Newsletter Sign-up

Senior Vice President
Marsh, Chicago
terrence.f.dreyer@marsh.com

Building Relationships for the Long Term

It's one thing to get a recommendation on a broker from a risk manager. After all, that broker has likely saved the risk manager premium dollars or helped to introduce stop loss measures for which the risk manager will be forever grateful. But when you get a recommendation, unbidden, from an underwriter about the very same fellow, maybe you're on to something.

Terrence Dreyer, a Chicago-based senior vice president with Marsh, pulls down a Power Broker^TM award this year in the long-term healthcare category for that reason and others.

In the past year, Dreyer led a team that helped a client explore a separation from a group captive which the client had been with for the past 15 years. Dreyer helped find a lead underwriter and used data about like-sized organizations to deploy an excess strategy which identified which carriers were likely to be most aggressive at pricing which layer. The momentum that created gave the client the best chance to get the best prices on each layer.

The result was a savings of $1.3 million, or roughly 47 percent the cost of insurance under the group captive arrangement.

"His pitch to both the company and the client is that he's trying to build a long-term relationship with your carrier," the underwriter said. And building that relationship means being upfront about why you're making the decisions you're making.

"I think that if I lose an account that Terry has handled I don't feel as though I didn't get the whole story," is the way our underwriter phrased it.

Senior Vice President
Willis HRH, Hartford

One "Acute" Broker

One of the healthcare gems that Willis picked up when it decided to spend $2.1 billion to acquire Hilb, Rogal & Hobbs was Ken Felton, a former senior vice president for HRH's healthcare industry practice.

Now a senior vice president for Willis HRH, Felton has 35 years of experience in acute and long-term healthcare. A former registered nurse, emergency room nurse and healthcare risk manager, Felton brings the experience of someone who has actually walked in a healthcare risk manager's shoes to his work.

"I think that that has provided him with a lot of credibility when he is speaking with our clinical staff. He has put on at least one seminar around protecting yourself from litigation as a clinician and educating our clinicians about what things they should and shouldn't do," said the chief operating officer for a major Connecticut-based hospital.

The hospital's risk manager, herself a master's-trained registered nurse, added that Felton, without anyone asking him to, has served as a mentor to her and other neophyte risk managers. "He has not only given me a lot of his time he gives the hospital a lot of his time," this risk manager said.

"His past work experience as a clinician and as a risk manager have been invaluable to us in helping him to bring creative and practical solutions to help solve our insurance and associated risk issues," said this risk manager's chief operating officer.

Before coming to HRH, now Willis HRH, Felton served as a senior vice president with Webster Insurance and three years as a vice president with Marsh.

Senior Vice President
Aon, Minneapolis
fred_flemig@ars.aon.com

Same Day Service

In delivering great service, understanding your client's business to the degree that you understand the business ramifications of insurance coverage is key. And that is the kind of service that Aon's Fred Flemig delivers for his clients.

"I can't say enough about the guy, I really can't," said a Texas-based hospital administrator. This administrator was faced with a renewal for coverage of an underground storage facility on a healthcare campus that was scheduled for future decommissioning.

The line test that the current policy called for might have meant millions in capital expenditures if the test failed. And if there was no insurance policy, no fuel could be delivered for the facility.

"This is not the kind of thing you can go bare on," the administrator said. Telephoned at noon and presented with this dilemma, Flemig had arranged broader coverage without the line test mandate by 4 p.m.

"I want to recognize value where it needs to be recognized and not do something stupid," like leave his relationship with Flemig and Aon, the risk manager said.

In another instance, Flemig used industry benchmarks to show the administrator that he was oversinsured on his property program by 47 percent.

Another client said Flemig helped her navigate healthcare regulations and tort reform. He also helped her get higher limits and better coverage even after Hurricane Rita.

Senior Vice President, Healthcare
Willis HRH, Atlanta

Healing Insurance Programs

A former Georgia healthcare practice leader for Marsh, Linda Galanek adds even more strength to what looks like a strong southeastern presence in healthcare for rival Willis HRH.

"I can tell you wherever Linda was going we were going to move our account to," said the risk manager for a large healthcare system based in Atlanta.

She did all the legwork for this client when it acquired three cardiology practices with more than 80 physicians and didn't know what to do with some of the cardiology groups' more long-tailed exposures.

Until such time as the health system could house the cardiology risk in its captive, Galanek worked to craft a stand-alone policy that would cover the physicians until their tail exposures had run off and they could be safely housed.

"Particularly in the past year Linda has really stepped up to the plate and gone to bat for us, come up with some real creative solutions for us and then gone to the markets to make that happen," this risk manager said.

Galanek, who has doubled the size of Willis HRH's local healthcare practice since leaving Marsh, has also conducted a complete program overhaul for a long-term healthcare client that was recently spun out of a large national chain.

She identified and closed gaps in coverage between primary and excess layers resulting from inconsistent retroactive dates and attachment points.

Senior Vice President
Marsh, Atlanta
Andrew.Pickle@marsh.com

A Very Special Pickle

Marsh's south zone healthcare placement director again finds his way into the winner's circle this year, after having picked up Power Broker^TM laurels in the healthcare category last year.

Pickle is responsible for placing 50 healthcare accounts into the market every year. By his own admission and position, and by the ready statements of those risk managers that work with him, Pickle is an expert and a specialist in the area of healthcare.

But what makes him special, what makes him a Power Broker^TM, are his listening and customer service skills. He can put on that entrepreneurial hat, step into a client's shoes and learn their business like they know their business.

"He is not only skilled but he is a good listener. He has been willing to learn up our book of business and understand the goals and mission of the organization," said a risk manager with a St. Petersburg, Fla., healthcare organization.

"He makes it easy and he never makes me feel stupid," this risk manager said.

The risk manager for a Dalton, Ga.-based healthcare company that owns four nursing homes said that Pickle makes himself available at all times, even when he's on vacation. She says he has earned and carries a lot of weight with her organization.

"He is very respected. My supervisor and boss is the CFO, and he almost always requests that Andrew comes to our meetings so that he can answer any other questions," this risk manager said.

Senior Vice President
Alliant Insurance Services
Chicago