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Senior Account Executive
Edgewood Partners Insurance Center (EPIC), Folsom, Calif.

A True Benefits Partner

Tina Brink's clients say she acts as if every dollar spent was her dollar and every employee her advice effects is her employee.

Aspire Public Schools, a charter school organization in California, was faced with a $400,000 increase in its benefits offerings. Knowing that the money saved during renewal negotiations meant that Aspire could retain more teachers to help more students drove Brink to negotiate for every available dollar.

Without any benefits modifications, she was able to reduce the proposed increase by some $350,000. Even after completing the negotiations, she secured another $10,000 from Blue Shield of California to offset the printing charges for Aspire's annual employee communications.

With a background as an underwriter, Brink brings a unique skill set to negotiations with carriers. She speaks their language when discussing proposed changes, treating the carriers as she treats her clients--as partners. And while many consultants provide clients with legislative updates, Brink takes this service to the next level, teaching her clients how to apply the regulations to their plans. In fact, she created a manual that walks her clients through the creation of policy and practices. "I have worked with other brokers who wouldn't have gone to bat for us the way Tina has," said Leslie Gray, Aspire's benefits manager. "She's very knowledgeable about health benefits; she knows what will work and what won't work and is very good about explaining things so we can make the ultimate decisions."

Category: Public-Sector Healthcare

Advancing Education

Tina Brink doesn't wait for someone else to point out where good can be done. She takes it on herself to do the right thing, both with her clients and in the community. After acquiring a new client, she cut in-force commissions that the client didn't even know they were overpaying for. She also fought hard for reductions in benefits costs for a school district, knowing that with the money saved, the district could afford to keep teachers on the payroll to help advance the education of children.

Without any benefit modifications, Brink was able to reduce the proposed cost of benefits for the district by $354,975 and brought the overall renewal increase down to just 0.7 percent. Even after completing the negotiations, Brink was able to secure another $10,000 from Blue Shield to offset the printing charges for the school's annual communications to employees. EPIC took on the writing of the annual benefit communications piece as part of their service to the district.

Brink is also a force for bringing new talent into the insurance industry. Over the years, she has encouraged several members of her immediate family and some of her close friends to join the industry. Brink is also one of the first to step in and offer to train new employees and help them expand their knowledge base. Brink co-chairs her firm's charitable efforts and helped to adopt three families from a local woman's shelter at Christmas time. While the contributions came from every person in Brink's office, she coordinated the selection of the families, creating the gift lists and shopping for the family's gifts with the donated funds.

Senior Vice President
Aon Hewitt, Tampa, Fla.

Worth His Weight in Dollars and Goodwill

Over the years, people have asked Deborah Henry, general manager of benefits and insurance for the Hillsborough County, Fla., public school system if her benefits consultants were worth the money she paid them. When it comes to Richard Klima, she said the answer is an enthusiastic yes.

Klima helped the school district save millions of dollars by introducing a defined contribution plan that allows members covered elsewhere to opt out. Historically, the district had paid the full cost of its benefits plans. With much input from the district and its unions, a model was introduced, which included a consumer-directed plan with an opt-out provision. The 2010 plan changes and opt-out provision led to more than $20 million in savings to the district.

In addition, Klima and his team introduced a "virtual expert second opinion" medical program for all members. The program has proven to be life-changing for some; more than 30 percent of original diagnoses and nearly 60 percent of treatment plans have been modified, resulting in improved outcomes and lower costs to members and the plan.

"When you have board members who shoot question after question, you need someone who can talk and explain things in a way they appreciate and need to hear," Henry said. "I can trust Dick to talk on our behalf to both my board and our employees. To me, that's invaluable."

"I've worked with other agents in the past, and generally once the agent sells the product, he gives you someone else to do the customer service," Wilson said. "But I communicate with him once a week."

Category: Public-Sector Healthcare

An Industry Advocate

Richard Klima is valued for his long-term client relationships, some of which have been going on for more than 20 years. He focuses on working closely with stakeholders, including boards, administration, teachers' unions and insurance committees to produce a collaborative atmosphere which enable the group to solve what can be very thorny problems.

While doing that, Klima also works with benefit plan members to help them understand the funding sources for their healthcare benefits and to manage those benefits in a financially responsible manner.

Klima is a frequent speaker on the topic of benefits and has served as a volunteer adjunct professor at the University of South Florida to bring a better understanding of public sector benefits to candidates who are earning their master's degrees and plan to go on to become teachers.

His status in the state of Florida as a healthcare benefits consultant is such that he has been invited to address the Florida House of Representatives on the subject of the effect of healthcare reform on state budgets and benefits plans.

Klima is also a developer of talent for his firm and for the industry. He has encouraged his firm to hire interns from insurance actuarial programs and has also worked with schools to better inform students about the industry. Klima is an active volunteer, working on boards that further educational initiatives, including offering millions in scholarships. As chairman of the Doorways Scholarship Committee of the Pinellas Education Foundation, Klima has enabled low-income children who stay in school and stay out of trouble to attend college on full scholarships. There are currently more than 2,200 children enrolled in this effort, with more than 90 percent of them having been assigned mentors.

Principal
Aon Hewitt, Lincolnshire, Ill.

Big Gains for a Big Client

The University of California is a very large employer. It pays some $1.2 billion in annual premiums on its health plans alone. So even the tiniest blip or glitch from a healthcare vendor can have a sizeable monetary consequence. Marie Kobos, principal of Aon Hewitt in Lincolnshire, Ill., is well aware of that.

As the audit consulting lead for the university, Kobos developed an annuity audit strategy to assure that university health plan vendors undergo diligence audits for continuous quality monitoring and improvement.

With the use of the same methodology and application of the same standards and objectives, almost every university plan vendor has been audited and given action plans to improve accuracy, service and performance.

"We hadn't audited some of those vendors for years," said Kris Lange, director of benefits programs and vendor relations management at the university. "You think you know everything about what your vendors are doing, but anytime you look at them something invariably comes up, things you were not aware of. In a couple of cases, we've actually had a financial benefit. We've had some claims money come back in our self-insured plan. It wasn't a small amount, I can tell you that. It was easily six figures.

"Marie is one of those consultants who will be undyingly loyal to us," Lange said. "She really puts herself in our shoes and looks out for our benefit when dealing with our vendors. There's no letting them off the hook."

Senior Vice President
Aon Hewitt, Somerset, N.J.

Political Savvy is Part of the Job

It's one thing to be well-versed in the nuances of health insurance reform. It's quite another to be well-versed in the nuances of state politics.

Michael Morfe is both. And therein lies his real value to the state of Delaware, whose group health program is a key client. It faces the same challenges of a plan sponsor but many political issues as well.

A key member in the effort to fulfill Delaware Gov. Jack Markell's challenge to save $100 million over five years, Morfe was instrumental in shaping the governor's position on benefits, resulting in effective and persuasive union discussion, documentation, strategy and support.

In addition, he led the consulting initiative to allow maximization of returns related to healthcare reform, especially early retiree reinsurance program funding, which resulted in prompt filing of applications and payment receipts in 2010. He also led a strategic review to "bend the trend" and enhance financial processes that enabled implementation of cost-savings and quality improvements to the state's wellness initiatives.

"Mike is well-versed in the nuances of our program as well as the political environment in Delaware," said Faith Rentz, assistant fund administrator for Delaware. "When we have issues, we have to be sensitive to the impact our options have on constituents, the legislature and our employees. Mike is very much in touch with what's going on in the political atmosphere. He can come back with suggestions and recommendations that appeal to all of those groups."

Senior Vice President
Aon Hewitt, Atlanta

Nothing Elementary About This Advice

Trudie Nacin laughs when she says it, but you get the feeling she isn't really kidding when she tells you she sometimes has to tell Kenneth Vieira, senior vice president with Aon Hewitt, to "dumb things down" so she can understand what he's talking about.

Vieira heads the actuarial team that is responsible for the health benefits programs of the state of Georgia and Nacin is the chief of the state's health department.

"The first time he made a presentation, I had to say, 'OK, kid, you have got to dumb things down to a level that a businessperson can understand,' " Nacin said.

When Nacin became department chief, the state had 17 separate health plans and everything was disjointed. As a result of a five-year strategic plan developed by Aon Hewitt and accepted by the governor, it now has three--an HMO, a consumer-directed account and a high-deductible plan--and almost $1 billion in expenditures have been shaved from the medical benefits program.

Remarkably, the savings were realized primarily through behavior modification, not through benefits reductions as initially proposed.

"When I had to make a presentation to the governor of Georgia last year, I didn't mince words," Nacin said. "Some hard decisions had to be made, but with the job Ken did, I had solid work to defend myself with. He's one of the sharpest men I know. He really knows his stuff."

Principal
Mercer, Seattle

Client's Bottom Line Comes First

Sean White's advice to his client resulted in a reduction in his company's compensation. But that never was a consideration to him.

White, a principal with Mercer in Seattle, guided his client, The Sound Partnership, which is the Tacoma School District Trust, through a tough decision-making process to terminate its self-funded health plans and move into a pooled arrangement through the Washington Education Association. Escalating claims costs on its self-insured plans and limited-to-no increases in state health benefits funding had the trust on the brink of bankruptcy, which would have forced termination of the trust and movement into the state's health plan.

But by thinking creatively and advising the group wisely, White was able to deliver on annual savings of some $7 million, stabilize the financial health of the trust and maintain its viability.

Although the advice also resulted in a reduction in Mercer's compensation, the move was in the best interests of the trust. The reduction in Mercer's income was not a factor in the advice given by White and the ultimate recommendations delivered.

"Mercer knows what it's doing as a team; its consulting services run the gamut," said Mike Peterson, executive director of the trust. "Sean integrates it all in servicing our account. I can't say enough positive things about him. We've been with Mercer a long time, and inherited Sean. But I can't imagine a better person for our needs."

Senior Vice President
Aon Hewitt
Radnor, Pa.

Principal
Mercer
Cincinnati