Deemer Clause: A Legislative Savior for Self-Funded Health Insurance Plans Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 18 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 767, 787 (1992) (“While an employer has the choice to fund its own benefit plan or to purchase a plan from an insurance company, the only distinguishable difference ... in the nature of the benefit plan is the source of the funding. Even when an employer chooses to fund its own benefit plan, the plan provides a benefit schedule, assumes liability through a contractual document for payment of claims accorded by the bene 916. The cases on which Aetna relies for this proposition concern risk-shifting provisions that were just one element of a broader contract whose primary object was not risk-shifting. See Jellins, 174 P.2d at 631 (<HOLDING>); Garamendi, 7 Cal. Rptr.3d at 919-20 (holding
holding that insurance certificate holder could not maintain negligence action against insurer when certificate holder was not insurers customer did not discuss insurance coverage with insurer and did not make any specific request to procure insurance coverage holding government could be liable for breach of a contractual obligation to purchase insurance for plaintiff holding that insurance agents owe no duty to procure coverage for persons with no written or oral agreement with the agent to procure coverage or who have never contacted the agent about insurance coverage holding that a contractual promise to perform maintenance on and procure insurance for a truck was not insurance because the major part of party as service to party b is the supplying of labor holding that an insurance agent who does not procure the insurance coverage requested breaches his or her duty suggesting a negligence claim