By Len Strazewski

It’s more than teamwork; it is a reflection of balanced expertise and confidence in each other. When Gowrie Group producers meet with their property/casualty insurance and employee benefit clients, they work together to respond to all of their needs, not just to their own specialties and niches, executives say.

The result is a blend of insurance expertise, effective client education and personal, friendly service.

Founded 40 years ago, Gowrie Group—with offices in Westbrook, Connecticut; Darien, Connecticut; and Newport, Rhode Island—began as a property/casualty insurance specialist, notes Skip Young, president of the employee benefits operations and a partner.

Members of the Employee Benefits team and the service people who support their efforts.

But 20 years ago, the agency made a commitment to employee benefits, incorporating a separate benefits agency with three producers. The producers included Young, Gowrie Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carter Gowrie, and Commercial Specialist Mike Brett to form Gowrie, Brett & Young.

“We were separate companies, but we had total confidence in each other and our sister company,” Young recalls. “Unlike other agencies that had separate producers and clients, we worked together from the beginning, allowing us to provide balanced proposals that supported the broadest range of coverages to meet our clients’ needs.” In January 2014, the companies merged and began operating as Gowrie Group.

As recently as 10 years ago, clients were most worried about benefits costs, he says, and focused on shopping for the best prices among traditional health plans. “But employers have become a lot smarter. They realize that there are more sophisticated responses to their economics.”

Compliance has also become an issue, with the arrival of the Affordable Care Act, he notes, and as a result, Gowrie Group has grown to be advisers as well as insurance managers, providing education and strategic planning to employers concerned with the future of their benefits programs under the new law.

The agency now has about 150 employees, including 10 employee benefits specialists. Young says benefits contributes about 10% of total revenues and is growing steadily. He anticipates the contribution to top 20% within two to three years.

Key health plans in the Connecticut region include Anthem BlueCross/Blue Shield, Aetna Health, Connectcare, Cigna Health, the Connecticut Business and Industry Association private exchange, and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. In Rhode Island, health plans include BlueCross/BlueShield of Rhode Island, Tufts Health, and UnitedHealthcare.

The agency provides a broad range of benefits services, including group medical insurance available in traditional insured programs, high deductible plans, health savings accounts (HSAs), health reimbursement accounts (HRAs) and self-funded arrangements.

Among other benefits available are dental insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, vision plans, long-term care insurance, and section 125 plans.

The agency also provides group voluntary benefits including supplementary life insurance and critical illness insurance as well as executive benefits such as supplemental executive life insurance and deferred compensation plans in addition to business continuation funding, and individual health plans for families and self-employed clients.

Additionally, the agency offers a special marine crew benefits program, headed by Benefits Producer Rick Bagnall who joined Gowrie in April. The program provides medical insurance for commercial fishers, paid captains and crew, professional sailors, international cruisers and expatriates. International travelers and blue water marine professionals are all eligible.

Benefits Producers (from left) Tom Davidson, Skip Young, and Rick Bagnall.

“We can cover anyone working on ‘blue water,’ to use a term that is popular in the insurance industry,” he explains. “Basically these are expatriates working primarily outside the country and requiring health coverage that applies in many countries as well as the United States.”

Bagnall brought Gowrie a large client base, including all of the America’s Cup sailing syndicates and “all of the top sailors” based in the United States. “We cover tug crews, scientists, competitive sailors, virtually anyone sailing off of the United States East or West Coasts or the Gulf of Mexico.”

The marine medical insurance is generally richer than standard U.S. employer coverage, he says, and is also in compliance with the Affordable Care Act and the Jones Act that regulates international marine benefits. It includes worldwide medical insurance, medical evacuation, prescription drug benefits, and accidental death and dismemberment insurance. The coverage is unlimited and can include preventive care and other ACA-mandated features.

“If a policyholder is working at sea or in a remote anchorage, he or she may be hundreds of miles away from a hospital. It is critical that the coverage provide medical evacuation to get the patient to quality care,” he notes.

Bagnall says the marine coverage is generally cheaper than U.S.-only coverage, reflecting the lower cost of care in overseas domiciles.

The marine benefits coverage fits perfectly into the agency’s property/casualty and marine insurance specialty, giving the agency a full-service capability in this unique business niche, Bagnall says.

Benefits Producer Tom Davidson says health benefits costs remain at the top of everyone’s agenda. “After a couple of rounds of small increases, costs are on the rise again,” he says. “Nine percent seemed pretty great after years of double digit increases, but employers still have to find ways to manage their costs.”

Davidson says the agency’s clients range in size from singles and small groups of four to five employees to large groups of 500 or more. The agency’s “sweet spot,” he says, are employers with 30 to 75 employees.

Rate decreases are hard to find for these employers, “but we are looking under all the rocks,” he says, and introducing employers to HSAs and HRAs, high deductible health plans and other cost management features.

“We call it putting shoes on the octopus,” he jokes, but the tax-advantaged account features can help both employers and employees recoup some of their expenses; and new self-funding options, called “level-funded” plans offered by some insurers, can aid some employers in controlling claims expenses.

Members of the Benefits Division include (from left) Department Manager Michelle Walsh, Stephanie Anderson, Amanda Avery, Krista Danko, and Lindas Dillon.

Small employers, in particular, have been reporting cost increases of 10% to 30% and the level-funding plans can stabilize costs in a good claims environment.

Clients are interested in wellness programs as a potential way to manage costs over the long-term, but the agency still struggles somewhat in persuading employers to invest in comprehensive wellness programs.

“Employers aren’t jumping into the programs, but we have been making better use of the wellness tools that the health plans provide at little or no cost.”

Health plans occasionally offer to flatten rate increases or provide discounts of 5% or so for employers that are willing to adopt biometric screening and other health management tools, but employers are hesitant about wellness programs without these incentives.

Communication and service
Communication and service are also important differentiators, Davidson says, and Gowrie excels at both.

“Employers spend a lot of money on employee benefits to create a positive environment for employees and help employees be happy and healthy,” he says. “But if the benefits are not properly communicated, employers will not receive their full value.

“It’s important for us to help employers and their employees understand their benefits and encourage employees and their dependents to communicate directly with the agency to make using their benefits as simple as possible.”

Most service and communication tasks fall to Gowrie account managers. Benefits Department Manager Michelle Walsh joined Gowrie 15 years ago and now leads a team of account managers who provide the daily contact and customer service.

After producers like Davidson make contact with a new prospect, Walsh assigns an account manager to assist the producer with developing a proposal and marketing the coverage. “The account managers often join the producer in meeting with the employer and explaining the proposal, but primarily they have the responsibility for quantifying the process, developing the spreadsheets, and managing the bidding process with the carriers.”

Once the relationships are established, the account managers lead the daily service and develop a communication plan, she explains. “We run it from A to Z,” she says. “We manage the employee enrollment, handle claims concerns and respond to the day-to-day questions from both the employer and its employees.”

As a matter of policy, Gowrie doesn’t divert employee and dependent questions to insurance company call centers. Account managers encourage employee calls, Walsh says.

“No one has time to call insurance companies and spend time on hold. We have the time to answer questions and gather information on behalf of our clients. It’s our job,” she says. “We solve a lot of claims problems, and over time, we really are seen as a trusted adviser.
“For the most part, our clients become our friends. It’s more than just a business relationship,” she says.

Benefits communication and education are also part of the account management team’s responsibility. Communication accompanies the enrollment process and continues as new products and services require. The account managers conduct employee presentations and prepare paper and electronic documents.

During the early days of the Affordable Care Act, the agency became frequent educators, conducting seminars for clients and prospects to explain the latest rules and regulations. Fifty or more executives attended the events on a regular basis, Walsh says.
The ACA issue is a little calmer now, but the agency still stays on top of the issue and sends an occasional email blast with updates. The agency newsletter “Benefits Buzz” also helps clients keep up with new developments.

The author
Len Strazewski is a Chicago-based writer, editor and educator specializing in marketing, management and technology topics. In addition to contributing to Rough Notes, he has written on insurance for Business Insurance, Risk & Insurance, the Chicago Tribune and Human Resource Executive, among other publications.

The Gowrie Group Crew.