About Texas Benefits Directory: how the listings are built

Texas Benefits Directory is a free public list of the insurance brokers and agents who handle employee benefits for Texas employers. It exists because no complete, free directory of Texas benefits brokers existed: the lists that do exist are either pay-to-play or built from whoever filled out a form. This one starts from public records instead.

Who runs it

The directory is owned and run by Trey Driver, who also owns Medcore Brokerage, an employee benefits brokerage in McKinney, Texas, founded in 2012. Medcore is listed here like every other broker, with the same data and the same rules. That ownership is stated in the footer of every page, and every profile links to that broker’s own phone number and website, so you deal with them directly.

Where the listings come from

1. Federal benefit-plan filings

Employers with benefit plans file Form 5500 with the U.S. Department of Labor each year. Schedule A of that filing names the insurance agents and brokers paid on each plan. We take every broker named on 2024 filings for Texas employers’ health, dental, vision, life and disability plans. That is the starting list: a broker is here because a Texas employer’s own filing says they handle its benefits, not because they asked to be listed. Source: Form 5500 datasets, U.S. Department of Labor.

2. Texas license records

Each broker is matched to the Texas Department of Insurance license file by name and address, including national firms that hold a non-resident Texas license under an out-of-state address. Profiles show the license type, the license number and whether it is active or expired on the date we last checked. A broker with no match is shown with no license on file, which usually means the agency is licensed under a parent company’s name; we keep looking. Source: Texas Department of Insurance.

3. Google Business Profile

Where an office has a Google Business Profile, we link to it and show its rating, review count, phone number and website. We store only Google’s identifier for the place; ratings and contact details are fetched from Google when you view the page, so they are never more than a day old. Reviews are Google’s and are not verified by Google or by us.

How we clean the list

• Filings name brokers in many spellings. We merge duplicates, so one office appears once.
• Filings also name companies that are not brokers: wholesalers, payroll and enrollment vendors, insurance carriers, and employers that named themselves as their own broker. Those are removed. The Dallas–Fort Worth pass started with 628 names, the Houston pass with 455, the San Antonio pass with 192 and the Austin pass with 191; after a firm-by-firm review of what each company actually does, 310 broker offices remain. General agencies, enrollment and benefits-administration vendors, claims administrators, captive managers, property-and-casualty-only agencies and individual-market or wealth advisers are taken out even when a filing names them. Agents who sell for a single carrier, such as Aflac or Colonial Life, stay listed as carrier agents so employers can look them up, but they are labeled and not counted as brokers.
• A listing stays only if it is an insurance or benefits business and we can verify it exists in Texas, through a state license or a real Texas Google listing.
• Individual agents are listed by city only. We never publish home addresses.
• We never publish employer names, plan details, premiums or commissions from the filings.

What “Verified” means

A green Verified badge means the broker has claimed the page by confirming an email address at the agency’s own website domain, or by a request we approved by hand. Claimed brokers can edit their description, contact details, logo, team and links; they cannot change their license record or filing record, and they cannot pay to rank higher. On city pages, verified brokers are listed first; after that, listings are in the order our data ranks them, which no one can buy.

How often the data changes

Form 5500 data is released by the Department of Labor once a year, so the filing record changes annually. License status is rechecked against the state file on each data refresh, and the date of the last check is shown at the bottom of every city page and profile. Google ratings and contact details refresh daily. Coverage today is the four largest Texas metros: Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Austin.

Using this data

Anyone may cite or reuse the counts and listings on this site with attribution to Texas Benefits Directory and a link to the page used. If you are writing about Texas benefits brokers and need the underlying numbers, email Trey.

Corrections and removal

If something on your page is wrong, claim the page and fix it, or email us from your work address. If you want your page removed, use the removal form; we take pages down within a few business days and keep them off future updates. Read the short version of how it works or the privacy page.