Benefit power brokers: health.

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Aaron M. Wells

Employee Benefits Director

Hilb Rogal & Hobbs

Wichita, Kan.

When a television company acquired stations from a worldwide media conglomerate, it created the arduous task of switching 2,100 employees to new healthcare coverage.

"It's not like (the media conglomerate) had a nice, little, neat television group internally that we could pull out and move over," said a senior-level employee with the television company.

In stepped Aaron M. Wells, employee benefits director at Hilb Rogal & Hobbs, who combined technical know-how with necessary personality to provide a smooth transition.

"He is one of those individuals who has a rare combination of customer-service ability and a nice personality," said the client. "We view Aaron as part of our human resource team, as a partner in our business. He understands our business and he genuinely gets excited when we get things accomplished."

In another situation, Wells was able to help a public school system save $9 million from its previous provider, by initiating a vendor change with a stop-loss contract.

"We were able to do a little plan modification, build up reserves and have breathing room to do planning for the next couple years," said a risk manager with the school system.

That client described Wells as an "excellent teacher" able to relate to educated staff like administrators and teachers, as well as janitors and maintenance workers.

"He is able to speak to all groups at all levels and convey a very complicated subject in a manner they can all understand," said the school risk manager.

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Frederick S. Bounds, ARM, ALCM 

Executive Vice President

Kunkel, Bounds & Associates Inc.

Dubuque, Iowa 

Picture this. A long-term care facility the majority of whose workers are over 40 and female. No offense intended, but that's a population that is highly educated in the area of health benefits and inclined to use them to the utmost.

But with the help of Frederick Bounds, an executive vice president with Kunkel, Bounds & Associates Inc., the facility has managed to keep its health insurance premium increases below 5 percent over the past three years without giving up any benefits. You may feel free to stand and applaud at this point in the presentation. Anyway, that's what the vice president of human resources for this facility is doing.

"He is just absolutely outstanding, I have never had a broker that could provide such quality of service," said Bounds' client.

Keep in mind, this is also an organization that provides home healthcare services. That's where you see a lot of workers' compensation claims. Attendants doing things like throwing their backs out lifting and turning bariatric patients. You get the picture.

"We have kept workers' comp down to a flat line, no real devastating claims or chronic trends," this HR executive was happy to report.

For another medical services provider, Bounds has successfully shepherded the company's movement from a 100 percent insured environment to a completely self-insured one.

"I guess I like Fred because he is a great resource," the executive said. "He knows his stuff and he knows his insurance providers. I mean, that man is excellent."

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Michael Barton 

Executive Vice President

National Practice Leader, Employee Benefits

Willis

Phoenix

A former director of corporate human resources at an international provider of retail services did everything but demand that his former broker Michael Barton win this award.

"I think so much of Mike that I would go out of my way to nominate him even though he's not my broker anymore," said this former client.

The company was acquired by a much smaller Canadian company, and a nightmare of a merger ensued. Barton crunched the numbers to prove that going down the self-insured route was the best way to go. He moved the company through a rare mid-year conversion to a new carrier and TPA, saving $1 million in the first year of contract.

"Mike and his team have extraordinary analytical resources which allowed for fairly sophisticated modeling of our plans," the former HR director said. "They can slice, dice and marinate information in any way a client may wish to receive it. It impressed the hell out of our controller and CFO."

Barton's team also nailed down single-digit increases in premiums, way below market benchmarks. Barton also tackled the company's large contingent workforce, which provided numerous administrative and billing challenges and significantly enhanced their benefits. If that weren't enough, Barton established performance metrics for his client's new carrier, holding it to financial penalties if the turnaround and accuracy of claims weren't up to snuff.

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Debra L. Yorba, HIA 

Senior Vice President

Keenan & Associates

Riverside, Calif.

More than 22,000 employees at 25 school districts in California must love Debra Yorba. Serving as the group's health insurance broker, Yorba has been able to save them $1 million per year, according to one school district representative, by making changes like switching to a new prescription drug plan.

"It's really good because the school districts in California are really having a difficult time," said the client. "We're not being financed by the state well enough."

What's most impressive, said the client, is Yorba's personality.

"Each school district has a unique culture," he said. "She has to be able to work with all these personalities and districts."

A leader at another school district called Yorba a "walking encyclopedia" who is "always willing to listen."

"If she doesn't know the answer right away, she'll get it to us in e-mail or a phone call the next day," said the client.

By utilizing a high deductable health plan and health savings accounts, the pool of school districts lowered its rates by approximately 1.5 percent, resulting in high savings. But getting everyone to agree on such a plan took hard work.

"It's a sticky wicket for school people," said the first client. "They're used to $5 co-pays and $100 deductibles."

Using her personality and industry know-how, Yorba made it all work out.

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James C. Weiss

Senior Vice President, Employee Benefits

Hilb Rogal & Hobbs

Milwaukee, Wis.

Jim Weiss is progressive. Jim Weiss is great on the numbers. Jim Weiss is tenacious. Jim Weiss makes you feel like he doesn't just work for your team, but he is on your team.

"We like to be cutting edge and try new things and he brings us new opportunities," said the benefits director for a polling and consulting company.

The company has been 100 percent consumer driven since 2004, jumped on health savings accounts in 2005 and offered coverage for domestic partners well before it was mainstream.

"We could not have done it without him. Honestly, I consider him to be a part of our team," said the benefits director. For a human resource executive with a major Midwestern medical education institution, Weiss has made the difference this year between success and an absolute train wreck between the institution and its third-party health benefits administrator.

"Our TPA is an insurer more than they are a TPA is what my finding is," the client said. "So we have bean struggling with them being able to act like a TPA, and so Jim has been instrumental in the back and forth."

When a TPA's pharmacy benefits management system blew a tire, delivering the wrong medications to--ahem--the doctors of this medical institution, Weiss got down in the mud and fought with the TPA to give rebates to the offended, and might we add, highly vocal physicians.

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John Zervakos, RHU, CHBC 

Principal

Mercer

San Francisco

Maybe it's John Zervakos' 27 years of experience as a healthcare executive prior to becoming a broker. Maybe it's the fact that he's part of a Mercer team that has some clients beaming about the company's electronic benefit enrollment system and other methods of support. It's probably a combination of the two that has the San Francisco-based Zervakos achieving results in the area of healthcare benefits brokering that border on the unbelievable.

"No insurance broker can help us save money," is the way one human resources vice president put it. "The costs keep going up." Okay, fair enough. But Zervakos has been able to keep one medical group's healthcare insurance cost increases below 1.5 percent for each of the past two years. That's in an era when double-digit annual increases in healthcare insurance costs are still very common.

Here is what another company's vice president had to say about Zervakos and his team.

"Support is superb--Mercer acts as an extension of our HR department in responding to benefit plan interpretations, issues with vendors, and inquiries from employees," said this executive. Need anyone say more?

And although Mercer is a very big company owned by another big company, MMC Corp., a human resources executive with a small energy consulting company says that she still gets royal treatment from Zervakos and his team. "Even though we are a tiny company they treat us like we are a big employer so that is amazing."