WHO makes us unique?

Characterized by diverse personal, educational and professional backgrounds
We bring a rare blend of experience and personal commitment to our task

 

Jordan Shields:  Team Leader and Compliance

Thirty years experience in employee benefits, starting as a broker’s assistant and developing, one by one, a large clientele primarily composed of small businesses.  Through his involvement in an array of professional arrangements, Jordan has long been able to immerse himself in the issues facing his clients.  He is past state political director for CAHU, co chairman of the Association of Health Insurance Agents (Cailfornia), board member of the California Broker Coalition, and has served on several carrier sponsored agent Advisory Councils.

Robert Shirrell:  Consultant and Actuarial

Bob has been in the benefits business almost since benefits began – 50 years.  Instrumental in the launch of the legendary Mendocino School District Plan, the formation of Health Plan of the Redwoods, and as a consultant to the State of California for Medi-Cal in the mid-sixties, Bob has a well deserved reputation as not only a keen analyst, but an insightful one, drawing on his many years of experience to help clients develop programs most appropriate for their needs.

Keith McNeil:  Second Team Leader

Thirty years in employee benefits and financial planning, Keith began with his family’s agency which provided mutli line insurance.  He has his CEBS, CLU and ChFC degrees and has written several compliance manuals on COBRA administration.  Keith works often in the field of medical professionals, has extensive experience in self funding, and is one of the co founders of Enwisen, a web based information tool that has been very popular for many years.

Don Ramatici – Property Casualty

With fifty years in property casualty insurance, we're among the largest family owned insurance firms in Northern California. Most of our staff have been with us for 10 years or more. Many smaller agencies just can't deliver that strength. But numbers are only part of the story.

Taddei, Ludwig & Associates, Inc. (TLA)

Ann Jakiemiec

Admitted to the California Bar and with practical experience both in the fields of insurance and Human Resources, Ann provides additional support to Jordan for technical issues.

Direct Support Staff

Our staff provides tech and accounting support in our agency and works on our leading accounts for employee assistance, renewals, plan reviews, installation, amendments and coordinating the various services we provide directly or the service coordinators we use to meet other needs.

 

WHAT makes us unique?

Essentially, our lack of uniqueness, expressed in many ways

Primarily, we act as an extension of a client’s Human Resource Department
Not leaving Finance behind, we help to integrate the work of the two departments

In this way, the strategic planning necessary to executing an appropriate program
is wedded to the day to day administrative requirements of its implementation and success

We find that all firms essentially look alike
They present large scale proposals with testimonials and a detailed outline of capabilities
We don’t – we keep it simple and let the results speak for themselves
After all, clients seek the ends and not the means
Here’s what we say, and you will see we mean it all in the end

 

1) We’ve been there:

The principal members of the service team continue to run independent businesses
We’ve met payroll, hired employees, designed our own compensation plans, competed,  expanded, changed and struggled to continue to improve how we serve our clients.

2) We’ve been here:

By servicing the needs of over 400 small employers (under 50 employees), we are accustomed to providing hands on service, doing small and personal meetings, and intervening when there are claims disputes with administrators, carriers and providers. 
A broker or consultant should be the “human face” to insurance, and we face up to this responsibility on a daily basis.  Our clients appreciate our responsiveness and availability.
We have more and larger clients, of course, but our core experience in the small group area is creates greater value for our agency – and thus for your employees.

3) We outsource – but we are a resource:

We compete against the companies we utilize, providing COBRA and Flex Plan administration for many small employers.  We’ve written and updated manuals on the same legal areas we charge these vendors with servicing.  Therefore, we are a qualified auditor and evaluator for those we recommend.

4) The writing you see is the writing we’ve done:

This can’t be outsourced.  The manuals we write are models based on our experience and incorporation of the changing fundamentals of benefits administration.  White papers, analyses of breaking trends, detailed reviews of available programs are provided in a continual stream, culminating in an annual summary (“Jordan’s Journal”) that is unusual in its breadth, depth and perspective.  We do it – because no one else can.

5) Each client is unique and we are uniquely qualified to assist them:

There has to be a better way.  Our clients say this, but we’re louder.  In a dynamic business and benefits environment, with technology improving and the price of so many services dropping, there is always a better way.  Our job is to clear the path so we can find it together, and then keep pushing ahead to see what’s around the corner.

6) There are no small issues:

We analyze everything, both incorporating into a philosophical whole, or to keep it from dropping down a hole due to lack of attention.  Small dollars become big dollars, especially in a business run on small margins.   

7) There are no large issues:

Even the most complex benefits arrangement is only composed of small parts.  Our role is to explore and explain the construction and design of a particular platform or program.  The whole can therefore be greater than the sum of its parts – but we need to define the whole and the parts first.  Our reports, summaries and surveys are developed on this basis, and are customized for all our clients – because our clients, like us, are unique.

8) Issues, what issues?

Size has its advantages.  That’s why we stay small.  This allows for more personalized attention and account “ownership”  We can establish and support our own core values and expand them to incorporate those of our clients.  We can do this because, unlike many agencies, we do not have a complex management or account structure.  We are autonomous, flexible and can experiment with our clients to find the way things work – and the way things work best.  Creativity, compassion, complexity and simplicity can all be woven in a tapestry of customer service as best suits that customer.

9) Quality over quantity:

Size has its advantages.  That’s why we look large.  By using the concept of horizontal integration, we can take advantage of the best resources available in the market to meet fairly convention or interesting challenges presented by any client.  Standardization, appropriation or purchase of administrative platforms or companies would make us lose our ability to adapt, and could cause us to miss opportunities for improvement or to explore a new paradigm or methodology that may better meet our clients’ needs.

This concept of horizontal integration makes us unusual – and more responsive.

 

WHY is Horizontal Integration important? 

Because it shows how much can you get with just one agency

We are not just affiliated with other agencies – they are our strategic partners
We use their services, share our experiences, and continue to integrate our approach
This allows us to bring “best practices” to our clients at all times
With access to a variety of quality resources, we better adapt ourselves to our clients’ needs
In this way, we provide a higher level of service than our competitors’ can

 

Client Management:

United Benefits Advisors:  National firm of allied professionals

Why not harness the collective intellectual creations, passion and market clout of experienced benefit firms across the country, not just to compete with national firms but provide a superior range of products, services, and collaborative work?  UBA was formed in 2001 to do just that.

Comprised of 150 firms, UBA is the third largest benefits firm in the country.  More than just a major agency, UBA sets up a number of unique avenues for participation and practice:

United Benefit Advisors is a formal organization, but it also describes our structure as we partner and affiliate with a number of experienced firms, large and small, to meet special needs or give us greater depth in handling the geographic, demographic and financial requirements of our diverse clientele.  These strategic alliances include:

 

The Schaefer Group

Not so long ago, employee benefits were really about insurance:  design, planning, funding and the coordination of service through communication and education.

Then premiums were continually rated, carriers consolidated, and compliance questions created by the endless tinkering and debate in state and federal legislatures.  What was once designed to protect against catastrophic loss, what was once a “benefit” and a way to help employees and their families, became a right, a cause for constant concern, with new ideas, design changes, reduced employer participation.  In short, we went from a simple policy playing field to a benefits battlefield.

The role of the broker changed, particularly as it overlapped with the functions provided by other professionals.  For us, the two primary areas that needed to be coordinated were financial planning, including retirement, and Human Resources.  The Schaefer Group was formed to meet that need.  The name is actually an acronym for all the services we provide, but the key is coordination using a professional team approach.

WEA Consulting

WEA’s approach is to provide a comprehensive and flexible solution for all the potential HR needs of any client.  This ranges from the simple “project based” manual creation to a full scale in house HR employee.  “Customized counseling” replaces “menu management’ and the needs of each client are determined so the scope of a project or long term relationship can best be determined.

TLA Financial

So much of the insurance that protects our families from economic disaster has been sold on a “transaction” basis attempts to fully meet our expectations and desires are thwarted.  How to coordinate, with whom, and what the basic financial “game plan” all become problems without a thorough, relationship based approach.  TLA provides basic insurance transactions, but also does trading, fee based financial planning and both investment based and fee based retirement planning and administrative placement.

SSM Insurance Services, Inc.

All we have to handle is “everything else” which we describe in our own service and product outline.  Primarily we act as the coordinator in the client relationship with the group, as what we do in benefits touches on what WEA and TLA do for their part.  We then either provide primary resources or help fill in gaps that may remain:

            Compliance:  testing, documentation, notification, education, materials
            Marketing:  carrier research, plan design, funding approach, tax strategies
            Administration:  full on line capabilities for plan maintenance, Flex and COBRA
            Service:  personalized attention to employees for claims and plan explanations

 

 

TOY STORY

Everybody wants to work with the latest and greatest benefits “toys” – and we are not immune to the siren song of supposed single source solutions.  On further study, however, we find that, as expected, not all solutions work equally well for all clients at all times.  Therefore, we have taken the “brokerage” approach – since we are familiar with the format – and decided instead to work with a variety of resources, implementing those that make the most sense for the least cents.  The vendors we choose are the ones we know, and are willing to know better.

From a global perspective, we employ 3 primary research and development resources:

  We work closely with John Jakiemiec the owner of United Insurance Technologies
and a broker specializing in large group.  UIT works with HRT to do market research on emerging benefit technologies and helps with program implementation.

  United Benefit Advisors has proprietary programs, which we contrast with open market models, and has preferred pricing on some programs from different content and plan administration vendors.  We can implement theirs, ours, or a hybrid approach.

  The Tech Research Group of UBA also keeps us informed of latest developments in the field, and the application various agencies have employed for their clients.

On a local level, we have a long term relationship with several vendors, and have resources for the use of other content and administration tools:

Web Content

   HRT Advisors (which represents various resources, including ADP)
   Shared HR

Web Administration

   Shared HR – full service HRIS

HR Support

   HR Insider (through UBA)
   Shared HR – HR Toolkit

Benefits Enrollment

   Benefits Connect
   BeneTrac
   HRT Advisors (above – can connect using ADP interface and platform)

Payroll and Administration

   ADP through HRT platform
   Trax Payroll (connects with Shared HR)

Other Resources:

 Human Resources

   HR BLR – multi state compliance forms and regulations
   HR Insider – full scale HR Newsletter, published by United Benefit Advisors
   WEA Consulting – project base, HR consulting, and other services

 Compliance

   We use Fisher and Phillips (national with San Francisco office) as Labor Attorney

 Communications

   Elluminate video conferencing
   Compensation and Benefit Statement – software tool
   Survey Monkey – survey tool

“and the rest…”

We’ve seen them come and go, we’ve seen some stay, and we have always kept abreast of who is making a foray to greater adaptability, strength and applicability to the wide range of our clients’ needs.  Some may come back, some may disappear again, but we will always be able to intelligently discuss the various advantages and disadvantages of each, the market for which they were intended (as often evidenced by their pricing) and which has particular strengths that are well lent to the project at hand.  Having such resources “at hand” gives us the flexibility we need while providing our clients with what they need – and will need later.

 

SERIOUS STORY – NO TOYS, NO GAMES

We offer a full array of technical research and service tools to assist a diverse clientele in a number of areas.  We are also working on some projects that may be of greater value than the traditionally marketed health plans.

Insurance

United Benefit Advisors in California are working together to form an independent Dental Trust, that will be managed by an outside administrator and the member agencies.  Rates will be developed for a select clientele to be competitive, and there should be more flexibility in plan provisions than is normally seen in the dental market.

We have an established relationship with LBL Group in Long Beach to provide Worksite Marketing Services, and, for specialty products, work with several carriers for voluntary life and disability, as well as some ancillary products, such as accident and Critical Illness

Employee Services

We have two platforms for Compensation and Benefit Statements

We provide personalized employee identification cards, which have the employer’s name and logo, our name and contact information and the carrier contact and basic plan data.  These “universal” cards can be presented at any health provider office along with the unique identifier number employees are given by the carriers.

Through our financial planning division, we make available “brown bag” seminars on insurance and estate planning, disability, etc.

Compliance

We have prepared the following manuals, with appropriate forms, for all clients:

      COBRA              HIPAA             FMLA              Flex Plans

We administer COBRA and Flex Plans and write the appropriate contracts, do discrimination testing for the Flex programs.  We can also write special “wrap”
medical policies for executives where discrimination difficulties may occur.

We provide an annual report (“Jordan’s Journal”) to keep our clients apprised of all market, economic and legal developments pertaining to employee benefits – periodic updates, such as Medicare Part D announcements (2006) are also sent as needed.

We have access to a nationally recognized labor firm (Fisher and Phillips) with a local office in Oakland, forms from HR BLR, forms and notices from BNA, and the assistance of our Human Resource affiliate, to deal with labor and personnel compliance issues and manuals. 

Finally, we have a prominent local ERISA attorney on retainer.

NEXT CHAPTER

The rest of our story needs to be completed by you

Where can you go?

A full benefit and brokerage review can occur at any time.  Certainly as the direction of the organization changes, growth is intended, or new concerns expressed by employees about the adequacy and appropriateness of the benefit programs, a review is necessary.
This gets us back to the basics of what you need and what we can do to assist you:

Your Organization

Budget
Market for Employees
Employee Needs and Expectations
Philosophy About  Employees and their Value to Your Organization

Our Organization

Support Service Needed:  technical, technological and technique
Compliance Assistance and Legal Updates
Use of Outside Strategic Partners and how we integrate them
Proficiency in determining, discussing and disseminating funding models
Employee education, claims support and general benefits review
Administrative services:  COBRA, Flex, HIPAA, FMLA

All benefit brokers have access to the same markets and will get the same pricing.
What will differentiate one from another will be:

 

When do we proceed?

Depending on what your needs are, we can develop a timetable for action and implementation, as well as a long term strategy to deal with growth (which affects access to various benefit markets, and thus design, pricing and adaptability). 

Then we change it – because your organization will change and we have to adapt to continue to meet your new challenges.  We can start this anytime, and then start over – again, at any time.

 

We believe the question should not be “if we can be of help” but “when?”