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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.

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 Account Executive/Partner
Neace Lukens, Louisville, Ky.

A Doctor is Always in the House

The days of driving from work to a doctor's office and languishing in a waiting room before finally seeing a doctor are long gone--at least for employees at Logan Aluminum in Logan County, Ky.

That's because Jon Taylor, the company's health benefits consultant from Neace Lukens, set up an onsite health clinic for Logan's 1,000 employees. Now, those workers can see a physician, nurse practitioner or nurses during their regular work hours, rather than going offsite.

Since implementing the onsite clinic, employee satisfaction is soaring, said Johnny White, director of wellness. "Our employees don't have to be gone for half the day and they get treated in a timely manner," said White.

Another benefit of working with Taylor is his thorough planning and strategizing throughout the year--he holds quarterly, and sometimes monthly, meetings with clients to develop a written timeline outlining the financial, compliance, communication and wellness initiatives.

That's certainly been helpful for Jane Freeman, corporate counsel, human resources, at Whayne Supply Co., a Louisville-based provider of construction equipment.

Taylor and his team "have, basically, a year-long plan of what they are going to do with you," said Freeman, "It helps me because I know what my expectations are."

Although Taylor has just reached his 30th birthday, he's made an impression on his clients that far exceeds his years. "For someone his age," said White, "it blows me away the depth of knowledge he has."

Category: Private-Sector Healthcare

Giving Where it Counts

Jon Taylor is sharp enough to show underwriters where they have erred in their calculations and he is also a very giving professional. Taylor and his team have established a process to hold carriers accountable as healthcare reform unfolds. For a client's recent renewal, it was working with a large national carrier which reports claims on an incurred basis. Taylor pulled claims data which resulted in figures that were 22 percent less than the carrier's incurred claims calculations. Taylor underwrote the case based on the paid claims using the carrier's formula and was able to negotiate no change in rate.

Taylor has served on the advisory councils of the major carriers operating in his region. The experience has allowed him to understand the dynamics and philosophies of the carriers' offerings to clients in regards to benefits administration.

He is generous with sharing account revenues with others who have performed well on his accounts. He also supports nonprofits generously. Nonprofits such as the Environmental Defense Fund, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Salvation Army, Goodwill, the American Council for the Blind, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital have benefitted from his generosity.

In his home base of Louisville, Jon has helped many of his clients prepare and qualify for the "Mayor's Healthy Hometown Movement" which is an awards program that grades organizations on their wellness programs. Five of Jon's clients have received this award. He has also helped clients qualify for and win the Louisville Business First wellness awards. As a young industry leader, he is currently mentoring another young less-experienced colleague, with the goal of making that person a more effective Neace Lukens professional.

Senior Advisor
Arison Insurance Services, Lexington, Ky.

Knowledge is Power

Whether it's medical insurance, dental coverage, healthcare reform or specific issues facing employees, John Davis of Arison Insurance Services seems to have all the answers. At least that's what his clients said.

Linda Faulconer, senior vice president of human resources at Farmers Capital Bank in Frankfort, Ky., said Davis seems to know everything about the field. "He's a very intelligent man," Faulconer said. "He is so on top of what is going on (in the field) presently and on top of what's about to happen."

Just this past year, Davis put that knowledge into action when he moved the bank to a different dental insurance carrier. The move expanded coverage to include dental implants and white cavity fillings.

"They had a more robust lineup of benefits with not one penny more in premiums," Faulconer said. "In hard times to give an increased benefit rather than a reduced benefit is terrific."

Another aspect of his knowledge is healthcare reform. Davis makes sure to explain the details of the law's gradual implementation to his clients, warning those with low participation rates in medical insurance that they could face penalties in the future. He also shows companies options like enhancing medical coverage or dropping it altogether.

Denise Wilson, human resources director at Stoll Keenon Ogden, said that Davis was instrumental in helping the Kentucky law firm change its benefit plan, conducting meetings with employees and answering their questions.

"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: Private-Sector Healthcare

Setting Things Straight

John Davis can dive into an employer's fully insured plan to deliver tremendous savings per employee. He's also not afraid to pick up the whistle and blow it if he senses something or someone is unethical. Davis reported an individual carrier's recent and extreme rate renewal practices to the U.S. Attorney General.

He also researched new state laws to help his agency stay in compliance in its practice of subsidizing the efficient administration of benefit plans. Davis also led an initiative within Arison that focused on educating his colleagues toward a better awareness of technology regulations.

For one nursing home client that was facing a 60 percent increase on its first renewal, Davis used his insurance expertise to reveal how the carrier had changed its method of calculation. He presented the actual claims paid to another national carrier for a lower rate and was able to negotiate a pharmacy plan that was just 9 percent over the current price. He saved the employer and the employees more than $150 per employee per month.

Davis' involvement with local charitable organizations and educational groups are legion. He is a vestry member and Eucharistic Minister in the Episcopal Church, a four-year member of his town's planning board, a precinct captain, local campaign manager and fund-raiser in local politics, and is a member on the Governor's Task Force on Healthcare Reform. Davis was recently appointed by Gov. Steve Beshear of Kentucky to study retiree health plans for the Kentucky Teachers and Retirement Systems.

Within his agency, he is a training consultant to young associates and freely offers to work on a joint basis with them to provide them with field training.

Principal
Mercer, Washington, D.C.

In the Best Position

Muriel Knapp stepped into a real-life scenario that was more like a training exercise, one where more was going on than could ever possibly happen at one time: a changing 401(k) plan, a succession of unsatisfactory and incomplete preceding programs and international operations with multiple levels of management.

For Knapp, it wasn't so much a problem as it was a challenge. She managed to get everyone working together with a more subtle approach, empowering rather than marginalizing management. "Our company had used several investment advisors to evaluate alternative 401(k) plan providers," said the benefits manager for a midsized, multinational company. "The changing environment of 401(k) plans, specifically regarding investment managers, open architecture for selecting investment funds, and transparency on their fees for pricing made it extremely difficult to understand our alternatives."

Nobody within the company seemed to be able to come up with a framework in which everyone was comfortable making decisions, the benefits manager said.

To top it all off, the company's senior management team is based outside the United States, which meant that they lacked a background to be comfortable with these issues. It also meant that the U.S. team had little time to explain it to the senior executives abroad.

"What Muriel did was to identify our issues and concerns," the manager said, "and clearly explain and frame our alternatives again, again, and over again with a great deal of patience, and in such plain language as to make it understandable."

Category: Retirement

Across the Boards

Recognized as one of the most influential defined contribution advisors in the country, Muriel Knapp is a frequent speaker at industry events and operates at a high level of engagement with the industry.

Education is a priority with Knapp, as evidenced by her multiple designations: the ChFC, CLU, CRC, CRA and AIF. Knapp is an active member of the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries and is on the national committee for conference agenda design. She is also an active member of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Human Resources Leadership Forum. Her work involves finding more and better ways to teach, train and connect human resouces professionals in the Washington, D.C., area.

In her work with clients, Knapp has produced in-depth plan reviews to identify ways to improve 401(K) plans. Knapp and Mercer have also provided training to client's investment committees on the topics of plan design, fees and expenses, investments and performance, employee communication and plan administration.

Under Mercer and Knapp's guidance, retirement plan vendors provide quarterly plan reports to in-house retirement plan committees and are dropping unnecessary fees. The result for users of retirement plans are cheaper investment share classes and higher returns.

Plan participants are also aided by a formal education plan on their retirement program that includes web-based training and onsite employee meetings. These resources have enabled the plan sponsor team to reduce its workload by leveraging online resources.