Speaker 1: 0:00

What does our industry trade association see on the horizon? What are the issues we need to be tracking and how are they positioning members for success? We'll find out on this episode of Shift Shapers.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Change either energizes or paralyzes. The choice is yours. This is the Shift Shapers podcast, bringing the employee benefits industry interviews with individuals and companies who are shaping the industry shifts. And now here's your host, david Saltzman.

Speaker 1: 0:36

And to answer those questions and more, we've invited NABIP's new national president, Alicia Riedel, to join us on the podcast. Welcome, Alicia.

Speaker 3: 0:45

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Oh, it's our pleasure. So first of all, congratulations on becoming president of NABIP.

Speaker 3: 0:54

Thank you. It's a little overwhelming, but I'm incredibly excited.

Speaker 1: 0:58

It's a great gig and you're going to be awesome at it. So let's start a little bit. We always try to ask our guests what their path was. How did you end up doing what you're doing?

Speaker 3: 1:12

Yeah, well, I mean, depends on where you want me to start Maybe the womb in my life anyways, and it's not an uncommon story, I think in our industry as well. But my dad was in the industry. We moved a couple of times when I was a little kid following his career and then when we moved back to Minnesota in the early 80s, mid 80s, my dad started his own agency and it was in our basement and it was really cool because I got to start my get to do my homework using really cool tools like the typewriter that had like the word processing on it. And I got to do my homework using really cool tools like the typewriter that had the word processing on it and I got to laminate things. And that's about as much as I knew about what he did. And I actually thought he owned an insurance company.

Speaker 3: 1:54

For a while I didn't understand what insurance agency was and I vowed to myself that I would never be in that industry. It meant nothing to me and as the business grew and my dad was more successful, I tuned out even more about what it was he did. I was determined to be either a social worker or in some way helping children. That was kind of where my passion was. I always worked with kids with disabilities. And then I met my ex-husband and he had a one-year-old son and I became a mom really early on, was pregnant with my daughter and realized that I needed a steady, stable career quickly with benefits. And I started working for an insurance company, didn't tell anybody who my dad was and it kind of like realized when I went to that insurance company in the member services role, so I was taking the calls from you know the members, and I realized like this is a really important gig, like I really actually am helping people here, be able to help their families and get the medical care they need, et cetera, and fairly quickly made myself, went up the ranks, I guess, if you will, at the insurance company.

Speaker 3: 3:06

And that insurance company actually was really into community service. So I think it solidified it for me because I was a volunteer guardian ad litem, I did Red Cross training, I did a lot of volunteer work and they supported and celebrated that for me. As a matter of fact, I won an award at that company and I think that's really where I went. This community, this company, this industry really does value helping your own community. They really do want you to be out in the world helping people.

Speaker 3: 3:34

And so I was kind of hooked at that point, moved on to another insurance company and worked in the broker market. And that's where I began my relationship with NAHU at the time NABIP now and got to know the organization there a little bit. And then I flipped on the fence, I went over and I started working for consulting firm Towers Watson and had that experience at more on the consulting side versus the broker side. So my career started directly helping people so that I could help my family and eventually kind of led into helping companies you know build their benefits programs to help the people that are employed by them and their families.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Now, was your dad's agency a small group or mid-market, or where did they fit?

Speaker 3: 4:23

I think you know it changed over time. So originally he did a lot of self-funded work. My dad was very creative, he was analytical, he was super into legislation, he was always looking for the edge, he was a data cruncher, and so self-funded stuff really kind of echoed for him where his passion was and he he worked with a lot of Minnesota based companies self-funded transportation, manufacturing, things like that I mean other companies as well and built their benefits programs from a self-funded perspective and then over time, as the benefits industry changed and insurance companies changed and programs changed and laws changed, he started, I think, selling more fully insured large group as well. So he had a balance.

Speaker 3: 5:14

By the time he passed away in 2018, he had a good book, a small group business, he had a little bit of Medicare and individual and then he still had self-funded and large fully insured and he was one of those guys that was always looking for a way to beat the system and really provide value and so he was helping his clients do level self-funded. He was helping them get their drugs from outside the country. He was helping them to put up programs for dental outside the country. So he was constantly trying to be innovative, even in his small little world with the clients that he served.

Speaker 1: 5:51

Well, it kind of sounds like a lot of NABIC members, doesn't it? I mean, they're all out there trying to find ways to improve both the client's position and the employee's position. The member's position.

Speaker 3: 6:02

Yeah, yeah, he always thought that. You know, I was talking to somebody yesterday and I brought it up. They brought it up and I said you know, I think it's a little bit of maybe I learned it from my dad but to say I can't do this or I can't advise around something innovative because my client is fully insured or they're not over 100 lives or whatever you know, doesn't ring true to me right. Like as an advisor, you can still be innovative, you can still push the market to be better, and I think I learned that from him and I think a lot of other NABIP members take that kind of road as well.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Yeah Well, and I wonder if you agree that that's kind of the future of what advisors are going to have to do for their clients.

Speaker 3: 6:44

Absolutely. I believe that wholeheartedly. Yes, some people will say, alicia, you've been working with Fortune 50, fortune 100 companies for a long time now. You consult with publicly traded organizations that have a lot more leverage, and the list goes on and on about why the things, that strategies that we're putting in place with our clients can't work. Other areas and I wholeheartedly disagree. Yes, you're restricted in a lot of ways, but you also can be the advisor and the consultant. I don't think the word broker agent fits anymore in our modern world. I think an advisor or consultant is a much more appropriate way to think of yourself. An advisor or a consultant is a much more appropriate way to think of yourself, and the first step, whether they're a small group or fully insured, is to sit down and build a strategy for that company, based on what their issues are, and be able to help them build the best program within the parameters that they're allowed to do so. So, yes, I absolutely believe that's where we're going, and those that don't take that approach, I think are going to struggle.

Speaker 1: 7:47

Well, you know, as a doctor client of mine once said to me, prescription without diagnosis is considered malpractice, and I think that a lot of folks who have been doing that for years because, look, let's be honest, anybody listening to the podcast knows that for a long time, being in the especially in the small group side of the business was like shooting fish in a barrel, and we own the fish, the barrel and the shotgun. But now the fish are shooting back, and so you know, we've got to do some different things and look at clients in a in a broader way. And I mean, I think that that leads me to our next subject, which is what are the issues that NABIP is kind of watching this year? What do you see on the horizon?

Speaker 3: 8:29

Well, I mean, it could be a short or a long answer, right, I'll try to give you a medium-sized one. So we spent the last year bringing in a new CEO, reshuffling staff and really thinking about where we spend our efforts, our time, our resources, and with that process, we decided to create what we now call the Consumer Healthcare Bill of Rights, and there's 10 rights in there, essentially, and they really all boil down to creating a healthcare system that's centered around the consumer, versus the way it was designed to work, along the way and the way it is now, and so what we're really focused on is what is it that's going to? What can NABIP do? Whether it's partnering with other associations, whether it's being in the media, whether it's backing certain legislation, whatever it is, if we're going to spend our time and effort, does it align with our Bill of Rights? Does it align with the ideas that we are advocating for a better health care system? And I think that's a shift. It doesn't mean that our role isn't the same as it's always been as a trade association to support and protect the role of the agent, the broker, the consultant, the advisor, whatever you want to call it. That's still primarily why we've existed because we have this constituency group that we represent, but we really have decided to be proactive around where we spend our time, and it's all about creating a better health care system. I think you know, as we do, that we are trying to align and take down the silos that I think get in our way a lot of times, and so you know we are building up our foundation under the leadership of Jessica Brookswood, our new CEO, which we aligned with our idea that we want to create an ecosystem or a health care system that is helping consumers navigate that, whether it's through literacy or whether it's through advocacy efforts, et cetera. So what do we have on the horizon this next year?

Speaker 3: 10:43

I think, specifically, we are focusing on making sure that single payer things are not successful. We believe, you know, a healthcare system that is, you know, free market is where we should be. You know we're really focused on transparency, whether that's in, you know, agents and brokers being transparent about the fees that they charge or the commissions they received, or whether that's about hospitals and clinics providing transparency around costs, or whether it's about carriers creating transparency around data that they house for clients' information. So we're really focused on that transparency piece and making sure, if transparency becomes something you know in the law, that it's actually regulated in a way that's not detrimental to our clients or to the agents.

Speaker 3: 11:37

We're really focused on technology and providing tools and resources to not only us as an organization but also our chapters and our members, and we really want to become sort of that hub, that ecosystem that any of our members could go to to receive or have access to the tools that they might need to run their business better or to serve their clients better, and I think that's a huge opportunity. So we're asking for feedback about what our members are looking for. But, coming from a large agency like I do, you know I can turn around and ask for any type of support or help that you could possibly think of, and there's somebody within my firm that's able to do that. The average broker and agent advisor out there doesn't have that. So I think NABIP is really focused on providing more value to those members through whether it's technology or if it's, you know, advocacy or if it's support running the chapter, etc.

Speaker 1: 12:30

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Speaker 1: 13:06

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Speaker 3: 14:04

Is that something that NABIP is looking at and trying to change in some way? We have not actively created legislation around that. It's certainly on our list of things that we will support if a state is looking to push for that and try to support them, the chapters, the states that have that restriction and I mean it's a good idea as far as, like, what are the things we could do nationally to support the states that are having those issues? And you know there's been examples in areas and I can't think of them off the top of my head where we have actually supported, you know, chapters and states when they've tried to make changes in those areas. But I think you know it's a it's a it's a state by state thing. That's very complicated. You can't can't legislate it from a federal perspective. So I think our role is more about creating templates and models for states that are maybe looking to change that in their own legislation.

Speaker 1: 15:02

But that would be awesome for advisors who are doing more and more and being paid less and less. Absolutely, I don't think the average client. Do you understand the amount of effort that goes into serving a client properly in the markets that we serve?

Speaker 3: 15:22

No, no, I don't. I mean. I think that at the end of the day, like agents and brokers, advisors especially in the fully insured and small group market, you know are having to stretch themselves thinner and thinner to be able to serve the needs of their clients. It's partially because of the complexity and because it's, you know, benefits and people costs. Hr costs are the highest, typically, of what a company is on their bottom line right, so they don't have extra funds to go out and have consultants around all of the areas that they support their employees or their strategies in the people area or the risk area. So they're learning that they can lean into their brokers for that, into their brokers for that.

Speaker 3: 16:10

So I applaud the smaller, medium-sized agencies that are creating services and models that allow for them to help their clients, whether it's benefits-related or not, it could be HR-related, it could be compliance-related, technology-related in the HR space. But there's an inflection point. I think that happens there, which is partially why, from an ABIP perspective, we want to be able to help provide the services and the technology that would be able to help you, help you get those services at a lower cost. But if you can't come back and charge them for the consulting that you're doing or the technology that you're providing. I mean, that's a problem and I don't know how somebody can sustain their business.

Speaker 3: 16:56

My brother and my sister-in-law still own my dad's agency, you know, and they live in a smaller suburb and they are struggling with this every day. I talk to them every day about you know. I've talked to this 150 life group and they met with Gallagher and Gallagher can do these eight things for them. But we don't either have that or we can't afford to do it because we're only getting paid $19 or whatever it is, you know, for commission. So just kind of a long-winded way to say it's unsustainable that the broker-agent advisor is really to be competitive, has to be able to support the clients across all areas of HR and sometimes even risk and not get paid for it.

Speaker 1: 17:39

Yeah, it's a tough place for folks to be right now and I think it's only going to get tougher. You alluded a little while ago to single-payer, but I know that NABIP was actively involved in something else that popped up out of the blue, which was another kind of rumbling of discussion about doing away with the employer exclusion. Are there other things that you fear this year might just kind of pop up on the radar that we need to be looking at?

Speaker 3: 18:04

Well, right now we've got the Medicare rules. Well, right now we've got the Medicare rules and there was a recent court case in Texas that a NABIP chapter was a plaintiff of and by default, nabip is named or is part of that as well. From a Medicare perspective, I think the Medicare rules is something we're really spending a lot of time on. We've got an FMO council that we work with. As a matter of fact, there was a meeting, I think yesterday with the FMO council and trying to make sure that what is in the best interest of the advisors is being considered and not just what's in the best interest of FMOs or the carrier or whatever. So I think that's you know that's taking up a lot of our time and thought. I think transparency is another thing that we've been highly, both on the House and the Senate side. We've supported bills that have come out around transparency. So we're keeping an eye on that piece as well.

Speaker 3: 19:02

I think you brought it up single payers by some states. It's a really big and we're doing whatever we can to support the states. Also, 1332 waivers, I think, is what they're called. Minnesota, for example, is one of the first states that did one of those. So we're trying to help through our government relations team for other states that are trying to employ those types of waivers, how they can do that and how they can be successful in it. Of waivers, how they can do that and how they can be successful in it. Yeah, I think the employer exclusion, I mean it continues to come up politically but it would throw the insurance industry upside down and every company, from you know the top 100, you know fortune companies, to the small employers out there, you know, would, I mean it would change entirely how employee benefits are offered, or if they are at all, because of something like that. So we'll always keep our eye on that for sure.

Speaker 1: 20:01

Yeah, but you know it's a tasty morsel and the beast is very hungry and getting hungrier as we go along, so I think it is something that we need to keep our eye on. Let's travel back up to 20,000 feet. What's your view of leadership?

Speaker 3: 20:19

What's my view of leadership? You know, I think each person has their own individual style and you know what makes them a good leader. For me, I think, you know, I have sort of a double, double edged sword, or a two sided coin. In one sense, I'm incredibly empathetic, which is actually a heavy burden sometimes to, you know, really be engaged in and feeling the people that I lead and wanting to make sure that they're okay and that their voice is heard. So I think it's a positive, but it can sometimes be difficult. I think, then, the other side of that coin is that, as a leader, it's my job to look up, you know, and to look forward and to say you know, regardless of the pain that it would take not regardless of, that's a bad word, but, you know, if there's a goal we need to get to, for example, as NABIP, we need to. You know who we need to be in the future.

Speaker 3: 21:19

Change is hard, but it's my job to orchestrate that change. It's my job to not only help decide what the change needs to be, based on data, based on facts, based on what's happening now, not what happened 20 years ago or why we made decisions the way we did before and then, to you know, create a pathway with empathy to get to that future point. And you know, sometimes those two things can get in the way of each other, because oftentimes people have issues or troubles, or change is not something that they're wanting to go forward with, and so you have to. You have to be willing to put the strategy of the organization in front of the individual needs of one person, but, at the same time, the reason we're doing these things is to make sure the organization is there for the people, right? So I think those are two really strong attributes of a leader is somebody who's able to push forward, at the same time not losing sight of why you're doing what you're doing, of why you're doing what you're doing.

Speaker 3: 22:29

Some of the best leaders that I've been under, you know they are the ones that let the people who do the job shine and support them to be the best that they can be, and so I've tried to learn from that. You know there's the whole. There's no I in team, right, and we need a team to be successful, and so I think, as a leader, it's my job to ensure that the people that we've either hired or volunteering, or who are members or in work is another example. Your employees, whatever that that you give them the tools they need to succeed, you support them. You know and realize that you can't have success without failure and to you know, create an environment where people are able to be the best version of themselves. So I think that's also something that I learned along the way that I hope I am able to set for other people.

Speaker 1: 23:29

And that's a great place to end our conversation for today. Alicia Riedel, thank you so much and again congratulations on becoming president of NABIP.

Speaker 3: 23:37

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 23:42

I appreciate it very much. Shout out to the crew at Grand River Agency for their awesome post-production. This Shift Shapers podcast is copyrighted content and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of Shift Shapers Solutions LLC. Copyright 2024.