This week, I'd like to take you on a guided tour of how a small company buys health insurance. We'll travel down a labyrinth of competing priorities — company vs. employee, group vs. individual, time vs. money. All the while trying to nurture a positive company culture and get a product out to market.

Naïve entrepreneur that I am, I started this process by proudly telling the staff we would do right by them and provide health insurance. That showed right away how ignorant I was. Little did I know how many facets — not to mention acronyms — were involved: co-payments, PPOs, HMOs, disability coverage, life-insurance options, pre- or post-tax employee premium deductions. No one in their right mind would make a pronouncement like that without having some idea what we could afford to offer.

Where to start? I called USAA, the carrier for most of my personal insurance, hoping someone could refer me to a small-business specialist. Wrong choice. A very friendly person tried to help, but in the end just referred me to the Yellow Pages.

ASK LARRY. Already wiser, I asked one of our investors, Larry Fried, director of operations at E-LOAN. Larry is our own Ask Jeeves; Ask Larry a question, you get a quick, accurate answer. Larry came up with two insurance brokers, the one E-LOAN uses and another he thought was very good. One down. How many more to go?

I called up the two brokers and made appointments at our office for that day for a "Bake Off." They display their cakes, and I award the blue ribbon. To help me judge, I brought in Ed Neiman, our director of operations, who has run a few businesses before and had relatives who worked in the health-insurance industry. We sat through a two-hour morning presentation. By afternoon, we knew enough to push the second company to finish in an hour. Ed and I took a quick vote, picked one, and ran it by Juan, my partner. We were coming into the home stretch. So we thought.

Actually, we were at the starting gate. The broker sent over a 20-page booklet summarizing costs from five carriers at various levels of coverage. Most people — myself included — can barely decipher their own policies. Try comparing five companies' options.

At this point, our employees started weighing in about which insurance company we should use. We had people using Kaiser Permanente (a large HMO), people without insurance, people with great insurance from their husbands or wives. Everybody had an opinion.

TOUGH DECISIONS. Another point that Juan, Kurt Waag, our director of corporate growth (he handles human resources and finance matters), and I hashed over endlessly was how much of the premium zipRealty.com should pay and how much individuals should kick in. Should we pay a flat amount or a percentage of the total? Every choice had pros and cons. After many roundtables and informal discussions, I leaned on our insurance broker to make the call. We went with Blue Cross and decided to cover 90% of our employees' premiums.

Finally, the big day came. The coverage presentation. Our insurance broker and a Blue Cross rep came by to explain things. They tried to keep it succinct, but the most intense personal concerns of the 12 people in the audience kept flying out. When does coverage start? How do we choose a doctor? Can I get this medication? I thought I was living a bad episode of ER. What was supposed to be a one-hour meeting lasted three hours. Ugh!!.

Now, each person had only to fill out an enrollment form and provide documentation of previous insurance coverage. Only? We were back in the labyrinth again. Can the company provide coverage for a domestic partner? What if someone doesn't have his/her old health-insurance card anymore? We were a few days late with the forms, as we sorted out these issues. Then our broker told us that Blue Cross needed just a few little things. Those little things turned out to be: 1) proof that we are a corporation;, 2) extra medical info on a few employees; 3) a check for the first month's estimated premium; 4) growth projections for the next year; and 5) expected price of stock at IPO... (not really, but you get the picture). By now this supposedly simple process was eating up about four hours of every day.

Finally Blue Cross accepted us, and I proudly told people with existing coverage, "Feel free to cancel your policy because our policy will kick in Aug. 1." Ha, Ha!! Never have people cancel until you have a policy number in hand. All that extra stuff Blue Cross required held up the policy number. Now I had a group of families, mine included, with no proof they had insurance. Five days later, I had two people heading off on vacation without a policy number.

That was the last straw. On Friday night, we called our insurance broker demanding to know why we weren't told that people had to keep their existing policies until the new number came through. It was a bad way to end a week. To their credit, our brokers were very apologetic and promised their company would cover any claims that Blue Cross didn't honor until we got a policy number. That's what I needed to hear.

Finally, a few weeks ago, we got a number. The cards are on their way, and the system is in place. I'm afraid to declare victory, however. I'm sure I haven't heard the last on this topic. See you in two weeks. P.S. We launch our site on Sunday, Aug. 29. Check it out — we're billing it as the biggest change in real-estate services in years.

Scott Kucirek is president and co-founder of zipRealty.com, an online real estate brokerage. The company's Internet site and online real estate agents let people complete the entire purchase or sale of a house via the Web. The company's Web site is www.zipRealty.com, and you can E-mail Scott at Scott@zipRealty.com.