Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I grew up in Canada throughout the country, but my
formative years were in Edmonton, Alberta. I went to the
University of Western Ontario, which is in London, Ontario, just
south of Toronto. I didn't finish my full four year
plan there and left after three to start up my
(00:21):
first company.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Now Vera doesn't know this, folks, and I'm not going
to spend a lot of time on and I'm going
to have to talk to him offline about this. But
I too, am from Edmonton. Our listeners know this about me.
I was there. I used to work for CBC Sports.
I was there during the Gretzky year. So were you
and I are gonna have to talk offline?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Okay, we're going to have to do.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, it first time it's happened on this on the
series two in the four years that I've done it too,
So that's fantastic. So well, listen what I want to do,
of course, talk about everything that is that is your
health company currently. But I noticed that when you got
out of school you had this wonderful resume and health.
It looks like it's been very important you over the
(01:00):
years of yours. So can you talk about your vision
and things you wanted to do coming out of school,
because there really is an amazing story and you really ascended.
And now almost the last free years you've been at
your current place as CEO. But it seems like health
was very important to you.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I think the saying of hindsight is twenty twenty probably
rings true to that point, Dennis. I think when you
look backwards, it feels like there's a nice, well planned
out arc and trajectory. I'm not sure that was necessarily
strategically thought out when I was twenty.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Years old, but.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
There certainly has been some important connection points, I'd say
since the early twenty tens. The last company I was
a part of, called Maxwell Health, was in the field
of HR benefits, and then we certainly got exposed to
some of the core challenges around healthcare and health insurance
and affordability and out of pocket exposure.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
And medical debt. And that company, while it was in that.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
World, was not specifically targeting the problem that Ansel is
about today, but as a you know, put thought into
what it made sense to focus on. Next, you know,
the story of Ansel really started to take form.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Can you go with just a little bit Deeper Die
because I'm always interested in our series here because I
realized that passion as a CEO and as a leader,
that people are passion about what they do and that's
how they get to the top with a lot of
hard work, effort, of course, some timing and a little
bit of luck and all the other things that go
with that. But why the health industry for you?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
You know, I think that it's an area to have
impact and in a way that's meaningful for folks. And
I think, you know, especially in the in the American
context of healthcare, you can't really separate health and wealth
or or financial well being perhaps is a better way
to put it. Because of the sheer amount of cost
associated with health, it's almost a given that that health
(02:55):
expenditures are going to have an impact on other parts
of your budget. And if you look at the country
at a macro level, if you look at how much
we spend on healthcare, it certainly takes away from other
areas of investment that as a country, we could be making.
So when you look at areas to have an impact
on people and build something that matters, this is certainly
(03:17):
a space that's been really important to me.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
You know Vera as you were talking about this, and
I too have experienced this living in both countries. I imagine
it's been very fortuitous for you to be living in
both countries, knowing how socialized medicine works in Canada and
how it works here in the capitalist society the United States,
the good and bad with both, and trying to do
the best you can with the current company you're at.
So I imagine that you know through that looking glescensing
(03:40):
how both work. It's been pretty interesting for you to
educate yourself properly.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, very much so.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And I think the labels of socialized health care and
healthcare in a capitalist country, if I may done this
is perhaps not in my view, the right frame, because
every country in the world other than the United States
it has a single payer system. Of course, many of
them are capitalist countries, so you know, and I think
(04:07):
that there's there's certainly some correlation between the system we
have and the fact that we have the highest costs
with some of you know, outcomes that don't necessarily reflect
what's being invested.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
So that's a separate debate.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
But I think that that the unfortunate reality, though, is
that in this system people have far more out of
pocket exposure when it comes to healthcare. Now, there are
many ways to solve that problem, the most effective of
which I personally believe is a much more macro related focus.
But in the absence of that, you've got to look
(04:41):
at what tools we have today, and there are, in
our view, the opportunity to build a financial product and
insurance product that that helps alleviate some of the some
of the pain.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
What's the mission statement of Antel Health.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, our mission is to make sure that health distress
does not result in financial burdens. More often than not
for folks, if you have an unforeseen medical event, it's
almost certainly going to result in some financial stress for
you or your family. And that seems like an odd connection,
but unfortunately it actually really is.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
And our aim is to alleviate.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
That here for all our new listeners. And it might
be introduced to Ansel Health for the first time if
you were to give him a thirty thousand foot view
and tell them this is exactly what we do. What
would that be?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, of course, I'm happy, happy to share that for you.
So Ansel's simple group supplemental health insurance product offers wide
ranging coverage and one plan that pays cash benefits for
over thirteen thousand injuries and illnesses. In the past twelve months,
twenty percent of our members have had a claim paid.
(05:47):
And what that means is that a lot of people
are getting help from this product because it's paying out
cash when they have something that is unforeseen that takes
place for them.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You got some categories on the website either way, we'll
give at the end, folks. But you've got the employers,
the brokers, and the members. I know they're each different.
Can you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah. One of the nuances of.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Employee benefits in the US is that most folks get
those benefits through their employers, and most employers work with
third party consultants or advisors or brokers to help them
make decisions on what benefits to offer. So in order
for us to ultimately be used by a person, a
real person, it's because they will have gotten the benefit
(06:33):
from their employer, and it's because that employer is working
with a broker who recommended that they consider anseling.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
You know, listen, I read the news. I know you do,
and everybody does about the health industry up and down,
all sorts of different stories there. It can be expensive
for some people at sometimes medications. I could go on
and on and on about all that, But when it
comes to the industry right now, what kind of challenges
are you facing that you know you're going to get
through them, but right now there are challenges for you,
(07:00):
you the company in the industry.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
One of the I think one of the challenges for
insurance as it pertains to health, which is different from
property and casualty, is we use the term loss ratio,
right and the loss ratio is sort of for every
dollar of premium that someone pays, how much value do
they get back? So how many dollars will they get back?
Typically an insurance and obviously, as an insurance company, to
(07:23):
be profitable and make money, what you charge has to
be above what the loss ratio is. The trouble though,
is that, you know, when you think of the term
loss ratio, I think any logical person, any logical organization
would be focused on minimizing.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
The loss ratio.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Of course, the problem is that if the insurance product
is what is the core value of what you bring
to the consumer, You're, in essence, I'm going to reduce
the value of the product that I sell. Now, when
you look at it that way, you know what company
is right in mind would think about reducing the value
of what they offer to their customers.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
In fact, we think of the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So insurance, as it pertains to help, has got this
interesting dichotomy that is almost working against the customer. And
you know when we went back to the drawing board
here and said, look, lots of people are getting having
unforeseen medical events. That happens, that's life, and as a
result of the current system, they end up having to
(08:18):
pay bills that they didn't foresee and it's hard for them. Okay, well,
if you're going to try to help those folks, the
first thing that comes to mind is build an insurance
product that covers a lot of things that actually happen
to people. So we've done that and we've demonstrated that
it works. So when I said earlier on that twenty
percent of members have acclaim paid in any given year,
to put that into context, that's a very highly utilized
(08:40):
employee benefit. So if you look at a typical company,
you'll have medical insurance, which is the most utilized. Makes sense,
then typically dental insurance and then followed by ansel extraordinary
that we're like right there. So now to your question
of you know, what's our challenge. So despite that, the
biggest challenge we face is one of innertia. Uh you know,
(09:01):
I think of a famous war and Buffet quote that
is that the market can remain irrational much longer than
you can remain solvent. So we know we're right, we
know we're delivering value to the consumer. It's objective, there's
no subjectivity about it. It's clear what we're doing. But
yet it's hard to shift an industry. And it's hard
because you know, you you got to it earlier on
(09:22):
is there's a there's a value chain through which benefits
are bought in our country. And as a result of that,
you know, you got a lot of folks along that
chain that need to be convinced. And we're certainly making
good traction there. And it helps to have a product
that is delivering a lot of value, that has an
NPS of ninety. But but the challenge, of course is
(09:46):
to change people's minds and not the end consumer they
get it, it's the folks in between who need to
get it to them.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Ultimately, we are another fun question. Then we get to
ask the leaders and CEOs of this series is about
sustainability and growth And I know it's different for everyone,
and this, of course is relative to what you do
as CEO. When it comes to ANSEL Health, it sounds
like sustainability is there, so as you work with that
and you're feeling that, what about growth? I know that
(10:12):
everybody and all CEOs especially have successful companies, look down
the road to what's next not only for ourselves but
our members and our staff and all the people that
are part of ANSEL Health. So can you talk about
sustainability in your industry and then also about the growth
that you plan on doing.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
From a sustainability perspective, I think the key thing for
us is to be able to run our business very
efficiently and to automate as much as we possibly can.
And I think all leaders and businesses today are thinking
about that acutely. In our case, specifically, because of how
our insurance part oft is designed, it enables a fair
degree of claims automation. So if you think of where
(10:49):
a lot of expense lies in insurance companies with high
volume claims is it's the expense of administrating it if
we can do that with marginal expense, which we can,
and the reason we can is that the vast majority
of our claims are paid based upon information we receive
on a medical claim. So you know, the medical claim
has a diagnostic code that we cover. Then we pay
(11:12):
an ancel claim based upon that diagnostic code. So there's
no subjectivity in claims analysis for us. It's an objective assessment.
So if we have that diagnostic code, we can automate
claims payments. So that efficiency is sort of one key
part of sustainability, and it's baked into the core design
of our insurance product. It's not just technology innovation, it's
(11:33):
a combination of the two. From a growth perspective, you know,
I think the problem that we've outlined here is that
people have high deductible health plans. They have a lot
of cost exposure. That's not a new problem, it's getting
worse every year. And if you ask most HR leaders
or chief financial officers or just everyday people what is
their biggest concern about their health insurance or their benefits,
(11:55):
They're likely going to say very quickly, I got a
pretty high detectable and I can't even and afford it.
God forbid, something happened to me that I that I
wasn't expecting.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
You're going to hear that from the vast majority of folks.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So if that's true, then why on earth does everyone
not have supplemental insurance today? There are dozens of companies
that sell what I would call the traditional incumbent products
that are trying to solve the same problem, but are
actually cover very little, so they're they're not the same
insurance product. And and so growth for us is to
(12:27):
is the realization that that we can get to a
point where everyone has supplemental insurance if it's actually good
supplemental insurance. And by having a good product that delivers
a lot of value, we're gonna we're gonna be able
to expand the market and get this in a lot
of folks's hands. So the market is there. The approach
we've taken. We talked about brokers and employers, but our
(12:47):
approach is a step above from that, where we've said,
let's try to form a coalition with like minded insurance
carriers who believe in the vision.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
We believe in.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
And we have several of them I'll name them here.
At least the ones that we've announced publicly, Voya, Semetra Nationwide.
All of them have versions of the Ansel product that
are their own product that run on our platform. The
reason I mentioned this is that their sales teams are
out talking about Boya Protect and Cemetra Health and Nationwide Provide,
(13:21):
which all run on our platform to the product that
we've been talking about today, but they're owned by those
companies and this idea of working with the industry with
collaborators to grow this market is a key part of
our growth strategy.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
VERD like to do this because we always ask our
leaders when they do have time when it comes to
philanthropic and charity work, of what you like to be
a part of, whether it's with the company or personally.
So what turns you on when you like to give back.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
At the very inception of the company, I think maybe
three or four months and we started a program called
Ansel Cares and through that, every month one of our
employees picks an individual that it's typically off of GoFundMe
and we look for someone who's had an unforeseen medical
event and is raising money to you know, make sure
that they can get through it. And we we want
(14:12):
to ensure that it's something that we would have covered,
but since we cover a lot, it's particularly everything. And
we we donate you know, money towards towards the fundraising
effort every month and we've been doing it religiously every
single month since inception. And and the reason for it.
I mean, obviously we want to give back and you know,
do some good. But we realize two things. One is
(14:34):
that obviously not everyone has actually yet, so we need
to help people who don't have it yet in our
in the little way that we can. But the other
part of it is to is to illustrate to our
team every day and our stakeholders who hear about what
we do with Ansel Cares, to just understand the stories.
And you know, this is you know, when you look
at any company that's trying to do some good, uh,
(14:56):
it's it's I think sometimes you can get blinded when
you look at the strategy and the numbers and the vision.
You can get a bit blinded from like the actual
practical reality of what happens and the most satisfying part
of building this company.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
And we see it through the stories and Ansel Cares.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
They're no different from the stories that people have that
get ansel claims paid every day is that these are
real people with real families who are going through a
very tough time, and more often than not, they're not
thinking about their insurance. They're thinking about how they're going
to get better. And when we can call them and say, hey,
we just sent a thousand dollars to your PayPal account,
(15:35):
you know, we hope this can help you know your
family towards recovery. It shouldn't shock you to hear that.
That's a pretty pretty heart opening experience for both the
recipient and frankly, we're just doing our job, so we're
not doing anything special in that case, but more often
than not that that person feels like we've done something
incredible for them.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
No, I love that you're doing that. I think that's fantastic.
I did want to ask you and kind of circle
act about growth and the company in general, because I
know that in the world, whatever we do, there's always competition,
and when we talk to leaders, were always try and
get to tell our listeners that whether you're a leader
or future leader, you know, brand, product, your staff, your
(16:17):
customers are so many things that you have to juggle
in the air. All the time, and one of them
is differentiating yourself from competition. So with that said, what's
that like for you when it comes to ancel health.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It starts with sort of the founding principles of the
organization and in particular and sort of the origin concept.
So the product that we've designed is just fundamentally different
from the incumbent products for two main reasons. One, we
cover thousands of conditions and illnesses. That's sort of, for
(16:47):
the most part, in order of magnitude, more than what
the competitors cover. And second of all, we base the
product purely on diagnostic codes. So I mentioned this a
little bit earlier on but to give you a tiny
bit more detail, the incumbent products have a lot of
objectivity on whether they pay. So you might have had
a broken knee, but how you got the broken knee,
(17:07):
how it was treated, where it happened, all these things
factor into whether the claim is paid. In our product,
none of those things matter to us. All that mattered
was you broke your knee, and we cover broken knee,
and so there's no discussion we need to have with
you to decide whether we're going to pay your claim.
We pay your claim because that's a diagnostic code that
(17:28):
we cover, so that was a key innovation. Those two
things have enabled us to do significant work as a result,
much higher utilization, more fair value ratio claims, automation, very
high NPS. We have an NPS of ninety. I mean,
there aren't many insurance companies in the world that have
(17:50):
NPS scores of ninety, and it's no surprise that we do.
When we call someone said we just sent you a
PayPal for one thousand dollars for your broken knee, they're
going to rke you pretty high. That's not a norm
insurance experience. But that's the nature of what we've built.
It's not something that we're doing that's special after the fact,
it's just at the core of what we've built. So
that's the differentiation. Now we're not trying to hide that.
(18:12):
I mean, there's some secret sauce there obviously, But our strategy,
like I mentioned earlier, is to partner with other companies
who want to help us bring that to market. So
if another insurance company were to come to us and say, hey, hen,
so we really agree with what you're doing, it makes sense,
you know, how can we bring a product like this
to market.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
We will tell you how and work with you to
do it.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Now, there's obviously economics in that for us, that's part
of our go to market strategy, but it's a strategy
of openness, right, So it's a strategy of collaboration, it's
not a strategy of competitive differentiation and protection. I think
there's more than enough of this market for all of
us to do well. And the biggest challenge we have
right now is there aren't enough people talking about a
really good solution of this problem. So you know, it's
(18:55):
almost selfish for us to hide that solution and you know,
depend on our approach to getting big, which which could
take a very long time.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
It's a big market.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
We're a small company, but by collaborating with others, many
of who are investors in our company as well, we
get this solution into people's hands quicker and they need it.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yesterday we er thanks for all that. That's fantastic stuff.
By the way, I think the last couple of minutes
you got everybody's attention with what you do and how
you executed it's just fantastic. Let's do this. We're going
to wrap up our conversation, but I want to get
some final thoughts from you and for our listeners, and
maybe just a few takeaways that we've either talked about
that you like to recap or maybe things we haven't
talked about, but the overall company about what you offer,
(19:37):
what you do, and get some final thoughts and takeaways.
The floor is yours.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Well, like I said, excited to have been here and
had a chance to chat with you, you know, hopeful that
we can we can have an impact as an organization.
You know you'd mentioned earlier on some of the important
elements of building a business, having a market and you know,
a good strategy and the mission. But I'd add to
the as well, just fantastic people. I mean, at the
(20:02):
end of the day, ideas and execution come because you've
got folks who believe in what you do and share
your values. And we're fortunate to have a team of
folks who do that. We're always looking for people who
share our mission and values. So if there are folks
out there who are excited about what we're up to,
we'd love to talk to you. Our website is JOINANSL
(20:25):
dot com. And yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
For the time here.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining
us on CEOs.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
You should know tak care Dennis, but my
I grew up in Canada throughout the country, but my
formative years were in Edmonton, Alberta. I went to the
University of Western Ontario, which is in London, Ontario, just
south of Toronto. I didn't finish my full four year
plan there and left after three to start up my
(00:21):
first company.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Now Vera doesn't know this, folks, and I'm not going
to spend a lot of time on and I'm going
to have to talk to him offline about this. But
I too, am from Edmonton. Our listeners know this about me.
I was there. I used to work for CBC Sports.
I was there during the Gretzky year. So were you
and I are gonna have to talk offline?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Okay, we're going to have to do.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, it first time it's happened on this on the
series two in the four years that I've done it too,
So that's fantastic. So well, listen what I want to do,
of course, talk about everything that is that is your
health company currently. But I noticed that when you got
out of school you had this wonderful resume and health.
It looks like it's been very important you over the
(01:00):
years of yours. So can you talk about your vision
and things you wanted to do coming out of school,
because there really is an amazing story and you really ascended.
And now almost the last free years you've been at
your current place as CEO. But it seems like health
was very important to you.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I think the saying of hindsight is twenty twenty probably
rings true to that point, Dennis. I think when you
look backwards, it feels like there's a nice, well planned
out arc and trajectory. I'm not sure that was necessarily
strategically thought out when I was twenty.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Years old, but.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
There certainly has been some important connection points, I'd say
since the early twenty tens. The last company I was
a part of, called Maxwell Health, was in the field
of HR benefits, and then we certainly got exposed to
some of the core challenges around healthcare and health insurance
and affordability and out of pocket exposure.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
And medical debt. And that company, while it was in that.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
World, was not specifically targeting the problem that Ansel is
about today, but as a you know, put thought into
what it made sense to focus on. Next, you know,
the story of Ansel really started to take form.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Can you go with just a little bit Deeper Die
because I'm always interested in our series here because I
realized that passion as a CEO and as a leader,
that people are passion about what they do and that's
how they get to the top with a lot of
hard work, effort, of course, some timing and a little
bit of luck and all the other things that go
with that. But why the health industry for you?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
You know, I think that it's an area to have
impact and in a way that's meaningful for folks. And
I think, you know, especially in the in the American
context of healthcare, you can't really separate health and wealth
or or financial well being perhaps is a better way
to put it. Because of the sheer amount of cost
associated with health, it's almost a given that that health
(02:55):
expenditures are going to have an impact on other parts
of your budget. And if you look at the country
at a macro level, if you look at how much
we spend on healthcare, it certainly takes away from other
areas of investment that as a country, we could be making.
So when you look at areas to have an impact
on people and build something that matters, this is certainly
(03:17):
a space that's been really important to me.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
You know Vera as you were talking about this, and
I too have experienced this living in both countries. I imagine
it's been very fortuitous for you to be living in
both countries, knowing how socialized medicine works in Canada and
how it works here in the capitalist society the United States,
the good and bad with both, and trying to do
the best you can with the current company you're at.
So I imagine that you know through that looking glescensing
(03:40):
how both work. It's been pretty interesting for you to
educate yourself properly.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, very much so.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And I think the labels of socialized health care and
healthcare in a capitalist country, if I may done this
is perhaps not in my view, the right frame, because
every country in the world other than the United States
it has a single payer system. Of course, many of
them are capitalist countries, so you know, and I think
(04:07):
that there's there's certainly some correlation between the system we
have and the fact that we have the highest costs
with some of you know, outcomes that don't necessarily reflect
what's being invested.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
So that's a separate debate.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
But I think that that the unfortunate reality, though, is
that in this system people have far more out of
pocket exposure when it comes to healthcare. Now, there are
many ways to solve that problem, the most effective of
which I personally believe is a much more macro related focus.
But in the absence of that, you've got to look
(04:41):
at what tools we have today, and there are, in
our view, the opportunity to build a financial product and
insurance product that that helps alleviate some of the some
of the pain.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
What's the mission statement of Antel Health.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, our mission is to make sure that health distress
does not result in financial burdens. More often than not
for folks, if you have an unforeseen medical event, it's
almost certainly going to result in some financial stress for
you or your family. And that seems like an odd connection,
but unfortunately it actually really is.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
And our aim is to alleviate.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
That here for all our new listeners. And it might
be introduced to Ansel Health for the first time if
you were to give him a thirty thousand foot view
and tell them this is exactly what we do. What
would that be?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, of course, I'm happy, happy to share that for you.
So Ansel's simple group supplemental health insurance product offers wide
ranging coverage and one plan that pays cash benefits for
over thirteen thousand injuries and illnesses. In the past twelve months,
twenty percent of our members have had a claim paid.
(05:47):
And what that means is that a lot of people
are getting help from this product because it's paying out
cash when they have something that is unforeseen that takes
place for them.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You got some categories on the website either way, we'll
give at the end, folks. But you've got the employers,
the brokers, and the members. I know they're each different.
Can you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah. One of the nuances of.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Employee benefits in the US is that most folks get
those benefits through their employers, and most employers work with
third party consultants or advisors or brokers to help them
make decisions on what benefits to offer. So in order
for us to ultimately be used by a person, a
real person, it's because they will have gotten the benefit
(06:33):
from their employer, and it's because that employer is working
with a broker who recommended that they consider anseling.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
You know, listen, I read the news. I know you do,
and everybody does about the health industry up and down,
all sorts of different stories there. It can be expensive
for some people at sometimes medications. I could go on
and on and on about all that, But when it
comes to the industry right now, what kind of challenges
are you facing that you know you're going to get
through them, but right now there are challenges for you,
(07:00):
you the company in the industry.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
One of the I think one of the challenges for
insurance as it pertains to health, which is different from
property and casualty, is we use the term loss ratio,
right and the loss ratio is sort of for every
dollar of premium that someone pays, how much value do
they get back? So how many dollars will they get back?
Typically an insurance and obviously, as an insurance company, to
(07:23):
be profitable and make money, what you charge has to
be above what the loss ratio is. The trouble though,
is that, you know, when you think of the term
loss ratio, I think any logical person, any logical organization
would be focused on minimizing.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
The loss ratio.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Of course, the problem is that if the insurance product
is what is the core value of what you bring
to the consumer, You're, in essence, I'm going to reduce
the value of the product that I sell. Now, when
you look at it that way, you know what company
is right in mind would think about reducing the value
of what they offer to their customers.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
In fact, we think of the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So insurance, as it pertains to help, has got this
interesting dichotomy that is almost working against the customer. And
you know when we went back to the drawing board
here and said, look, lots of people are getting having
unforeseen medical events. That happens, that's life, and as a
result of the current system, they end up having to
(08:18):
pay bills that they didn't foresee and it's hard for them. Okay, well,
if you're going to try to help those folks, the
first thing that comes to mind is build an insurance
product that covers a lot of things that actually happen
to people. So we've done that and we've demonstrated that
it works. So when I said earlier on that twenty
percent of members have acclaim paid in any given year,
to put that into context, that's a very highly utilized
(08:40):
employee benefit. So if you look at a typical company,
you'll have medical insurance, which is the most utilized. Makes sense,
then typically dental insurance and then followed by ansel extraordinary
that we're like right there. So now to your question
of you know, what's our challenge. So despite that, the
biggest challenge we face is one of innertia. Uh you know,
(09:01):
I think of a famous war and Buffet quote that
is that the market can remain irrational much longer than
you can remain solvent. So we know we're right, we
know we're delivering value to the consumer. It's objective, there's
no subjectivity about it. It's clear what we're doing. But
yet it's hard to shift an industry. And it's hard
because you know, you you got to it earlier on
(09:22):
is there's a there's a value chain through which benefits
are bought in our country. And as a result of that,
you know, you got a lot of folks along that
chain that need to be convinced. And we're certainly making
good traction there. And it helps to have a product
that is delivering a lot of value, that has an
NPS of ninety. But but the challenge, of course is
(09:46):
to change people's minds and not the end consumer they
get it, it's the folks in between who need to
get it to them.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Ultimately, we are another fun question. Then we get to
ask the leaders and CEOs of this series is about
sustainability and growth And I know it's different for everyone,
and this, of course is relative to what you do
as CEO. When it comes to ANSEL Health, it sounds
like sustainability is there, so as you work with that
and you're feeling that, what about growth? I know that
(10:12):
everybody and all CEOs especially have successful companies, look down
the road to what's next not only for ourselves but
our members and our staff and all the people that
are part of ANSEL Health. So can you talk about
sustainability in your industry and then also about the growth
that you plan on doing.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
From a sustainability perspective, I think the key thing for
us is to be able to run our business very
efficiently and to automate as much as we possibly can.
And I think all leaders and businesses today are thinking
about that acutely. In our case, specifically, because of how
our insurance part oft is designed, it enables a fair
degree of claims automation. So if you think of where
(10:49):
a lot of expense lies in insurance companies with high
volume claims is it's the expense of administrating it if
we can do that with marginal expense, which we can,
and the reason we can is that the vast majority
of our claims are paid based upon information we receive
on a medical claim. So you know, the medical claim
has a diagnostic code that we cover. Then we pay
(11:12):
an ancel claim based upon that diagnostic code. So there's
no subjectivity in claims analysis for us. It's an objective assessment.
So if we have that diagnostic code, we can automate
claims payments. So that efficiency is sort of one key
part of sustainability, and it's baked into the core design
of our insurance product. It's not just technology innovation, it's
(11:33):
a combination of the two. From a growth perspective, you know,
I think the problem that we've outlined here is that
people have high deductible health plans. They have a lot
of cost exposure. That's not a new problem, it's getting
worse every year. And if you ask most HR leaders
or chief financial officers or just everyday people what is
their biggest concern about their health insurance or their benefits,
(11:55):
They're likely going to say very quickly, I got a
pretty high detectable and I can't even and afford it.
God forbid, something happened to me that I that I
wasn't expecting.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
You're going to hear that from the vast majority of folks.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So if that's true, then why on earth does everyone
not have supplemental insurance today? There are dozens of companies
that sell what I would call the traditional incumbent products
that are trying to solve the same problem, but are
actually cover very little, so they're they're not the same
insurance product. And and so growth for us is to
(12:27):
is the realization that that we can get to a
point where everyone has supplemental insurance if it's actually good
supplemental insurance. And by having a good product that delivers
a lot of value, we're gonna we're gonna be able
to expand the market and get this in a lot
of folks's hands. So the market is there. The approach
we've taken. We talked about brokers and employers, but our
(12:47):
approach is a step above from that, where we've said,
let's try to form a coalition with like minded insurance
carriers who believe in the vision.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
We believe in.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
And we have several of them I'll name them here.
At least the ones that we've announced publicly, Voya, Semetra Nationwide.
All of them have versions of the Ansel product that
are their own product that run on our platform. The
reason I mentioned this is that their sales teams are
out talking about Boya Protect and Cemetra Health and Nationwide Provide,
(13:21):
which all run on our platform to the product that
we've been talking about today, but they're owned by those
companies and this idea of working with the industry with
collaborators to grow this market is a key part of
our growth strategy.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
VERD like to do this because we always ask our
leaders when they do have time when it comes to
philanthropic and charity work, of what you like to be
a part of, whether it's with the company or personally.
So what turns you on when you like to give back.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
At the very inception of the company, I think maybe
three or four months and we started a program called
Ansel Cares and through that, every month one of our
employees picks an individual that it's typically off of GoFundMe
and we look for someone who's had an unforeseen medical
event and is raising money to you know, make sure
that they can get through it. And we we want
(14:12):
to ensure that it's something that we would have covered,
but since we cover a lot, it's particularly everything. And
we we donate you know, money towards towards the fundraising
effort every month and we've been doing it religiously every
single month since inception. And and the reason for it.
I mean, obviously we want to give back and you know,
do some good. But we realize two things. One is
(14:34):
that obviously not everyone has actually yet, so we need
to help people who don't have it yet in our
in the little way that we can. But the other
part of it is to is to illustrate to our
team every day and our stakeholders who hear about what
we do with Ansel Cares, to just understand the stories.
And you know, this is you know, when you look
at any company that's trying to do some good, uh,
(14:56):
it's it's I think sometimes you can get blinded when
you look at the strategy and the numbers and the vision.
You can get a bit blinded from like the actual
practical reality of what happens and the most satisfying part
of building this company.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
And we see it through the stories and Ansel Cares.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
They're no different from the stories that people have that
get ansel claims paid every day is that these are
real people with real families who are going through a
very tough time, and more often than not, they're not
thinking about their insurance. They're thinking about how they're going
to get better. And when we can call them and say, hey,
we just sent a thousand dollars to your PayPal account,
(15:35):
you know, we hope this can help you know your
family towards recovery. It shouldn't shock you to hear that.
That's a pretty pretty heart opening experience for both the
recipient and frankly, we're just doing our job, so we're
not doing anything special in that case, but more often
than not that that person feels like we've done something
incredible for them.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
No, I love that you're doing that. I think that's fantastic.
I did want to ask you and kind of circle
act about growth and the company in general, because I
know that in the world, whatever we do, there's always competition,
and when we talk to leaders, were always try and
get to tell our listeners that whether you're a leader
or future leader, you know, brand, product, your staff, your
(16:17):
customers are so many things that you have to juggle
in the air. All the time, and one of them
is differentiating yourself from competition. So with that said, what's
that like for you when it comes to ancel health.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It starts with sort of the founding principles of the
organization and in particular and sort of the origin concept.
So the product that we've designed is just fundamentally different
from the incumbent products for two main reasons. One, we
cover thousands of conditions and illnesses. That's sort of, for
(16:47):
the most part, in order of magnitude, more than what
the competitors cover. And second of all, we base the
product purely on diagnostic codes. So I mentioned this a
little bit earlier on but to give you a tiny
bit more detail, the incumbent products have a lot of
objectivity on whether they pay. So you might have had
a broken knee, but how you got the broken knee,
(17:07):
how it was treated, where it happened, all these things
factor into whether the claim is paid. In our product,
none of those things matter to us. All that mattered
was you broke your knee, and we cover broken knee,
and so there's no discussion we need to have with
you to decide whether we're going to pay your claim.
We pay your claim because that's a diagnostic code that
(17:28):
we cover, so that was a key innovation. Those two
things have enabled us to do significant work as a result,
much higher utilization, more fair value ratio claims, automation, very
high NPS. We have an NPS of ninety. I mean,
there aren't many insurance companies in the world that have
(17:50):
NPS scores of ninety, and it's no surprise that we do.
When we call someone said we just sent you a
PayPal for one thousand dollars for your broken knee, they're
going to rke you pretty high. That's not a norm
insurance experience. But that's the nature of what we've built.
It's not something that we're doing that's special after the fact,
it's just at the core of what we've built. So
that's the differentiation. Now we're not trying to hide that.
(18:12):
I mean, there's some secret sauce there obviously, But our strategy,
like I mentioned earlier, is to partner with other companies
who want to help us bring that to market. So
if another insurance company were to come to us and say, hey, hen,
so we really agree with what you're doing, it makes sense,
you know, how can we bring a product like this
to market.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
We will tell you how and work with you to
do it.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Now, there's obviously economics in that for us, that's part
of our go to market strategy, but it's a strategy
of openness, right, So it's a strategy of collaboration, it's
not a strategy of competitive differentiation and protection. I think
there's more than enough of this market for all of
us to do well. And the biggest challenge we have
right now is there aren't enough people talking about a
really good solution of this problem. So you know, it's
(18:55):
almost selfish for us to hide that solution and you know,
depend on our approach to getting big, which which could
take a very long time.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
It's a big market.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
We're a small company, but by collaborating with others, many
of who are investors in our company as well, we
get this solution into people's hands quicker and they need it.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yesterday we er thanks for all that. That's fantastic stuff.
By the way, I think the last couple of minutes
you got everybody's attention with what you do and how
you executed it's just fantastic. Let's do this. We're going
to wrap up our conversation, but I want to get
some final thoughts from you and for our listeners, and
maybe just a few takeaways that we've either talked about
that you like to recap or maybe things we haven't
talked about, but the overall company about what you offer,
(19:37):
what you do, and get some final thoughts and takeaways.
The floor is yours.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Well, like I said, excited to have been here and
had a chance to chat with you, you know, hopeful that
we can we can have an impact as an organization.
You know you'd mentioned earlier on some of the important
elements of building a business, having a market and you know,
a good strategy and the mission. But I'd add to
the as well, just fantastic people. I mean, at the
(20:02):
end of the day, ideas and execution come because you've
got folks who believe in what you do and share
your values. And we're fortunate to have a team of
folks who do that. We're always looking for people who
share our mission and values. So if there are folks
out there who are excited about what we're up to,
we'd love to talk to you. Our website is JOINANSL
(20:25):
dot com. And yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
For the time here.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining
us on CEOs.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
You should know tak care Dennis, but my
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