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Partner
Spring Consulting Group LLC, Boston

Putting it all Together

Some consultants shine because of their customer service ethic, others because of their creativity. And then there are those who are head and shoulders above the rest because of their industry knowledge and research capabilities.

The latter describes Spring Consulting's Karen English, who is praised by those she works with for her drive in exhaustively researching how disability, absence and health management programs can be integrated. Using that research, she can provide humane solutions for employees and at the same time provide the cost structure and program quality that a more discriminating employer wants.

"She really has a very extensive grasp of not just the disability marketplace but disability as it relates to absence in general," a benefits executive with a major carrier said. This executive said the company had a need in the past year to put together questionnaires for market research and provide answers that are credible enough to act on, and English did just that.

The world of service providers in absence and disability management is broad. Another executive said English was knowledgeable and diligent enough in her research to help him understand the landscape.

"You have got a very diverse set of service organizations out there," this executive said. "It's really fractured and she took all of that information and put it together and gave us a really clear picture of what it looked like."

Vice President-Employee Benefits
HUB International Northeast, Hauppauge, N.Y.

In an Owner's Shoes

How does Susan Sajiun-Fitzharris do such a good job of meeting employers and employees' needs and expectations in creating effective and cost-efficient voluntary benefits programs?

One answer is that she has owned her own company. That's in addition to the experience she has gained in her 24-year career in the insurance industry. Her firm, United Benefits Consulting Inc. was acquired by HUB International three years ago. HUB is a company that is on the record as saying it makes it a practice to find good fits when it makes an acquisition. The proof of that in Sajiun-Fitzharris' case is the fact that she is still with HUB, and thriving, from what our sources tell us.

Sajiun-Fitzharris did a "bang-up job," said a New York attorney and chief financial officer. She performed exhaustive research on the programs that were available for his firm and saved the company money in the process.

"If anything, she is service obsessed and you can write that down," said another New York barrister, Fred Klein, a managing partner with Klein, Zelman, Rothermel & Dichter.

Klein said he came across Sajiun-Fitzharris years ago when she was first getting started in her professional life and something about her really impressed him. "She was very competent, and young and ambitious, and she sort of struck some sort of a heart string," Klein said.

Category: Voluntary/Disability

The Natural

Susan Sajiun-Fitzharris is a natural mentor. An admiring reference told us he saw something special in her years ago and helped guide her in her profession, and now she is returning the favor.
She volunteers as a motivational speaker in high schools, mentors her fellow professionals and serves as a thought leader, organizing educational seminars on a variety of topics. And she has been quite the producer for HUB. She has been recognized by the company's awards and recognition program for three straight years since joining the company and has consistently garnered the company's highest honor, which is the Gladiator Award.

In 2010, she was the leading employee benefits producer for HUB International across 220 offices in the U.S. and Canada and ranked as the company's third highest producer overall for the year. In addition to being a certified financial planner, she has received several national awards, including recognition from the National Association of Health Underwriters.

Sajiun-Fitzharris was raised in a very traditional home, having been raised by a Hispanic father who was a self-made businessman. She started her insurance career with the Pappas Organization and rose through the ranks to where she eventually owned her own agency. She ran United Benefit Consulting Inc. for eight years, until it was acquired by HUB.

Sajiun-Fitzharris has also been a keynote speaker on employee benefits topics for the Association of Legal Administrators, the New York State Society of Actuaries and other organizations. She is frequently quoted by the media as an expert in her field and has published numerous essays and columns in her area of expertise.

Senior Consultant
The Benecon Group Inc., Lititz, Pa.

Adding Some Depth to the Pool

The Lancaster County, Pa.-based Benecon Group had already made a name for itself in the world of employee benefits, having in 1991 created the first municipal cooperative in Pennsylvania that was formed for the purpose of purchasing health insurance benefits.

The company added to that momentum last year when it hired Stephen Gingrich, a former sales agent with Northwestern Mutual Life who in the interim had worked for Engle Hambright-Davies Inc. and EHD Advisory Services.

Gingrich was brought into the Benecon fold to create an ancillary benefit program for groups and individuals. In this time of skyrocketing costs in the area of public sector benefits and accompanying political chaos, (Wisconsin or New Jersey ring any bells for anyone?) Gingrich was able to create a three-year rate guarantee for more than 150 municipalities in their short-term disability, long-term disability and life insurance programs. A three-year rate guarantee in these times? Think there's any value there?

"We are saving appreciable dollars on the switch to his program," a borough manager in one of Pennsylvania's myriad of municipalities said of Gingrich's work.

"Steve did a great job of explaining what we had to go through and to get everybody enrolled and get started with the product," the borough manager said.

"They all do an incredible job," another Pennsylvania-based municipal manager said of the work that Gingrich and his team did for his township. Savings for members of the cooperative are as high as 22 percent. In these tight times, that is a welcomed cost reduction.

Senior Vice President, National Absence Management Practice Leader
Aon Hewitt, Atlanta

A Force to be Reckoned With

When a consultant has talent, sensitivity to the importance of customer service and has the resources of a massive organization behind her, she can be pretty tough to beat. Julie Norville is a consultant who is pretty tough to beat.

"She should get every award in the book," said a benefits executive with a global diversified manufacturer. "Where do I sign up for anything and everything that she should win, she is incredible."

Not only does Norville have more than enough industry knowledge to give this executive, she is tops in customer service, this person said. "Always responsive, always returns a call, available any time, day or night and weekends," the executive said.

At Aon Hewitt, where she has worked for the past four years, Norville has created a disability management tool, HeLP, which stands for health-related lost productivity.

The tool helps employers see the total cost of absence, not just the individual silos of workers' compensation, sick time, return to work or short-term disability. The tool helps employers understand the true cost of an absence and thus helps employers manage the costs of that absence.

In addition to the effort she puts in with her work for individual customers, Norville is the national absence management practice leader for Aon Hewitt, an organization with an annual revenue of $4.3 billion and 29,000 employees.

Senior Vice President, National Life and Disability Practice Leader
Aon Hewitt, Tampa, Fla.

A Technical Bulwark

And then there's the numbers guy. You should be able to tell on which side of the disability management equation Aon Hewitt's J.R. Shamley falls if you look at his pedigree.

First off, this actuary is a Purdue University graduate in interdisciplinary mathematics and statistics. Then there is the 12 years he spent as a director with carriers such as Prudential and AIG, and the two years he spent as a vice president at The Hartford.

Now in his seventh year with the behemoth known as Aon Hewitt, Shamley is that company's national life and disability practice leader. And it's his actuarial skills, clients said, that gives them the most peace of mind. "He really worked with our vendor and the head of their finance and underwriting area to come up with some very adequate concessions in our renewal process," a Shamley client said.

"From an actuarial standpoint, and from an account management standpoint I think that they are a very good partner," the client said.

A risk manager in the public sector said that Shamley and his Aon team provided him with crucial technical expertise. Public sector risk managers, as we know, are suffering through probably the worst budget crisis that they will experience, unless 2012 proves to be worse.

"We have a very lean staff here and, in terms of technical staff, have few resources, so we have relied fairly heavily on Aon for the last few years," the risk manager said.

Partner
Spring Consulting Group LLC, Boston

Perfect Timing

The recently amended Americans with Disabilities Act will vastly increase the number of employees who are considered to have disabilities. It's a mathematical certainty that this will increase the number of employees who successfully file discrimination claims against their employers under the Act. As a result, the competency with which employers integrate their disability management and total absence management programs never has been more important. That's why the work done by Teri Weber, a principal with Boston-based Spring Consulting, has such relevance and is so noteworthy.

In the past year, Weber assisted a disability carrier in expanding its product offering to include Family and Medical Leave Act administration and overall absence management with a focus on coordination among plans. Weber's findings revealed that a hosted solution would best achieve the carrier's goals. This would allow the carrier quick entry to market and customization of the offering over time.

Weber also has been working with national and global firms developing employee-centered processes and incentive programs surrounding absence management. She is helping to create clear and consistent communications for employees, something that is vital in the environment of increased discrimination exposures created by the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act, which went into effect on May 24.

The law requires that employers do a much better job of documenting what kind of training they gave supervisors of disabled workers.

Partner
Klerer Financial Services
Wantagh, N.Y.

Vice President, National Practice Leader, Voluntary Benefits
Alliant Insurance Services
Newport Beach, Calif.