Newsletter Sign-up

Senior Account Executive
EPIC
Folsom, Calif.

Tina Brink has a reputation as an around-the-clock advocate for her clients.

"For example, the other night I got home from a trip at midnight and was sending out emails to a bunch of people and the only person I heard back from right away was Tina," said John Worchester, corporate manager benefits and compensation at Chicago-based steel maker Evraz North America.

Nor was it the first time, Worchester said. "Even though she has three young children, she's up at all hours, always ready to get back to me immediately, and not only immediately but correctly," he said.

Recently Brink guided Evraz in a placement of its short-term disability and long-term disability coverage. Not only did the company come out with better rates but with a broader scope of service.

As an example of Brink's bulldog ability as a negotiator as part of the short-term disability and long-term disability negotiations, she convinced the carrier to give Evraz an on-site vocational rehabilitation coordinator at its key manufacturing location.

Sacramento, Calif.-based Karin Rodriguez, U.S. benefits and contingent workforce manager for Xyratex International, a leading provider of data storage technology, said that Brink has really helped her get a wellness program in place.

"We were starting from nothing, with no money to work with," Rodriguez said. "Tina really helped put together one for 500 employees since just last December."

Rodriguez praised Brink for the top-quality staff she has built. "Tina is almost always available one way or another, but if for some reason she's not around I can always get an answer from somebody else on her team."

At Aspire Public Schools in Oakland, Calif., one of the nation's leading K-12 charter school systems serving low-income students, Leslie Gray, benefits and communications director, praised Brink for her all-around assistance at a time when the California school system is facing major financial challenges.

Brink saved Aspire $354,000 in benefits in 2011, and Brink's 2012 negotiations resulted in another $316,000 reduction in proposed benefit increases. Not only did Brink get greatly improved rates but she lined up attractive benefits. "She was phenomenal during the negotiations," Gray said.

Collectively, Brink saved her clients more than $1.5 million in annual premiums in 2011.

Chief Wellness Officer
Neace Lukens
Indianapolis

Mike Campbell is known as an especially passionate advocate for his clients. "A lot of people can be good at what they do but they do not have Mike's passion," said Betty Blunk, director of human resources and Six Sigma at MacAllister Machinery Co., in Indianapolis.

Like others, Blunk cited Campbell's high degree of integrity.

In the past year, Campbell laid a lot of the groundwork that allowed the company to open its own internal health clinic.

"We've been on a wellness adventure with Mike in various stages since 2003, but this was really a step up," Blunk said. "This year we've taken our entire clinic staff on a minimum of one visit to all 17 of our locations, as well as going back and visiting with chronic patients even more than that."

At Pratt Visual Solutions, an Indianapolis-based company which provides visual solutions to retail customers, John Kirby, director of project management and human resources, praised Campbell for his long-term vision.

"But that vision is grounded in a lot of experience and expertise and good listening ability," Kirby said. "Mike really reads the market, he reads the customers. He understands that success is based on everybody partnering together."

Kirby said that Campbell is a tireless advocate for him and his firm. "I've never seen anybody work harder to deliver what we ask for."

Kirby also said his firm had a very tough renewal year with a couple of particularly difficult claims, but that Campbell was able to achieve remarkable savings.

Chief Wellness Officer
Neace Lukens
Louisville, Ky.
Category: Health Care

Often Imitated, Never Duplicated

Mike Campbell, chief wellness officer for Neace Lukens in Louisville, Ky., is the kind of man who doesn't expect anyone to be able to duplicate his efforts. Follow his lead maybe, but not match him. For in the benefits space, he's done just about anything you can think of.
From instituting wellness programs in corporate settings, to spreading the word about the importance of wellness at home and in social settings, to running his own benefits company, CLS Benefits Solutions Inc., Campbell has contributed more than his fair share. His mission is simple. It is to "see people change for the good."

In an era of rising obesity, a time when corporations are cutting back on benefits, and when health care costs continue on the up and up and up, Campbell must sometimes feel as if he's fighting an uphill battle. That's exactly the point. Why even be in the business if you are not there to try and make a difference?

Campbell, who has served such organizations as The Leapfrog Group, a large-employer purchasing group, Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation, and the Indiana Healthy Weight Initiative Task Force, sees the promotion of wellness at work and at home as his inalienable duty.

He is a wellness fundamentalist, and proud of it. The holder of a theology degree from Kentucky Christian College, Campbell brands himself as an independent thinker. That's part of why he deserves to be named a Responsibility Leader®. "If you are going to succeed and survive, you must have a fundamentally different thought process, one that focuses on studying and practicing personal wellness as an integral part of your life," he said.

Over a 25-year career, Campbell has saved his clients millions of dollars in medical expenses, and if he hasn't saved hundreds of lives in repeating the wellness mantra, he's certainly extended lives by several years, even decades.

Senior Vice President
Wells Fargo Insurance Services USA Inc.
Houston

For some, it might have been considered a miracle. But for Tracy Dieterich, senior vice president with Wells Fargo Insurance Services USA Inc., it was all in a day's work. Last year, an employee of one of his clients, Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star, realized the organization's carrier had made an error in the printed material that had been distributed to covered employees. It said that in vitro fertilization was covered, but in reality it was not.

The employee was devastated; his wife needed the treatment. So he contacted Dieterich to see if he could find a miracle way to help. After all, in vitro coverage is very expensive, and trying to get it added to a plan would require a significant additional expense to his employer -- more than $20,000 a year -- which the nonprofit organization could not absorb.

Dieterich contacted senior management at the carrier and, using creative problem-solving techniques, negotiated the added benefit -- at no additional cost to the employer. For the client, it was worth more than $20,000 annually in real value. But to the employee affected, it was priceless. He and his wife are now expecting a baby.

Dietrich himself was a Little Brother as a child and today serves on the board of directors of Big Brothers Big Sisters. He attributes much of his success in life and business to his mentor.

"As he's grown," said Dan Stuchal, the vice president of Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star, "he has helped pay back the agency in so many ways -- personally, financially, through time and resources."

And performing the occasional miracle as well.

Senior Vice President
Wells Fargo Insurance Services USA Inc.,
Houston, Texas
Category: Health Care

Committed to the Community

Tracy Dieterich, senior vice president of Wells Fargo Insurance Services USA Inc., has been as committed to serving his clients and his employer, as he has been to serving his community in and around Houston.

He's used to giving his customers top-flight customer service, even if there's a chance that his clients may jump to another broker following an acquisition. In one particular case, he fought hard to reinsert in-vitro fertilization coverage to a policy. The coverage had inadvertently been left out of the policy by a health insurance carrier.

Ultimately what matters most is that he does the right thing. That can mean working weekends for clients, or volunteering for an array of nonprofit organizations. No surprise then, that Dieterich has been chosen to serve on different carriers' broker advisory councils and on the board of directors of three nonprofit organizations, one regional, one state and one national.

Dieterich, who has an engineering degree from Texas A&M University, has also made every effort to mentor the future generation into the benefits industry, for he knows the industry is competing for talent.

As his company's local practice leader, Dieterich, who has more than 25 years of experience in benefits both on the carrier and on the brokerage sides, has over the past few years recruited and trained new account managers.

Today, he still mentors them as they make their way up the industry ranks, knowing that they will one day become industry leaders in their own right.

"It's important to give back and leave our world a better place," Dieterich said.

Senior Vice President
Intercare Insurance Solutions
San Diego

David Duenas' biopharmaceutical client develops medicines that battle diabetes and other metabolic diseases. But Duenas, senior vice president with Intercare Insurance Solutions, convinced that company that as far as its organization's health care needs were concerned, it should focus on managing health proactively instead of battling disease on the back end.

This was a paradigm shift, which resulted in the development of a three-year strategic benefit plan, implemented last year, designed to lower costs and increase productivity.

Key objectives included improving employee engagement in leading healthy lifestyles, improving health care decision-making and giving the company greater control over its benefits decisions. Secondary objectives included creating a targeted corporate wellness program that addressed employees' specific risk factors, evaluating alternative funding/contribution mechanisms and introducing a value-based benefit design.

To meet these objectives, Duenas recommended a transition from a traditional benefits platform that offered HMO and PPO plans to consumer-driven health plans that included offering both a health reimbursement arrangement and a health savings account, instead of one or the other. Meanwhile, the company's incumbent carrier was asking for a more than 20 percent increase for its 2012 renewal.

In the end, Duenas found a new carrier who agreed to a 7 percent increase the first year, with no benefit changes, and a highly unusual second-year rate cap guarantee, giving the client an estimated savings of more than $2 million annually.

"His expertise, balanced with our business and our culture, resulted in something that meets our financial needs as well as the needs of our employees and their families," said the company's associate director of benefits.

Senior Vice President
Neace Lukens
Cincinnati

Most of the Midwest-based middle market clients that David Fuller, senior vice president with Neace Lukens, works with are looking for an insurance partner who will help solve their myriad human resource challenges, not just place their benefits.

That's where Fuller makes his mark. With "presenteeism" -- employees who are physically present at work but not operating at a high level of efficiency, usually because of health issues -- on the rise, he has helped his clients use their benefits packages to support their employees and provide education and direction, encouraging appropriate use of resources to promote health and productivity.

One prospective client with 500 employees in 28 states was having trouble communicating effectively and administering benefits with associates in the field. The company sought additional assistance. It had just experienced challenges with communication and access that had added months to completing the offering of a new benefit.

Fuller brought in BeneSolv, a Neace Lukens tool that outsources many of the transactional functions of offering and supporting benefits packages. The tool helped the company communicate with the field force not only at annual enrollment but year-round.

During last year's enrollment period, which included a carrier change, the system was open to the employees for 10 days, and all elections were completed and transmitted well in advance of the effective date.

"David realizes that benefits don't work if you can't understand them," the owner of a construction company said. "When you have a person like David, it's like having someone on staff."

Senior Vice President
Aon Hewitt
Clayton, Mo.

When it comes to wellness programs, employers sometimes have to use a "stick" approach rather than a "carrot" approach. That, at least, is what clients of Kathleen Gantz, senior vice president with Aon Hewitt in Clayton, Mo., have found.

One client, a leading manufacturer in the consumer products industry, realized a significant program cost reduction from a benefits strategy that Gantz developed and executed. The program encourages employees to exhibit healthier behaviors by treating health benefits as an element of total rewards. The challenge during the strategic development process included balancing employer goals with employee views, executing strategic tactics that maintained program competitiveness while reducing costs, and engaging employees and their dependents in healthy behaviors.

By designing and communicating a wellness program that drives employee engagement in healthy behaviors, consolidating vendor partnerships, partnering with best-in-class vendors to develop short-term and long-term program efficiencies, and providing a competitive benefits package that includes choice and reduced employee cost with adherence to program requirements, the company achieved $2 million in savings last year, and anticipates $5.3 million in savings over three years. A key goal moving forward is to shift to rewarding for actual improvement in health. In short, the creative solution has produced positive outcomes for the company as well as its employees.

"We have a rich plan and people use it," said one client, the senior vice president for compensation and benefits of a health care company. "Of course, there will always be some people who don't, but still, we were able to be below trend last year because of the direction we're moving."

Senior Vice President
Aon Hewitt
Clayton, Mo.
Category: Health Care

Most Fair and Ethical

Kathleen Gantz, a senior vice president with Aon Hewitt in Clayton, Mo., is known in the industry for being fair and exceedingly ethical. Clients often mention that her requests for proposals are the most complete in the industry.

She asks a barrage of questions up front, and she's capable of delivering the numbers as well. Key accomplishments include savings of more than $2 million in one year and $5.3 million over three years for clients, while keeping cost increases from 2011 to 2012 to 2 percent, well under the industry average.

She was the 2007 Aon Global Innovation Winner in the Operational Excellence category. She won the recognition for submitting a process improvement idea for tracking and managing budgets at the account level and for helping create a tool to improve the pricing of services.

Partly as a result of these efforts she was selected to sit on Aon Hewitt's national Large Case Management Committee and lead the committee sales SWAT team. In addition, she has also served a three-year term on Aon Hewitt's national compliance committee.

Gantz, a 1983 biology major from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, makes for a great example to the next generation of benefits brokers following in her footsteps. Gantz is a complete mentor for new college graduates and midlevel managers of the benefits broker team. She routinely helps younger brokers learn the business so that they can flourish in their careers.

She is a member of the St. Louis Employee Benefits Association and the Business Health Coalition, and she's an active volunteer with the youth in her local church.

Vice President
Employee Benefits
HUB International

Grand Rapids, Mich.

For most middle-market businesses with small -- often one-person -- human resource departments, compliance with health benefits laws and regulations is a big challenge. Not so for Caroly Hofstee's clients. Hofstee recognized their problems and created a service program that is specific to them. By self-training, she became an expert in benefits laws and then, working with a small budget, created a complete program to take on the total cost of risk and administration of their programs. Hofstee found that by, handling the administration herself, or helping human resource directors to do it, her clients would neither have to "fight fires," a more expensive proposition than administering the programs correctly in the first place, nor spend hours researching compliance-related questions. For one of her clients, an automotive group with 180 plan participants, she restructured its funding from a fully insured platform to a self-insured platform, re-evaluated its plan offerings, helped the company change its contribution structure and fix many compliance deficiencies, setting it up on an easy path for implementation. Last year, that group saved more than $500,000 over the previous year's renewal. "She has been a godsend for this company," its human resource director said. "I no longer felt like I was dealing with a salesperson, but with a concerned person. "I don't need to be a compliance person anymore, I don't need to be an expert," the human resource director of a financial company said. "I hired Caroly to be the expert and she's proven to be a great business partner."

Managing Director
Frank Crystal & Co.
Miami

In a gracious way, Lorraine Jimenez doesn't take no for an answer, her clients say.

Just ask Greg Hendel, COO at St. George's University in Grenada in the West Indies. During his first round of insurance renewals at the school, Jimenez made a spirited and impressive bid to win the business away from the incumbent consultant. But Hendel was new to the organization and decided to stay with the old provider because it was safer for in-house political reasons.

"But rather than get upset with that, rather than feeling she'd gone through a lot for nothing, she said, 'No problem, just give us the opportunity to come back again next year,' " Hendel said. Jimenez did indeed come back the next year, and that year she won the account.

"In part she won the account because of all the flexible things she proposed, but definitely also because of her attitude, her positive approach to the relationship," Hendel said.

Since then, the relationship has flowered. "She's always coming to us with solutions and creative ways to solve the medical school's problems," Hendel said.

For example, he cited the fact that Jimenez and her team have traveled to Grenada regularly to spend time with the school's students and address the nuances of the school's plan. One result of these discussions with students is to add contraceptive coverage to the school's plan.

"We are clearly getting a lot more customer service than in the past," Hendel said.

Paul Suid, former CFO of the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, said that Jimenez faced a very tough situation in soliciting his school for its insurance business. "Our business is in a unique situation, dealing with Ph.D. and MD types," Suid said. "They are U.S. expats in a foreign jurisdiction and they are a difficult bunch."

Suid said that in the competition for his business, Jimenez came in with "a far superior product."

"But what was just as impressive to me was the impression she made on the other executives," he said.

Vice President, Health & Benefits
Aon Hewitt
St. Louis

Scott Liebman's clients applaud his comprehensive, innovative approach to plan design.

"Scott did a major redesign of our health insurance, and what really distinguishes him is his ability to think outside of the box," said Jim Welsh, global benefits manager at St. Peters, Mo.-based MEMC Electronic Components. "He really puts a lot of time and thought into where to put the incentives, and when he gets data that possibly disagrees with conventional thinking he goes where the data leads him."

Before Liebman "tore into" the redesign, as Welsh put it, MEMC had three traditional point-of-service plans and Welsh called them three shades of red.

Looking at a new approach, "what we really wanted to do was cover our employees for the things they needed to be covered for the most," Welsh said. "We had a long discussion but the bottom line was that when people have a real health care event it's probably going to be hospital-based."

So MEMC shifted dollars away from other things and made sure its employees are well protected for what it terms "the real health care event." "So this shows the thinking that the real intent of our coverage is to protect people, it's not to pay for every time they may run to the doctor for some insignificant thing," Welsh said.

Even though the plan "sort of looks like the old ones," the new high-deductible plan protects employees against major health events," he said.

With assistance from Liebman, MEMC put in an exclusive provider organization plan. "A plan member has an in-house benefit for people who are willing to participate in the in-house program; as Scott put it, 'house money, house rules,' " Welsh said.

Welsh said he's been very satisfied by these changes. "Our first quarter looked very good," he said.

"He's a very good listener, he learns the company and culture, and he is extremely innovative in his thought process," said Christy Frazier, vice president of human resources at St. Louis-based Centric Group LLC, a holding company for mergers and acquisitions.

Frazier said Liebman helped her firm "completely overhaul" its medical plan and rolled out three new plans "that were not what you would find off the shelf."

"They're very unique," she said. "They encourage our employees and members to be good consumers."

Senior Vice President
HUB International
Metairie, La.

An 80-employee industrial firm had been advised by its broker years ago to move to a self-funded medical plan. It did, and the move was a disaster. Shortly into the new plan, the company realized its mistake. The contract basis for the reinsurance was not sufficient, and the client was left fully exposed to an annual claims tail, making it difficult to return to a fully funded insurance plan. At each renewal, the reinsurance carrier increased the cost for the coverage, shifting more exposure back on to the client.

The incumbent broker told the company it would just have to suck it up.

But it didn't. Instead, it turned to Liz Raymond, whose specialty in complex issues was a significant asset in determining a solution to the company's problem. After months of negotiations, she found a carrier who took the client on a fully insured basis, and agreed to a competitive stand-alone run-out on the reinsurance policy.

By moving back to a fully insured plan, the client was able to budget accurately for its medical plan costs and realize a savings of almost $200,000 last year, Raymond's first year as its broker. The savings meant a 21 percent increase to the bottom line of the company.

"I don't know what magic she did, and I don't care," the company's controller said. "She got us back with a fully insured plan, and got us every dime possible.

"From a cash flow standpoint, I can breathe. I don't have to panic," she added. "Now I can run the business and manage the cash.

"We are absolutely delighted."

Senior Vice President
HUB International
Metairie, La.
Category: Health Care

Where Does She Find the Time?

Like most of her benefits consultant peers, Liz Raymond covers all her professional bases, from negotiating hard for the best price for clients, to emphasizing the value of the consultative aspect of her work, to cutting costs, to leading teams and "parachuting" in at the last minute and rejiggering benefits programs for clients large and small.

But Raymond, senior vice president with HUB International, does far more, and her list of pro-bono activities are extensive, from organizing impromptu blood drives to providing a lifeline, literally, to businesses that were in danger of going under in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in April 2010.

Raymond, based in Metairie, La., is active in supporting the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the American Heart Association, Second Harvesters Food Bank, the American Diabetes Association, Kingsley House, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the National MS Society, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and Cooper Life Fund which provides support for families with newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit at Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma, La., south of New Orleans.

For the past eight years, Raymond has mentored two college graduates, providing career and professional guidance to both. Raymond is also mentoring a college sophomore interested in exploring the benefits brokerage industry. The student also shadows Raymond during summer holidays and school breaks.

Raymond joined HUB International through the acquisition if Hibernia Insurance Agency in 2007, and she is the recipient of numerous sales awards from both organizations. Previous to her insurance agency experience, she was a sales manager with Unum and a senior vice president with the health insurance giant United Healthcare.

Managing Director
Frank Crystal & Co.
San Francisco

Judy McLaughlin is known as a hard closer, in many ways. Coming into health care coverage rate negotiations for Ace Asphalt of Arizona last year after the deal was essentially done, McLaughlin was able to get rates reduced by 3 percent from where the previous broker had left things, said Jeff Bohne, director of human resources at the company.

"That is typical of how she gets things done for us," said Bohne, who underscored that McLaughlin has a very good relationship with carriers. "She can get things completed for us that I haven't seen other brokers do."

In a short time, McLaughlin has learned who Ace Asphalt is and she has leveraged that knowledge in working on insurance business for his company, Bohne said. "I would add that she has worked out in a problem-solving way things we didn't expect to get fixed."

In addition, McLaughlin takes extra time for Ace, Bohne said. "She was here for four days for our last open enrollment, which is not always the case."

Los Angeles-based Forever 21, a leading global apparel and accessories retailer, has also benefited from McLaughlin's sharp negotiating skills at renewal time.

"Until Judy came on board for the last rate renewal, we'd been seeing double-digit increases in the neighborhood of 14 percent to 15 percent," said Jonathan Harvey, head of human resources. "Last year, with Judy's partnership, not only did we see a 5 percent across-the-board decrease, but we provided richer benefits plans and products."

Harvey praised McLaughlin for being a consistent partner, one who no matter how much she has going on always takes the time to explain things to him, so there are never any surprises.

Prior to McLaughlin teaming up with Forever 21, the company had 3,500 employees who were taking benefits. In just one year in his partnership with McLaughlin that number has risen to 4,500 employees.

In addition, McLaughlin worked closely with Forever 21's human resource team and its internal visual department to introduce a "Pep Rally" to all employees during open enrollment to introduce new benefit plan offerings for the 2011/2012 plan year.

With the guidance of McLaughlin and her team, Forever 21 secured a two-year rate guarantee for dental plans and a four-year rate guarantee for its vision plans.