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Buying into benefits P-C brokers add tools to capitalize on growing employee benefits market By Len Strazewski Everyone wants a piece of the burgeoning employee benefits business—agents, brokers, consultants, insurers, and third-party admini-strators. And now that health savings accounts (HSAs) are gaining in popularity, even banks and investment firms are in the mix. With all this competition, how can agents and brokers who have specialized in risk management and commercial property/casualty insurance expand their book of employee benefits business? Get the technology and dive into the health claims data, say agents and brokers who have made employee benefits a serious compo-nent of their firms. Technology is the differentiator, says Paul S. White, vice president of the Benefits Division of Commercial Insurance Services, an Assurex and Intersure member in Charleston, West Virginia. Employee benefits is about 25% of the agency’s revenues, overshadowed by commercial property/casualty insurance and risk management consulting; but with the help of Web-based employee benefits technology and a more sophisticated approach to the client relationship, the agency is making great strides in building its benefits business, he says. White says clients and prospects are hungry for information related to employee benefits: compliance guidance, market and quotation services, claims analysis, and online enrollment technology. The human resources departments of commercial clients are already stretched to their limit and desperate for resources. When producers can help them with their administrative load, they listen carefully. But without good technology backup, producers can’t meet the demand and stand out from the crowd, he says. “It’s not just a question of shopping health insurance every year. It’s an ongoing process of educating both clients and prospective clients about what they can and should be doing with their employee benefits strategy.” White was one of about 250 producers who attended the sales division of the Zywave Partner Conference in May. More than 200 more participants attended a companion track for customer service staff. Milwaukee-based Zywave is one of the nation’s largest providers of Web-based communication, administration, and claims analysis tools for employee benefits and property/casualty producers. In March, the company celebrated its 10th year of operation and announced that it had reached a milestone of 500 producer partners. Commercial Insurance Services has been a Zywave client for about nine years, White says, and taps several of the company’s products, including BrokerageBuilder™—an agency customer relations management tool for employee benefits and property/casualty clients, the HRconnection™ portal which provides compliance information and forms for human resource management clients, MyWave™ employee benefits portal for employees, and PlanAdvisor which manages the quotation process. White says that the agency also recently began expanding into medical risk management with the Decision Master Warehouse, a data analysis tool that allows the agency to use historical claims data and health risk assessments to help develop better cost control and health management strategies. Gerard J. Lynott, executive vice president and benefits practice leader, and Elizabeth A. Thorne, client executive, at the Hylant Group head-quartered in Cleveland, Ohio, also attended the conference. Hylant Group has also been a Zywave client for nearly 10 years and has used the technology products successfully, the executives say. Lynott says the Decision Master Warehouse® product has been critical to the firm’s success in building a successful book of employee benefits business, which now balances the firm’s property/casualty and risk consulting practice. “Technology and data analysis brings us to the dance,” says Lynott. “Without these capabilities, we simply would not be able to get access to prospective clients—or retain our present clients who are always getting pitched by our competition. “Once we get access to our client’s claims data, we have the capability to drill down and present them with strategic options that look to the future of their employee benefits costs—not just the next renewal.” Thorne agrees. “Frankly, we’ve found our clients can’t even get their carriers to this level of analysis. Even though the carriers have developed the ability to track claims and deliver claims data, they simply don’t have the resources to conduct a sophisti-cated analysis. As a result, our being able to offer these resources is great for client retention.” The data tools also help the agency promote itself to new levels of leadership with prospective clients. “Once you are talking data and financial strategies, you get the attention of the chief financial officers. They are the executives who are looking toward the financial futures of their companies and are most interested in strategic options rather than just policies and plan designs.” Zywave Chairman and Chief Executive Officer William R. Haack says that technology has become the key to broker efficiency and sophistication—and efficiency is the future of producer profitability. Most traditional brokerage services—marketing renewals and delivering quotes—has become a commodity, he states. “Producers are facing increasing levels of client demands and more challenges to their own skills and resources,” he says. “But we know challenges create opportunities for differentiation.” James R. Mueller, Zywave president and chief operating officer, agrees. “Our philosophy and corporate positioning have always been based on providing support for our producer partners,” he says. “If our products and services can’t provide some direct advantage and help our partners, it’s not helping us.” To keep up with the challenges that brokers are beginning to face with their client relationships, however, Zywave has had to provide a steady stream of product updates and innovations that match the changing employee benefits environment, he adds. “Since the legislative changes that have stimulated the growth of consumer directed health plans, the opportunities are coming out of healthy living, wellness, disease management, and the tools that allow employers and their employees to control their costs within the context of these new plans.” Among the new and revised products introduced at the conference by Zywave Executive Vice President James M. Emling was the latest edition of the company’s Broker Briefcase® for employee benefits, which has been updated with a variety of new health- and wellness-related products. Earlier versions of the product contained compliance information and federal regulatory documents for the Family and Medical Leave Act and COBRA. The new version also features state regulatory and compliance information and more than 100 new documents related to employee benefits legal issues. The new health care consumerism section features the “Wise and Well” program, a systematic approach to consumer-directed health benefits and prevention of health problems. It includes an online assessment tool that producers or their clients can administer to employees to research their readiness for health care consumerism, including their attitudes towards prevention and wellness initiatives, awareness of health care cost drivers, and knowledge of their health benefits and appropriate usage. “The new tools can be used to generate a report card for each employee on their readiness for consumer-directed health plans and help employers develop the training and resources that will help their new style health plans be successful,” Emling says. Employers can conduct a survey annually to assess the performance of their programs and their employees’ ability to effectively use consumer-directed health plans features, he adds. The new Broker Briefcase also features new prospecting resources that track the latest trends in benefits, including business development scripts, prospect assessment questionnaires, analysis worksheets for employer contributions and outside vendors, and pre-packaged communication programs. * For more information |
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