Benefits Selling Magazine featured my firm as regional enrollment company making national impact!

2. Interview by Denis Storey
Photographs by Roy Howell
Broker’s
best
friend
ENROLLER TED BOSSE MAKES
LIFE EASY FOR BOTH CARRIERS
AND OTHER BROKERS
T
ed Bosse, president of
Volunteer Benefit Systems
Inc., worked as a mortgage
banker for a decade and spent anoth-
er six years in real estate before he
stumbled into worksite in 1998. >>

3. “Although I made a lot of money the ability to have the same team service to get in enrolled or how to service it. And
doing those things,” he says, “I grew to for a client year after year. When the team so they contact us for our expertise in that
hate both of them.” shows up they know the lay of the land, area. Some of our business is referred
He bought himself some time with a where the conference rooms are, whether directly by carriers; some of it is referred
real estate deal and looked around for they are allowed to leave the area to go by other brokers. So that’s essentially how
locate employees to be seen, or who to we’ve grown the business, by doing a
something else to do with his career. And
talk to if things are not what we expected. good job for somebody and then getting
all he had to do was turn to the classifieds.
Our case managers and enrollers become referrals.
“My wife circled an ad in the news-
friends with the human resource team.
paper one day and said, ‘You should
All of this promotes long term relation- B S : How would you define the rela-
probably look at this.’ And it was a ships with clients as you provide continu- tionship between the carriers and
voluntary benefits carrier that was ity of service from year to year. the brokers?
looking to hire some folks to market T B : We love them. They do a good
directly to brokers. And I went and BS: What kinds of brokers come to you? job for us. When we need something
spoke with them,” he recalls. TB: Mostly regional brokers, but we from them they provide it for us.
deal with some consulting firms as
B S M: What made you decide to get well: both large and small. But they’re B S : No communication problems
in this particular business? generally going to be health and life with the brokers?
T B : Being able to offer employees bene-
agencies. [Property and casualty] really TB: Maybe because we don’t deal with
fits that were otherwise unavailable to doesn’t give us that much [business]. the health carriers, we’re somewhat
them or — difficult to find — was an immune from that. We’re typically only
appealing way to market insurance prod- B S: And what is it they’re looking dealing with the [voluntary] carriers. So,
ucts. It just looked like a great opportuni- for when they’re coming to you? we really don’t have an issue with that –
ty to me. I think I tripped into the busi- TB: Either they’ve come to the determina- I don’t think things change as quickly in
ness that ended up being the fastest tion by reading articles in periodicals they the worksite benefits arena, as far as the
growing segment of the business just need to be involved in worksite marketing carriers go, as it had to in the health
because I thought it looked good. or their clients want to offer something insurance plan. And I wouldn’t want to
more without increasing costs. And the be a health insurance broker and have to
B S : What role does your company
brokers generally realize that they don’t go back year after year with a 15 percent
play in the market? have a clue which carriers to look at, how or 20 percent increase and have to
TB: We see ourselves as both an enroll-
ment company and sort of a general
agency for voluntary benefits. We work
in conjunction with the brokerage com-
munity. We work hard not to ever deal
in competing products with the general
brokers. They write the health, the life,
the group plans. We don’t write any of
that. We strictly keep ourselves to vol-
untary coverage and, of course, core
benefit enrollment.
BS: And what advantage does your
company offer over a larger
national enroller?
TB: Regional enrollment companies offer a
significant advantage compared to larger
enrollment companies for the majority of
cases. The ability to have a local enroll-
ment team is far better than having peo-
ple come in from out of state. It gives us
BenefitsSellingMag.com • November 2005 • Benefits Selling

4. explain why we’re gonna do this again. enrollment successful? down the process of the actual enroll-
TB: Absolutely. Depending on the size of ment. They create more underwriting
B S: Where do you see that going? the group, you need buy-in above the HR issues than the electronic system. First off,
TB: I know that they’re going to have to level. Because, ultimately, we’ve seen what we don’t have to ask for name, address,
do something to change it and I think it could be great enrollments become Social Security number because it’s already
really is going to come down to con- mediocre enrollments because even in the application and ready to go. And
sumers becoming more involved. We’ve though the HR department was squarely then the ability to have the software cor-
come to expect services for a $10 co-pay. behind it, they have limited control once rect my benefit counselors or enrollers to
And you know, if you look back at the it gets out of their department. But our go back and get a piece of information
beginning of health insurance it started most successful enrollments are where we they forgot to get before they allow the
off as catastrophic insurance against the have an HR department that is enthusias- process to stop is valuable because other-
major diseases or accidents, and it incre- tically behind the products and process, wise we have to go back and scrub every
mentally expanded. I think what’s going and we even have some HR departments application for errors and omissions. that
to have to happen is people are going to that go above and beyond and go hand- slows down the process of submission.
have to become more involved in their hold the people right back to our benefit With most of our carriers, we have the
own care by taking on more of the counselors and encourage them the ability at to dump the applications back
responsibility of the nickel-and-dime whole way. And those are the ones we to them so they can start work before
stuff. And then go back to the catastroph- just see tremendous success stories in. we’ve even completed the enrollment.
ic plan, which I think the [health savings The HR department is absolutely critical
accounts] are ultimately trying to get us but the larger the organization gets the B S : Why do you think it’s taken
to. But I think it’s going take a long time more you need a buy-in from above that. this industry a little longer than
or at least a while yet before they become most to embrace the electronic or
as big of an impact as I hope they will. B S: What else do you need the online aspect of doing business?
employer to do? TB: Well, I think electronic has been
BS: Talk about the value of setting up a TB: They need to promote the enrollment. embraced. I think the online aspect is
case when you’re doing an enrollment. The cases where we’ve seen the most suc- where the issue is, for most of the carriers.
TB: This is by far the most important step cess is where the employer was squarely And I think it’s because without that face-
in the entire process. We spend more behind the idea of not just the add-on to-face interaction, they not only educate
time on this step than any other. We benefits that we can provide with the core the employee on the benefit but relate it
insist on sitting down with the human benefit support or the enrollment or com- to their specific circumstances. Most of
resource team, defining a timeline of munication of products, but they truly see the products sold in the worksite aren’t
events, discussing expectations for the value in the voluntary benefits we’re pro- going to be purchased. It’s not something
client the carrier and our own. Once we viding. And when you get right down to that you go on to a Web site and then
all understand what is expected and it, if you don’t see value in that, the rest of understand the value of a whole life insur-
when, we all sign the timeline. This gives it you’re doing for selfish reasons so you ance policy or critical illness plan. They
each of us accountability to each other. need to have an employer that really sees need to be explained at a one-to-one level.
This step alone eliminates many stains value in giving their employees additional And the online systems lack that interac-
later in the process. It allows my office to life insurance or disability coverage or criti- tion. We’re working with some online sys-
call HR and remind them that the census cal illness. And when they do that and tems where we become the face of the
data is due to be delivered on a specific they’re actively promoting and sponsoring online system. We’re literally logging into
date. It also allows the client to hold us the plan to the employees and encourag- the Web site just as an employee could
to specific dates for our side. It becomes ing them to come with an open mind and but now we’re acting as that face-to-face
the roadmap for the enrollment. Our uti- hear what we have to say, when you see an interaction so they still get the education,
lization of something as simple as this employer get involved to that level, that’s but the employer gets the value out of the
form sets the enrollment on the right where you really start seeing the employ- online system. And in some cases where
path from day one. You generally know ees participate in the plan at much greater they’re implementing a new online sys-
by the end of that meeting whether this rates than you would have otherwise. tem, we’re the hand-off to the employees.
enrollment is a winner or not. We’re introducing them, but we’re show
B S: What’s the value of electronic you how it works and at the same time
B S:How important it is to have the enrollment vs. paper enrollment? we’re going to educate on the voluntary
HR department buy-in to make that TB: We hate paper enrollment. [It] slows benefits and assist with the enrollment.
Benefits Selling • November 2005 • BenefitsSellingMag.com