option to not have it. It is fantastic.” — Mikayla Strauss, 19:21 Consultants
The Personal Support Behind the Platform
Ask 19:21 what’s made the biggest difference since the move off Ease, and the conversation turns quickly from features to people. Their team leans on Employee Navigator’s support regularly.
“We have spent hours on hold with other systems trying to get help. The simplicity of getting in touch with Employee Navigator experts is invaluable. They make the system easy and approachable, even on the hard things.” — Mikayla Strauss, 19:21 Consultants
The Bottom Line
The stakes of waiting, in Strauss’s view, are real. 19:21 recently acquired a group whose previous broker never mentioned that Ease was acquired, which is exactly the situation Strauss doesn’t want 19:21’s clients caught in and why she doesn’t mince words when asked what she’d tell a broker still weighing the move.
“You’re behind. If you haven’t moved to Employee Navigator, do it today. Your groups are going to get better service and a better education experience on Employee Navigator than they ever did on Ease.” — Mikayla Strauss, 19:21 Consultants
For 19:21, that advice comes from firsthand experience: a year-long, all-manual migration across roughly 100 groups, without losing a single client due to the transition.
Thinking about your own move from Ease to Employee Navigator? Talk to our team about what a migration can look like for your agency.
