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Mark Kamin & Associates
Ilene Fischer
Partner, Large Client Practice
(603) 566-0299
ilene@mka-world.com
Marcea Wolf-Carter
Partner, Large Client Practice
(704) 516-1986
m.wolf-carter@mka-world.com
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SUCCESSFUL RESTRUCTURING OF A HEALTHCARE INSURER

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Business Challenge
When a regional health insurance company restructured its sales operations, the new Senior Vice President Sales
and Chief Human Resource Officer committed to the following goals:
• increase sales with a lower cost structure
• increase customer and broker focus
• streamline the sales process
• retain targeted sales staff
Kamin Engaged
Kamin was engaged to create a high performance culture that would immediately deliver breakthrough business
results across key sales functions.
Results
The sales organization was restructured without losing key staff. Changes were embraced by the organization and
silos disappeared.
Customer quote process redesigned from 5 weeks to 3 days in 16 weeks
Summary
Dramatic improvements like these require cultural transformation in most organizations. Achieving demanding
goals requires overcoming business-as-usual attitudes, risk aversion, inadequate infrastructure and internal IT-
driven processes. When organizational change is pursued in service to aggressive business goals rather that for
its own sake, cultural transformation can lead to breakthrough performance as described in this white paper.
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THE PROCESS
Overview
This Kamin engagement had five phases:
• Cultural assessment
• Team formation
• Kamin Transformational Workshops
• Structured Brainstorming
• WOW! Breakthrough Project Initiative1
Cultural Assessment
Kamin conducted a cultural assessment to determine organizational barriers and catalysts to change.
The assessment identified the following barriers:
• A culture of resignation: people didn’t think change was possible
• People didn’t think they could make a difference because of the complexity of the issues within
the organization.
• A pattern of unfinished initiatives and projects with no official closure
• Finger pointing and blame
• Silos, especially IT, sales and operations
• Insufficiently informed workforce
• An “internal focus” in which the customer experience was not always considered
• Low morale among associates
The assessment identified the following catalysts:
• Senior leadership was committed to creating a breakthrough in the sales organization
• Their acquired self-insured business unit had a customizable, customer-focused IT platform that
they could build upon.
• There was a business imperative for changing the entire the lead-to-claim process
Adopted from Tom Peters’ WOW! Project methodology1
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Team Formation
The organization’s management determined the need for initiatives around four teams:
• Broker engagement
• Broker service center
• Self insured
• Lead-to-claim process
Kamin Transformational Workshops
Kamin Transformational Workshops were held for 75 key employees to build a context of high performance based
on integrity, accountability and authentic communication.
Integrity:
• Doing what you know to do
• Doing what you said you would do (and doing it on time)
• Doing what others could expect you to do, even if you haven’t said that you would do it
• Saying when you’re not going to be on time or that you’re not going to do it at all
Accountability:
• Taking responsibility and demonstrating performance in light of agreed upon expectations
• Making agreements for which one can be counted on
• Documenting agreements in clearly understood writings
• Getting things done “no matter what”
Authentic Communication:
• Listening to others with no agenda
• Getting into another people’s world and hearing what they say completely
• Honoring others’ perspectives
• Being straightforward and not withholding information
• Speaking from an empowered perspective
The Kamin Transformational Workshops formed the foundation/context for the WOW! Breakthrough Initiative.
Based on positive feedback from both leaders and participants, an additional 150 employees were scheduled to
attend the workshops. Leaders expected this number of Kamin-trained employees would position the organization
past the tipping point of high performance.
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SUCCESSFUL RESTRUCTURING OF A HEALTHCARE INSURER

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Structured Brainstorming
Kamin consultants led each team through a day-long three-step brainstorming process:
• Each individual generates and documents four priority ideas
• Groups review their combined ideas and select and present their best four to the entire team
• Team votes to prioritize top four ideas
WOW! Breakthrough Project Initiative
Kamin conducted the WOW! Breakthrough Project Initiative beginning with a two-day WOW! Breakthrough Project
Laboratory, including an innovation process that incorporates and surpasses the results of rapid prototyping, in
which highly-engaged teams and stakeholders iteratively improve project plans and objectives.
Next, Kamin distinguished the WOW! Breakthrough Project process:
• Create
• Enroll
• Implement
• Celebrate/Exit
Most projects teams spend 10% of their time creating the project and 90% implementing it (with no focus on the
other two steps). WOW! Breakthrough Project teams spend 30% of their time creating the project, resulting in “out
of the box- innovative” thinking that results in projects that are exciting with the promise of extraordinary results.
WOW! Breakthrough Project teams spend 30% of their time identifying stakeholders and enrolling them in their
project so that they experience a groundswell of support. As a result, excited team members and enrolled
stakeholders implement projects with velocity. The WOW! Breakthrough Project teams create a community of
support around their projects. WOW! Breakthrough Project teams celebrate their success—they actually come to
a formal end—and then turn over responsibility to a group accountable for taking over or maintaining the project.
An Oversight Team consisting of the CEO’s chief of staff, the SVP of Sales (and staff), Chief Human Resources
Officer and a senior Kamin consultant provided the WOW! Breakthrough Initiative with direction and guidance.
Kamin provided teams with regular coaching throughout the WOW! Breakthrough Initiative:
• The broker service team set out to regain #1 status in customer service by achieving best-in-class
service metrics. The team emphasized promoting and supporting self-service options while
decreasing sales involvement in non-sales functions. Manual quoting of small group policies was
discontinued. An online broker information portal was designed.
• The broker engagement team set out to develop more A-level brokers and recruit more brokers
overall. They learned that brokers strongly preferred webinars over breakfast trainings. The team
found that brokers liked being invited to events with sports celebrities but cared much less for free
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tickets to sporting events. The broker engagement team analyzed broker compensation models
and spotted opportunities for dramatic cost savings.
• The self-insured team was assigned the goal of taking the lead in this trending market. It
conducted a thorough analysis of the business, financial and sales models of the parent
organization and the acquired self-insured business unit and decided to propagate the acquired
unit’s models across the entire organization. The team set up sales and operations training in the
new model for the organization’s staff. The team is rebranding the organization’s self-insured
business offerings with new website, sales collateral and advertising.
• The lead-to-claim team set out to transform internal processes and touch-points. A CRM-based
solution was designed to replace a manual lead-tracking system. Quoting was redesigned from
five weeks to three days. Modularized product offerings replaced thousands of pre-defined, fixed
products. A mobile app was specified.
Challenge Goal Results
Increase operating margins Increase sales with lower cost
structure
Reduced headcount costs by
$1.5 million annually. “Signifcant”
additional savings from revised
broker compensation model.
Many processes were based
on needs of the IT
department, not the company
or its customers
Increase customer and broker
focus
Brokers and customers
interviewed. Four teams
established to develop new
processes: Lead-to-claim, self-
insured business team, broker
service center, broker
engagement
Quotes took 5 weeks versus
5 days at competitors
Streamline the sales process Quote process redesigned to take
3 days
Discharge ineffective leaders
and redundant positions
Retain targeted sales staff 100% targeted staff retained
despite two rounds of layoffs
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Additional Results
Kamin’s Transformational Workshops and WOW! Breakthrough Initiative had a profound, qualitative impact on the
organizational culture. Employees now own, are accountable for and complete their projects. Silos have been
dissolved and teams work cross-functionally and collaboratively. Milestones are achieved with velocity. Key
processes have been redesigned from the perspective of customer needs and business requirements.
The organization discovered that the IT infrastructure of an acquired business unit could be used as the platform
for the rapidly-trending self-insured business.
The broker engagement team discovered disparities in broker compensation models across states. The team
recommended that the organization lead its industry with a new compensation model in their largest market that
paid only on a Per Employee Per Month (PEPM) basis while eliminating bonuses based on percentage of total
premiums for large groups.
Summary
As a result of the Kamin work, associates have seen that their efforts—individually, with their teams and with other
teams that they historically had not worked with—have indeed made a difference. Savings have been generated,
broker engagement has increased and processes are being improved. Things that historically have not moved are
now moving.
QUOTES FROM ASSOCIATES AND STAKEHOLDERS
The Kamin work helped us to understand the importance of being accountable, living from the context of Integrity
and being in action. The tools keep us focused and in action.
The most important outcome I have seen out of the Kamin work is that the silos are dissolving.
We can’t get over how, in only 16 weeks, our teams are managing themselves. People are showing up for
meetings on time, with agendas, and getting the work done. Teams are reviewing milestones every two weeks,
and they are meeting and exceeding them consistently.
I’ve been here 25 years, and this is the first time we’ve ever worked effectively with other departments.
We’ve never seen a team produce such extraordinary work and detailed process flow maps with such velocity and
in such a shortened time frame.
© 2016 Mark Kamin & Associates WHITE PAPER
SUCCESSFUL RESTRUCTURING OF A HEALTHCARE INSURER