March 1, 2024 • 40 mins
What you do for your employees says everything about you. And yet, it’s not just in offering “a competitive benefits package,” now the real winners are organizations that use those benefits to make meaningful improvements in their employee’s lives. We have a saying at our company, “A benefit isn’t a benefit unless your employee understands it and can use it properly.” My incredible guest @Joshua O’Gara is a fellow Employee Benefits Specialist and employment culture enthusiast and we dive into several key factors behind delivering an elevated benefits experience. We dive into the need for having a benefits strategy and address crucial topics such as the fact that employee financial well-being has hit an all-time low. How can employers support their employees’ overall financial health? What can employers do to support their employee’s mental well-being as much as their physical well-being? As leaders, let’s not just deliver the benefits our employees need, but do so in a manner that lifts them towards a better life! #employeebenefits #employmentculture #leadership #cultureenthusiasts #culturematters
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
You're listening to the Haney Company Financial Guy Show.
No nonsense, just a crazy mix of life, business, the funny, and of course,
we're going to talk about your money.
But just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. What could go wrong?
Welcome to another episode of the Haney Company Financial Guy Show.
(00:27):
I love getting a chance to talk to colleagues in the industry.
And so today's guest, my good friend, Josh O'Gara is no exception to that.
Josh, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on, my friend. Absolutely.
Thanks for having me. Hopefully we don't nerd out too much. I know.
That's understandable, right? And that is a very genuine, real risk,
(00:48):
especially when I think back on the last time you and I were sitting down talking
together for a while, I was like, oh, that was a great conversation,
but certainly not one that I would say is better for public consumption.
So, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Excited to be on the show and thanks for having me. We'll get,
so we'll get the painful, challenging questions out of the way first.
If you could have dinner with any famous person and it could be somebody alive
(01:09):
or somebody who's passed, who would you want to have a meal with?
Yeah. So this, I was, I was thinking about this and it's, it's interesting because
famous is sort of a relative term, right?
So the first thought that came to my mind in my house, my, my dad is,
is kind of famous because I've got a five-year-old and a three-year-old.
And my dad actually passed away when I was 24.
So he comes up in conversation a lot. And unfortunately, I didn't have the chance
(01:34):
when I was growing up to really get to know my dad that well.
And it'd be great just to kind of get his perspective on a lot of things in life.
He was off the boat from Ireland. He came over here when he was 18 years old.
He actually came over here as
a Jesuit priest. And he was in the Catholic church until he was mid-30s.
So anyway, I'm sure he'd have a ton of perspective and interesting thoughts
(01:58):
on a variety of subjects.
And he's always very stoic and kind of reserved Irish guy.
And so never really got to ask him a lot of questions about growing up and his
perspective on a lot of things.
So that was the first person that came to my mind. That's good.
I especially like what you were sharing about your dad.
I'm very fortunate in getting to work with mine now
(02:18):
actively and having been able able to have
literally a life of just relation and influence
and all that kind of stuff but uh you know i i also
appreciate the kindred irish connection and yeah know
exactly where you were going with that so yeah
i think that that's awesome that's awesome all right if you
were going to start a band what would the name of your band be so full disclosure
(02:41):
i was never musically inclined so i know probably some people listening to the
podcast have you know had the opportunity to give this a lot of thought because
they had dreams in their head about being a lead singer of a band.
I was never in that.
Mindset. But I think the first name that came to my head was actually Dot Rats.
(03:02):
And anybody who grew up in the Boston area would know what that's referencing.
I grew up in Dorchester, which is the largest section of Boston.
And growing up, anyone from Dorchester, we were called Dot Rats.
So I always think of bands that the ones that I have the most connection with
are bands that they grew up together.
They started playing together when when they were teenagers and they just,
(03:24):
they maybe not, they don't get along, you know, perfectly all the time,
but they put some great music out there.
They're not just this, you know, corporate sort of concoction of attractive
individuals that have good singing voices.
They, you know, they're, they're, you know, they've been together for a long
time and they make great music.
So that was what came to my mind is, you know, just having some friends that
I've known for a long time and, you know, hearkening back to the roots from Dorchester. I love it.
(04:19):
My uncle owned a charter airline down in St.
Croix, which my cousin now runs as well. So it's the third generation.
I've always wanted to be up in the air. I had dreams of being a fighter pilot
and all that good stuff when I was a kid.
So yeah, definitely, I would love to be able to fly.
I made an attempt at it, jumping out of an airplane a couple of times,
(04:42):
but not quite the same as having the superpower of being able to fly.
I like it. No, I think this still ranks probably number one for me most of the time.
So, yeah, I like that. Especially in the Washington, D.C. area,
given the traffic that just never seems to end.
It'd be great to not have to hop around, do whatever I want to.
(05:03):
Either that or a monster truck, right?
Something. Yeah, something that wouldn't get me arrested, but we'll see.
Besides this podcast, what other podcast would you like to recommend to our listeners?
So I'm not a huge podcast listener, but I have recently in my last year or so,
I started listening to a couple. One is Bankless around cryptocurrency.
(05:25):
I think that's pretty interesting. Again, a lot of the discussion on that show
is way over my head because they get pretty deep into the weeds with some of
this stuff. But it's just a sort of a curiosity.
I'm just a curious person in general. So it's something I don't understand at
all, like cryptocurrency.
I caught on to that a little bit. And then the other one would be Joe Rogan.
I love listening to Joe Rogan and some of the guests that he has on. I think he's,
(05:47):
a pretty interesting guy in terms of, again, he's very curious and he knows
a lot about a lot of different stuff.
And again, don't always agree with him on some of his perspectives,
but just has some really interesting guests and some really interesting perspectives
on a lot of different stuff.
Yeah. His name has certainly come up a couple of times. So yeah, I agree.
And that's interesting. All right. The crypto one as well sounds interesting,
(06:10):
but yeah, having had conversations with people in that space that you can go
real quickly down a rabbit hole of a whole whole bunch of stuff that I too, I'm like, oh, all right.
That's a lot more than I was prepared for. Yeah.
Got to put a couple hours of studying afterwards, studying afterwards,
trying to catch up on some of the terminology and that sort of thing.
(06:30):
Yeah. There should be a quiz because if there was, we would not be passing it. No. No.
Well, awesome. So since we know each other pretty well through NAIFA,
the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors,
tell the the audience about yourself and what's the best part of your day?
What do you do and what do you love doing the most?
Yeah. So it's kind of bananas to say this, but I've been in the insurance industry almost 20 years.
(06:55):
It doesn't seem impossible, but I got started in the business in 2006 with a
big mutual company, doing individual life insurance, disability,
long-term care, all that good stuff.
So my background, I always say I grew up, quote unquote, quote,
on the individual side of things in the business.
And I started to delve into employee benefits, particularly around the voluntary
(07:18):
benefits offered to companies back in 2016.
So eight years ago, let's say. And my
experience working on the individual insurance side of things really went well
towards my approach to have a very employee-centered conversation conversation
around benefits and trying to make sure that the employers understand the impacts
(07:41):
that their decisions have on the rank and file employees.
And particularly as more financial burden is being shifted to those employees
through out-of-pocket expenses, premium increases, whatever it may be,
those decisions are becoming a priority in people's financial lives.
And unfortunately, there isn't enough consideration to those decisions.
(08:02):
Both at the employer level and at the employee level.
Not to say that employers don't care, but I think everybody's a little bit frustrated
and overwhelmed with the whole benefits discussion, particularly around health insurance.
And unfortunately, I think a lot of people are at the point where they just
kind of throw up their hands and they don't know what to do.
So getting back to your original question in terms of what my favorite part
(08:23):
of the day is, I love meeting with employees one-on-one, sitting across the desk from somebody.
And I'm never going to be the answer for all their their problems,
but seeing the relief melt, you know, the stress melt away and the relief come
in, you know, when they understand that I'm there as a resource for them and
really, you know, want to help them understand, you know, the...
(08:45):
You know, the situation that they're in around benefits and overall,
you know, their, their financial picture, you know, it's really,
really what gets me out of bed in the morning.
That's why, you know, started the, started the company.
No, that's awesome. And, and we have, we take a very, very similar approach.
And, and so I want to, I'm going to come back to what you just said,
but, but first I want us to go to a high level because, you know,
(09:06):
it, it, it's coming into, and now the beginning of, of 2024,
there's just obviously been a lot of stuff going on.
Let's talk about the state of employee benefits because it's certainly,
like you said, it's a challenge that makes a lot of people, I think,
want to throw up their hands,
not because they're ready to give up, but because it's just kind of hard to
(09:28):
know how to do things well and what kind of levers you need to be pulling on
to continue to provide value to employees,
take care of them, and make sure that they're going to be successful, not just at the end.
Work, but in life. So what are kind of some main trends that you're seeing?
Are there other consistent issues that you've found that pop up?
(09:50):
Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest trend is sort of the focus on overall wellness.
Wellness has been a hot topic for a long time, focused primarily,
initially it was primarily around health wellness.
So what can employers do to encourage healthy behaviors around medical insurance
so that their premiums don't continue to increase.
So, you know, I think a lot of times that ends up being sort of a shiny object
(10:12):
and something fun to talk about, but in terms of actually delivering on that
and strategies around demonstrating ROI from a company perspective,
you know, there's, there are a lot of issues around just focusing on health wellness.
And now you bring into the full, you know, financial wellness and mental wellness,
which is, you know, probably the hottest topic in benefits right now,
(10:33):
particularly since the pandemic, I think employers are really starting to understand
the impacts that the pandemic has had on our employee population.
And I think there's a movement towards more paternalistic approach to the paternalistic
may not be the best term to use there, but employers want to help their employees out.
And particularly with the younger generation coming into the workforce,
(10:54):
I think they're more socially minded.
They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. It's not just earning a paycheck.
I think there's a realization of that on the part of a lot of employers out there.
And we're trying to lean into that and get away from the traditional benefits
discussion where it's just spreadsheeting a bunch of bad health insurance for
(11:14):
no rates and, you know, trying to figure out how to really make an impact on employees' lives.
Yeah. And I appreciate you covering, you know, those three domains now that I think,
you know, are kind of pillars in what would be an effective approach,
But I don't think it's as easy for employers to look at it from – we've always
obviously, I think, understood the health domain.
(11:36):
But now mental health, which can be emotional, spiritual, a couple of things under that category.
And then, yeah, financial health, which is, I think, an area that –.
So it's very, very challenging to know what to do.
And I think probably also an area where there's some natural resistance to even
wanting to start to dip your toe in that water because it can be a bit tricky
(11:59):
to know how to navigate that. Yeah.
And I mean, it's sort of the separation of the church and state, right?
Employers don't necessarily traditionally want to know what's going on in an employee's life.
Come to work, do your job, earn your paycheck, and the other stuff shouldn't
be something that falls under the power of you, the employer.
But particularly with the movement towards work from home and the,
(12:20):
issues that are going on with stress, anxiety, depression,
all that sort of stuff, for an employer not to consider those types of things,
I think it's not doing right by the employees, But it's impacting their bottom
line at this point, which is why I think a lot of employers are waking up to
the fact that it needs to at least be talked about.
Whether or not you take a proactive approach to addressing those issues is another
(12:41):
conversation because it can be tough to quantify in terms of what sort of investment
are we going to make into this and what's the outcome that we're looking for.
It's not just a numbers decision at that point. There needs to be a more comprehensive
strategy around benefits. fits.
And it can't be just a conversation that occurs three months prior to the renewal.
(13:03):
You know, it's an ongoing conversation throughout the year, which is part of
the reason why before we got on the podcast here, we were talking about,
isn't January supposed to be sort of a slower time of the year?
And it's not so much the case anymore because, you know, it's more of an ongoing
conversation with employers.
No. And, you know, I think I've had a lot of conversations as I'm sure you have
as well in kind of the HR space on culture, right?
(13:26):
You know, everybody, most Most employers that I've ever talked to would all say the same thing.
We want to deliver a benefits package that attracts and retains the best talent
because why wouldn't you want to do that?
But the benefits portion of that equation is just one part of that puzzle, right?
If you have the world's greatest benefits, but a terrible toxic work culture,
(13:47):
you're not going to be successful.
And so I think it's been interesting to see how, like you were saying,
people's perspectives perspectives have shifted as employers.
I think that the understanding of the importance of culture and also the multifaceted
domains that come to the table in taking care of an employee,
that you want them to do their best jobs, but to do their best job,
(14:10):
they have to be the best version of themselves.
And if maybe things are good at work, but not good outside of work, that matters.
And so I think it's been good to see that growing recognition happening in a
lot lot of domains that maybe the employer can't solve all of those problems,
but there might be opportunities for them to help in some meaningful way,
(14:33):
either through the benefits that they provide or in other areas.
And I think that that's a real critical conversation that needs to continue to evolve.
Yeah. And the amazing part from my perspective is that there are a lot of resources
available to employers,
employees already that already exist in their current platform that they're
just not utilizing because nobody ever really told them about an EAP program
(14:53):
that exists on your group benefits policy or whatever resources that are already available.
That's sort of the best starting point to say, all right, what do you have already
in place that you may not be utilizing effectively rather than just trying to come in and sell an idea?
We all have these great concepts and products and whatever, but start with where
(15:17):
they're at right now, what they have, and build on that.
Figure out exactly what they're attempting to do because you can only do so much.
You got to draw a line somewhere in the sand where you can't solve the world's problems. problems.
So it can be, you kind of can go down a rabbit hole where it becomes a more
overwhelming situation than when you started.
(15:39):
Because if you're just looking at the cost and benefits, again,
that's a pretty straightforward conversation.
What carrier offers the best health insurance plan in your area?
What carrier offers the best life insurance rates on a group basis? Whatever it may be.
Those conversations are much easier and you don't necessarily have have to have
those guardrails or those, you know, you don't have to have a conversation around,
(16:03):
all right, where does it stop? Because you can't do, again, you can't do everything.
There's only so much that an employer can devote in terms of resources towards these initiatives.
So just figuring out what's the most important thing to that employer based
on their population and their growth objectives or whatever it may be.
Well, and I think, and you and I obviously see this in our daily lives all the
time, You know, it's creating a strategy to take advantage of the things that
(16:28):
you already have, to your point.
You know, it may not be there's anything wrong with the benefits package that
you're already providing.
And very likely, that's not the issue.
The issue is probably how do we make sure we provide engagement,
we provide education, and we deliver advanced,
continuing, regular support to employees through, you know, hopefully a variety
(16:51):
of mediums that are available.
And we kind of create this intentional rhythm of doing that,
because I think a lot of times a lot is left up to employees.
And the assumption is, if we give you enough stuff, you should be able to figure
all this out when you need to make critical decisions.
And that's, you know, not always the case, and certainly maybe not the best
(17:12):
approach. And so I think.
What are, you know, we've tried to emphasize to most of the groups that we work
with, you know, think of it almost on like a calendar basis, right?
How can you create regular and schedule for employees times for education or
times for additional engagement?
Or maybe it's times for, you know, bring a yoga instructor in and have like,
(17:33):
what can you do creatively that just interrupts the time for them,
but in a meaningful way that's not going to cause challenges in other places,
but to make it, you know, a regularity that they're able to get better connected.
To and more help and more support. What have you been doing?
I know you do a lot of one-on-ones, but what are some of the other things and
strategies that you do when you're working with your clients?
(17:53):
Yeah. And the calendar approach to things is really important,
in my opinion, in just creating a...
Because we've all been in situations where we have a conversation with an employee,
a client, whoever it may be, where you uncover a need or possible solution for
a problem that they're dealing with and have a great discussion around possible
ways ways to address that.
(18:14):
But then it just stops there because you move on to other things.
You've got a lot of other clients, a lot of other employees to work with. That employee...
May not, at that particular point in time, be ready to take the steps that they
need to take to address the issues that they're dealing with.
But the next time you're in there, in that office, or the next time you're doing
a webinar for a topic around benefits, doing an educational,
(18:38):
webinar about how to use an EAP program or whatever it may be,
it will click in that employee's mind to say, oh yeah, we had this conversation
about such and such, and that's still an issue.
Maybe it didn't take the steps I need to take that particular point in time.
But again, it's showing up consistently and being a resource where I think what
you were talking about before in terms of creating a great benefit strategy,
(19:00):
I think a lot of times it kind of gets stuck in the corner office.
Again, you and I can nerd out on this stuff and we know all the terminology
and products and that sort of stuff.
But how do you create a way to effectively communicate and engage employees
around that when they've got a lot of stuff going on in their lives?
It's not to us, this stuff makes sense and you should do it right away.
But just because that makes sense and we can see the steps that they need to
(19:25):
take to address the issues that they're dealing with, they might not be in the
right mindset to do that.
So continuing to just follow up and have conversations, be a resource when needed.
I think it goes back to one statement that another advisor I work with made,
most people don't need a financial plan. Most people just need a budget.
(19:45):
And I don't do financial planning, but it gets to the idea of people get overwhelmed with this stuff.
And if you put a huge plan together for somebody that's 100 pages long.
All right, where do you start with that sort of stuff?
And how do you kind of implement that?
And it's got to be baby steps. It's got to be manageable steps,
and you got to understand that you might have to repeat those steps a couple
(20:09):
of times before you get enough momentum to get employees to engage with an EAP program.
I think a really helpful idea that I've started to implement is trying to get
a champion within the company for different ideas, for example,
around an EAP program. program.
I keep saying EAP. EAP is employee assistance program.
(20:29):
So something that, you know, a lot of carriers offer to employees in terms of,
you know, wellness support,
you know, they can have, there's a, there's well preparation for a lot of employees
when I think it's the statistics 60 or 70% of people don't even have a will
and, you know, just really simple stuff.
You're not going to, you know, the, the EAP program isn't going to set up a
bunch of trusts for somebody, but it's going to get, you know,
(20:51):
sort of very basic, you know, will in place.
And is it going going to be perfect no the problem you know
and they should you know probably take further steps at
some point but just to get something in place is the
again taking a baby step and then building on that and it takes it's got to
be a long it's got to be a long game it can't be you know just short-term perspective
you gotta this is something that's going to build over a two three five year
(21:14):
you know strategy of you know really trying to engage and make sure that people understand you.
The resources that are available to them. I love how you described that long-term
approach, because I do think we certainly, and our team, emphasize that as much as possible, that.
Education is really about the repeated delivery of education,
(21:36):
not any one topic per se, or presentation, or resource might be it.
So when you think, oh, well, let's get this webinar on this topic,
because that'll solve it, or that'll do it, or it's very unlikely that that's just going to be it.
But if you're consistently making sure that this is a part of your company culture,
(21:57):
that there's an intentional rhythm of engagement, so that way you're creating
this space and these opportunities for employees to learn, to grow,
and to connect more, then that in and of itself becomes that mechanism to say,
oh, well, I've been putting off.
They've done six workshops in the last six months and I missed all of them.
Maybe I should catch the seventh one, right? Right.
Because you've created that level of consistency, that's where you start to
(22:20):
catch people more frequently versus just doing it one time a year or twice a
year or whatever, when it's, you know, it's hard to know how serious even the delivery of that is.
But I think that that and I also love that idea of finding a champion,
somebody other than maybe a business owner or the HR person that can also be,
you know, engaging with people to encourage them to take advantage of things.
How do you work with employers in that particular situation?
(22:43):
What does that look like to to get somebody else to champion things?
Yeah. So I think it's really just coming down to if somebody has a good experience
to make sure you ask them to let other people know what that experience was
and how that helped them out.
I can think of a couple of examples just in the last few months where I was
working with an employee who was going in every month for an injection in his
(23:05):
eye because he was dealing with some retinopathy from diabetes.
And every time he was going into the facility, he was getting charged an admission
fee, $500 admission fee.
Just to get a shot in his eye for a 15-minute visit.
So he brought the bill to me and I looked at the bill and I said, this isn't right.
They shouldn't be charging you $500 admission fee just to get a shot.
(23:29):
So I went to the facility and got them to reduce the $500 fee that they were
charge every time he went into the office.
So he now understands the value of having a meeting to discuss because that
came up in a discussion around the renewal.
(23:50):
We were sitting down having a discussion and trying to figure out what plan
made the most sense for him. He said, well, this plan, again,
a lot of out-of-pocket expenses.
I said, what do you mean by that? And he showed me the bill.
And the out-of-pocket expenses were way higher than they should have been.
So I think a lot of people just avoid having those, you know,
meetings, you know, with either a benefits counselor or, you know,
(24:11):
somebody like myself, you know, whoever is there as a resource,
people just say, you know, it's not worth my time.
But it was obviously worth his time in that particular situation because he
understood the value of taking 15, 20 minutes to sit down and,
you know, and talk about, you know, what sort of experience he's had on the health plan.
And I think people, again, don't understand the mechanisms behind health insurance
(24:37):
and all that sort of stuff and what a copay is.
Again, it gets back to that education piece, right? Even the most simple,
that's one of the things that I do is the ABCs of healthcare with the companies that I work with.
So just explaining what a copay is, what a deductible is, what an out-of-pocket
maximum is, all that sort of stuff where I'm not trying to sell anything,
just trying to educate people and help them make decisions that,
(24:57):
again, as the costs continue to increase.
This is one of the most important financial decisions people make on an annual
basis in terms of what their benefit elections are.
So, yeah. So and then just making sure that when those conversations happen,
when you have a win like that,
making sure that other employees understand the value of having those meetings
(25:18):
and just asking the employees that have those experience to share that those
experiences with other employees.
Yeah. I mean, I think that that's about as simple as it comes.
But you're right, because I don't think people naturally do that.
And it is, it's an easy way to create a bit of a buzz in our groundswell and
also help other people be engaged because these are very, very individual experiences
(25:39):
that I think we naturally don't want to talk about.
You know, certainly sometimes people raise their hand or complain if there's
a real problem, but, you know, a lot of the other things that might be considered
normal or even good, they don't just necessarily know that.
You know, other people might have the exact same dynamic. And so it's,
yeah, it is important to, to, for those that are willing to share,
(25:59):
or at least to let people know, like, hey, that was really great.
Or, you know, Josh was really helpful.
And if you have issues, you should certainly sit down and, you know,
talk to him or talk to their team or what have you.
And I think I want to take what we've just kind of covered.
And, and I think one of the things that probably employers need to be really
examining is not a hard dollar cost issue.
(26:20):
It's who's helping you do this?
Do you have the right partners, the right parties that are supporting your benefits delivery experience?
Because this shouldn't obviously fall on your shoulders, the HR person's shoulders,
or people who aren't necessarily licensed and trained in insurance and all that kind of stuff.
What do you think a good partnership between either a broker or benefits consultant
(26:45):
or an HR consultant looks like?
And how have you kind of tried to deliver a better experience for the people
that you're working with?
Yeah. So I think one of the things that I've been guilty of in the past is trying
to do too much myself, you know, in terms of trying to put too much on my plate
and trying to be the expert in everything.
It's, you know, particularly when it comes to the companies that I work with,
(27:08):
primarily most of the employers I work with are 150 employees.
So, you know, if they have an HR department, it's one person,
they're doing 500 different things in the company.
A lot of times they just fell into the role because they've been at the company the longest.
So they don't really have the background or the capacity to be able to address
all the issues around not only benefits design, but compliance and hiring and
(27:32):
firing, whatever it may be.
There's so many different issues that these employers and the people that handle
HR and benefits at those companies have to deal with.
So creating really strong partnerships Partnerships with other professionals
that I, you know, I've developed a trust with, and I know that if I bring them,
you know, in on a conversation, it's, it's going to be valuable to that employer.
(27:56):
And, you know, there's, there are a lot of, there's a lot of consolidation going on.
There's, there's a ton of merger and acquisition, you know, in our space.
So those smaller employers are getting sort of overlooked.
When that local insurance agency that used to do their benefits is gobbled up
by this huge national brokerage and you're 50 employees,
(28:18):
where that was close relationship and you knew the people at the firm and all
that sort of stuff, that changes a lot when that merger occurs. Yeah.
But the biggest obstacle that we have to address now is how to bring resources
to the table for those employers.
And again, you can't do it all yourself. So creating a trusted group of professionals
(28:41):
that can help out in a variety of situations and just sort of saying,
all right, I know a person who can help here and a person who can help here
and maintaining lines of communication between everyone.
Because I think that's really the most important piece of creating an overall
strategy and developing a really strong partnership is making sure that it's not just a handoff,
that you kind of know what's going on in each area so that everyone can work
(29:06):
more efficiently to sort of improve the situation for the companies that we're
working with. I really like that.
And, you know, I mean, I think that that's about as good of a way to describe
it, because we have, we're very fortunate to have a lot of both professional
relationships, as well as access to resources through, I mean,
even just making sure that our carrier partners are helping out, right?
(29:26):
You know, it's, it's another, you know, the guardians, the UnitedHealthcare,
there's a lot of resources that the insurance providers that you're already
paying for policies from, they've got a lot of stuff that they want to make
sure they provide to you.
And taking advantage, like you were saying at the very beginning,
of all of those things, but not in any overwhelming sense.
(29:47):
Because there's a lot of things that you can pull off the shelf,
but you want to make sure that it's done, that it's right, and that it's going
to be value-added and that the right parties are involved in that.
And I think that, yeah, I mean, that's a huge, I have to imagine it's a big
relief when people are working with you and you're able to tell them,
it's not just me, but I also have some other resources here to help with these
(30:07):
things so that way you're going to get the best care and experience possible.
It's going to be a pretty good experience. experience. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, you know, there's, it never, when you get a lot of different personalities
and a lot of different, you know, perspectives on how to do business and whatever it may be, again,
you know, it can get confusing if the, again,
(30:29):
the communication needs to be there where you understand sort of the overall
objective for where the company is looking to go and putting the right pieces
together for them, because you can't solve all these issues all at once.
So sort of prioritizing what needs to be addressed first and taking steps along the way.
That's, again, getting back to sort of playing the long game rather than just
(30:51):
going in and reactively adjusting to current situation.
You need to be thinking about how that will impact the overall strategy years in advance.
So yeah, I think it adds a lot more complexity. complexity.
I think the old way of doing health insurance brokerage was a lot easier,
(31:13):
just kind of spreadsheet a bunch of carriers and the rates and that sort of stuff.
But I think it's much more interesting and engaging to take the approach where
trying to address a lot of different issues and.
I enjoy it. I think it's, you know, it's the employees that we work with are
dealing with a lot of, a lot of stress, a lot of, you know, financial insecurity.
(31:36):
And, you know, there's a lot we can do to help. It's just a matter of figuring
out the best way to do that. Yeah.
And I'm glad you brought that up
because we both read a bunch of not just articles, but some great studies.
And I was just looking at this before we even started our conversation that
went from Guardian in 2023 that said, financial wellness and well-being is at
an all-time low, which for us probably wasn't a surprising thing.
(32:00):
But it goes back into what we were talking about in terms of those,
you know, looking at benefits in a larger context of those three overall domains,
you know, from health to mental and now financial and finding that to be something
that probably, you know, hasn't been cultivated enough or focused on enough.
(32:22):
I like what you were saying about getting in.
Yes, can it be more complex to be doing more things in terms of education and delivery?
But if you're doing it consistently over time and you've got this strategy of
engagement, this strategy of cultivating a better experience for employees,
I have to imagine that you said it earlier, that that does improve the bottom
(32:42):
line experience for everybody involved. Yeah, absolutely.
And I think a lot of our more mundane tasks, one of the articles you sent over
was talking about AI and some opportunities.
I think a huge opportunity that is presenting itself in our space is a lot of
our time is taken up by these administrative tasks and paperwork and compliance
(33:03):
and all this stuff that is sort of mind-numbing to me.
But it has to be done, right? I've always been more...
Intrigued by the you know the theoretical side of
things like what what could be done and you know sort of you know
how to you know move the move the ball down the field or
whatever specific you know objective is is that on the table at that particular
(33:26):
point in time but there's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes to achieve
that and it can't be overlooked but the more we can sort of get that stuff off
our plates through you know you know automation and ai and whatever it may be,
I think the better we are going to be as an industry at sort of helping the
underlying issue that exists within the companies.
(33:49):
I mean, let's face it, as a country, we just aren't very healthy.
And we talk all day about ways to address the cost of all this stuff,
but it isn't addressing the underlying issue that employees just aren't healthy.
And it's not just employees, it's Americans in general. And I think there's
a lot of reasons behind that,
but as we can sort of offload all this
(34:10):
you know the paperwork and the day-to-day stuff we we as
a profession and are the companies that we work with
are going to have more time and energy to devote towards
the things that really matter to the employees that
we work with and i think it's exciting i think we're kind of especially being
your your firm's larger than ours but just being sort of a more local regional
(34:33):
outfit we have the ability to adapt and change and you know kind of bring ideas
to the table and say, hey, is this going to work?
And if it doesn't work, you know, we can move on from that pretty quickly.
We don't have all this infrastructure behind us where, you know,
we've created all these, you know, mechanisms that need to be,
you know, redirected or whatever it may be.
You know, I think it's an exciting time in the benefit space.
(34:55):
And, you know, both from a growth perspective, but also the impact from the
perspective of the impact that we can have.
And I think it's got to go and the conversation has to go outside of just,
you know, what we can do from, you know, products that we can bring to the table
but more meaningful conversations.
And it can't just stop with the companies that we work with.
(35:16):
I really think that we need to focus on sort of building the communities that we work into.
And that's, both you and I are pretty involved with NAFA.
I think that's a huge opportunity with some of the financial literacy initiatives
and that sort of thing that are going on, both at a national and a state level.
I think there's at least a dozen states now, maybe more at this point,
that have financial literacy requirements in schools.
(35:36):
We're working on that here in massachusetts and you know it's
it's got to be you know it's got to be something that starts from from you know
the time that kids are you know learning about all the basics you know this
has got to be one of the basics that they learn about and you know again maybe
a little too too optimistic to think we could you know solve all these problems
(35:57):
but you gotta kind of take steps.
Take the steps that you can individually to address it. And if enough people
get behind these ideas, you know, it will, you know, lead to a more productive,
you know, more healthy society overall.
Well, and I think that that's a great kind of last point to bring it all home is that, you know, it is,
I think all of our imperatives, wherever we are in the ecosystem of, of,
(36:23):
you know, employing Americans that what we can do to impact our little portion
of it is important, but it also has ramifications beyond that.
And so if everyone can really expand their paradigm and recognize that,
you know, if I take not just care of my employees by giving them a benefits
package, that's good, but actually delivering those benefits in a way that improves their lives,
(36:46):
that improves their health, that makes them less stressed out at home,
not just at work, then that has, you know, that has a ripple effect.
And, and also, you know, what can we then do to go beyond that in our communities at the state?
And, you know, yeah, we can't boil the ocean, but we can, we can take these steps.
And the more steps we take, I think the better it's going to be.
So I, I agree with you a hundred percent.
(37:06):
I appreciate you coming on today, my friend. What kind of, what kind of parting
thoughts do you want to leave with our audience? Any, any shout outs you want to make?
Well, shout out to my, my partner. So we, we joined I joined forces back September
1st, Brian McDermott and I.
We kind of had been working together a little bit, sharing technology and that sort of thing.
And through discussions around different cases we were working on and that sort
(37:29):
of thing, we figured out that we have a very similar approach to business and
what we want to do professionally, but also personally as well.
It's a very meaningful and important industry that we're in.
And we can really do a lot to improve the lives of the people that we work with.
And it's easy to get sidetracked by the frustration or the day-to-day things
(37:53):
that we have to deal with working in insurance.
But overall, I think there's an increasing recognition of the importance of
the benefits that companies provide.
And yeah, just looking forward to sort of seeing where this goes.
You know uh we officially launched september 1st
and you know we're we're really looking to
grow so onward and upward i think uh yeah there's
(38:16):
there's a lot of opportunity out there and especially especially with the companies
in the space that we're working with so it's awesome yeah ron going out there
and making it happen that's fantastic yeah how can how can someone get a hold
of you how do you want people to find you yeah you can go to our website uh
prison prismbenefits.com, P-R-I-S-M.
If we get the captions on LinkedIn, we've done a couple of LinkedIn posts where
(38:38):
it was prison, P-R-I-S-O-N benefits.
We're not looking to lock anyone up. Yeah, it's P-R-I-S-M benefits.
And then you can always reach out through email josh at prismbenefits.com.
Happy to have conversations with anybody that's interested in exploring any
of the topics we discussed.
Because regardless of whether we end up working together, I think it's fun to
(38:59):
talk about this stuff And, you know, kind of share ideas.
And yeah, so I really appreciate you bringing me on and looking forward to seeing
where where where all this stuff goes.
Awesome. Thanks, my friend. Appreciate it. Thanks, Brian.
Music.
(39:30):
Thank you
for watching.
(40:00):
A registered representative and an investment advisory representative of Dempsey Lord Smith LLC.
Dempsey Lord Smith LLC is not affiliated with the Haney Company.
Security is offered through Dempsey Lord Smith LLC, member FINRA SIPC.
Advisory services offered through Dempsey Lord Smith LLC, a U.S.
SEC registered investment advisor.
You're listening to the Haney Company Financial Guy Show.
No nonsense, just a crazy mix of life, business, the funny, and of course,
we're going to talk about your money.
But just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. What could go wrong?
Welcome to another episode of the Haney Company Financial Guy Show.
(00:27):
I love getting a chance to talk to colleagues in the industry.
And so today's guest, my good friend, Josh O'Gara is no exception to that.
Josh, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on, my friend. Absolutely.
Thanks for having me. Hopefully we don't nerd out too much. I know.
That's understandable, right? And that is a very genuine, real risk,
(00:48):
especially when I think back on the last time you and I were sitting down talking
together for a while, I was like, oh, that was a great conversation,
but certainly not one that I would say is better for public consumption.
So, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Excited to be on the show and thanks for having me. We'll get,
so we'll get the painful, challenging questions out of the way first.
If you could have dinner with any famous person and it could be somebody alive
(01:09):
or somebody who's passed, who would you want to have a meal with?
Yeah. So this, I was, I was thinking about this and it's, it's interesting because
famous is sort of a relative term, right?
So the first thought that came to my mind in my house, my, my dad is,
is kind of famous because I've got a five-year-old and a three-year-old.
And my dad actually passed away when I was 24.
So he comes up in conversation a lot. And unfortunately, I didn't have the chance
(01:34):
when I was growing up to really get to know my dad that well.
And it'd be great just to kind of get his perspective on a lot of things in life.
He was off the boat from Ireland. He came over here when he was 18 years old.
He actually came over here as
a Jesuit priest. And he was in the Catholic church until he was mid-30s.
So anyway, I'm sure he'd have a ton of perspective and interesting thoughts
(01:58):
on a variety of subjects.
And he's always very stoic and kind of reserved Irish guy.
And so never really got to ask him a lot of questions about growing up and his
perspective on a lot of things.
So that was the first person that came to my mind. That's good.
I especially like what you were sharing about your dad.
I'm very fortunate in getting to work with mine now
(02:18):
actively and having been able able to have
literally a life of just relation and influence
and all that kind of stuff but uh you know i i also
appreciate the kindred irish connection and yeah know
exactly where you were going with that so yeah
i think that that's awesome that's awesome all right if you
were going to start a band what would the name of your band be so full disclosure
(02:41):
i was never musically inclined so i know probably some people listening to the
podcast have you know had the opportunity to give this a lot of thought because
they had dreams in their head about being a lead singer of a band.
I was never in that.
Mindset. But I think the first name that came to my head was actually Dot Rats.
(03:02):
And anybody who grew up in the Boston area would know what that's referencing.
I grew up in Dorchester, which is the largest section of Boston.
And growing up, anyone from Dorchester, we were called Dot Rats.
So I always think of bands that the ones that I have the most connection with
are bands that they grew up together.
They started playing together when when they were teenagers and they just,
(03:24):
they maybe not, they don't get along, you know, perfectly all the time,
but they put some great music out there.
They're not just this, you know, corporate sort of concoction of attractive
individuals that have good singing voices.
They, you know, they're, they're, you know, they've been together for a long
time and they make great music.
So that was what came to my mind is, you know, just having some friends that
I've known for a long time and, you know, hearkening back to the roots from Dorchester. I love it.
(04:19):
My uncle owned a charter airline down in St.
Croix, which my cousin now runs as well. So it's the third generation.
I've always wanted to be up in the air. I had dreams of being a fighter pilot
and all that good stuff when I was a kid.
So yeah, definitely, I would love to be able to fly.
I made an attempt at it, jumping out of an airplane a couple of times,
(04:42):
but not quite the same as having the superpower of being able to fly.
I like it. No, I think this still ranks probably number one for me most of the time.
So, yeah, I like that. Especially in the Washington, D.C. area,
given the traffic that just never seems to end.
It'd be great to not have to hop around, do whatever I want to.
(05:03):
Either that or a monster truck, right?
Something. Yeah, something that wouldn't get me arrested, but we'll see.
Besides this podcast, what other podcast would you like to recommend to our listeners?
So I'm not a huge podcast listener, but I have recently in my last year or so,
I started listening to a couple. One is Bankless around cryptocurrency.
(05:25):
I think that's pretty interesting. Again, a lot of the discussion on that show
is way over my head because they get pretty deep into the weeds with some of
this stuff. But it's just a sort of a curiosity.
I'm just a curious person in general. So it's something I don't understand at
all, like cryptocurrency.
I caught on to that a little bit. And then the other one would be Joe Rogan.
I love listening to Joe Rogan and some of the guests that he has on. I think he's,
(05:47):
a pretty interesting guy in terms of, again, he's very curious and he knows
a lot about a lot of different stuff.
And again, don't always agree with him on some of his perspectives,
but just has some really interesting guests and some really interesting perspectives
on a lot of different stuff.
Yeah. His name has certainly come up a couple of times. So yeah, I agree.
And that's interesting. All right. The crypto one as well sounds interesting,
(06:10):
but yeah, having had conversations with people in that space that you can go
real quickly down a rabbit hole of a whole whole bunch of stuff that I too, I'm like, oh, all right.
That's a lot more than I was prepared for. Yeah.
Got to put a couple hours of studying afterwards, studying afterwards,
trying to catch up on some of the terminology and that sort of thing.
(06:30):
Yeah. There should be a quiz because if there was, we would not be passing it. No. No.
Well, awesome. So since we know each other pretty well through NAIFA,
the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors,
tell the the audience about yourself and what's the best part of your day?
What do you do and what do you love doing the most?
Yeah. So it's kind of bananas to say this, but I've been in the insurance industry almost 20 years.
(06:55):
It doesn't seem impossible, but I got started in the business in 2006 with a
big mutual company, doing individual life insurance, disability,
long-term care, all that good stuff.
So my background, I always say I grew up, quote unquote, quote,
on the individual side of things in the business.
And I started to delve into employee benefits, particularly around the voluntary
(07:18):
benefits offered to companies back in 2016.
So eight years ago, let's say. And my
experience working on the individual insurance side of things really went well
towards my approach to have a very employee-centered conversation conversation
around benefits and trying to make sure that the employers understand the impacts
(07:41):
that their decisions have on the rank and file employees.
And particularly as more financial burden is being shifted to those employees
through out-of-pocket expenses, premium increases, whatever it may be,
those decisions are becoming a priority in people's financial lives.
And unfortunately, there isn't enough consideration to those decisions.
(08:02):
Both at the employer level and at the employee level.
Not to say that employers don't care, but I think everybody's a little bit frustrated
and overwhelmed with the whole benefits discussion, particularly around health insurance.
And unfortunately, I think a lot of people are at the point where they just
kind of throw up their hands and they don't know what to do.
So getting back to your original question in terms of what my favorite part
(08:23):
of the day is, I love meeting with employees one-on-one, sitting across the desk from somebody.
And I'm never going to be the answer for all their their problems,
but seeing the relief melt, you know, the stress melt away and the relief come
in, you know, when they understand that I'm there as a resource for them and
really, you know, want to help them understand, you know, the...
(08:45):
You know, the situation that they're in around benefits and overall,
you know, their, their financial picture, you know, it's really,
really what gets me out of bed in the morning.
That's why, you know, started the, started the company.
No, that's awesome. And, and we have, we take a very, very similar approach.
And, and so I want to, I'm going to come back to what you just said,
but, but first I want us to go to a high level because, you know,
(09:06):
it, it, it's coming into, and now the beginning of, of 2024,
there's just obviously been a lot of stuff going on.
Let's talk about the state of employee benefits because it's certainly,
like you said, it's a challenge that makes a lot of people, I think,
want to throw up their hands,
not because they're ready to give up, but because it's just kind of hard to
(09:28):
know how to do things well and what kind of levers you need to be pulling on
to continue to provide value to employees,
take care of them, and make sure that they're going to be successful, not just at the end.
Work, but in life. So what are kind of some main trends that you're seeing?
Are there other consistent issues that you've found that pop up?
(09:50):
Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest trend is sort of the focus on overall wellness.
Wellness has been a hot topic for a long time, focused primarily,
initially it was primarily around health wellness.
So what can employers do to encourage healthy behaviors around medical insurance
so that their premiums don't continue to increase.
So, you know, I think a lot of times that ends up being sort of a shiny object
(10:12):
and something fun to talk about, but in terms of actually delivering on that
and strategies around demonstrating ROI from a company perspective,
you know, there's, there are a lot of issues around just focusing on health wellness.
And now you bring into the full, you know, financial wellness and mental wellness,
which is, you know, probably the hottest topic in benefits right now,
(10:33):
particularly since the pandemic, I think employers are really starting to understand
the impacts that the pandemic has had on our employee population.
And I think there's a movement towards more paternalistic approach to the paternalistic
may not be the best term to use there, but employers want to help their employees out.
And particularly with the younger generation coming into the workforce,
(10:54):
I think they're more socially minded.
They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. It's not just earning a paycheck.
I think there's a realization of that on the part of a lot of employers out there.
And we're trying to lean into that and get away from the traditional benefits
discussion where it's just spreadsheeting a bunch of bad health insurance for
(11:14):
no rates and, you know, trying to figure out how to really make an impact on employees' lives.
Yeah. And I appreciate you covering, you know, those three domains now that I think,
you know, are kind of pillars in what would be an effective approach,
But I don't think it's as easy for employers to look at it from – we've always
obviously, I think, understood the health domain.
(11:36):
But now mental health, which can be emotional, spiritual, a couple of things under that category.
And then, yeah, financial health, which is, I think, an area that –.
So it's very, very challenging to know what to do.
And I think probably also an area where there's some natural resistance to even
wanting to start to dip your toe in that water because it can be a bit tricky
(11:59):
to know how to navigate that. Yeah.
And I mean, it's sort of the separation of the church and state, right?
Employers don't necessarily traditionally want to know what's going on in an employee's life.
Come to work, do your job, earn your paycheck, and the other stuff shouldn't
be something that falls under the power of you, the employer.
But particularly with the movement towards work from home and the,
(12:20):
issues that are going on with stress, anxiety, depression,
all that sort of stuff, for an employer not to consider those types of things,
I think it's not doing right by the employees, But it's impacting their bottom
line at this point, which is why I think a lot of employers are waking up to
the fact that it needs to at least be talked about.
Whether or not you take a proactive approach to addressing those issues is another
(12:41):
conversation because it can be tough to quantify in terms of what sort of investment
are we going to make into this and what's the outcome that we're looking for.
It's not just a numbers decision at that point. There needs to be a more comprehensive
strategy around benefits. fits.
And it can't be just a conversation that occurs three months prior to the renewal.
(13:03):
You know, it's an ongoing conversation throughout the year, which is part of
the reason why before we got on the podcast here, we were talking about,
isn't January supposed to be sort of a slower time of the year?
And it's not so much the case anymore because, you know, it's more of an ongoing
conversation with employers.
No. And, you know, I think I've had a lot of conversations as I'm sure you have
as well in kind of the HR space on culture, right?
(13:26):
You know, everybody, most Most employers that I've ever talked to would all say the same thing.
We want to deliver a benefits package that attracts and retains the best talent
because why wouldn't you want to do that?
But the benefits portion of that equation is just one part of that puzzle, right?
If you have the world's greatest benefits, but a terrible toxic work culture,
(13:47):
you're not going to be successful.
And so I think it's been interesting to see how, like you were saying,
people's perspectives perspectives have shifted as employers.
I think that the understanding of the importance of culture and also the multifaceted
domains that come to the table in taking care of an employee,
that you want them to do their best jobs, but to do their best job,
(14:10):
they have to be the best version of themselves.
And if maybe things are good at work, but not good outside of work, that matters.
And so I think it's been good to see that growing recognition happening in a
lot lot of domains that maybe the employer can't solve all of those problems,
but there might be opportunities for them to help in some meaningful way,
(14:33):
either through the benefits that they provide or in other areas.
And I think that that's a real critical conversation that needs to continue to evolve.
Yeah. And the amazing part from my perspective is that there are a lot of resources
available to employers,
employees already that already exist in their current platform that they're
just not utilizing because nobody ever really told them about an EAP program
(14:53):
that exists on your group benefits policy or whatever resources that are already available.
That's sort of the best starting point to say, all right, what do you have already
in place that you may not be utilizing effectively rather than just trying to come in and sell an idea?
We all have these great concepts and products and whatever, but start with where
(15:17):
they're at right now, what they have, and build on that.
Figure out exactly what they're attempting to do because you can only do so much.
You got to draw a line somewhere in the sand where you can't solve the world's problems. problems.
So it can be, you kind of can go down a rabbit hole where it becomes a more
overwhelming situation than when you started.
(15:39):
Because if you're just looking at the cost and benefits, again,
that's a pretty straightforward conversation.
What carrier offers the best health insurance plan in your area?
What carrier offers the best life insurance rates on a group basis? Whatever it may be.
Those conversations are much easier and you don't necessarily have have to have
those guardrails or those, you know, you don't have to have a conversation around,
(16:03):
all right, where does it stop? Because you can't do, again, you can't do everything.
There's only so much that an employer can devote in terms of resources towards these initiatives.
So just figuring out what's the most important thing to that employer based
on their population and their growth objectives or whatever it may be.
Well, and I think, and you and I obviously see this in our daily lives all the
time, You know, it's creating a strategy to take advantage of the things that
(16:28):
you already have, to your point.
You know, it may not be there's anything wrong with the benefits package that
you're already providing.
And very likely, that's not the issue.
The issue is probably how do we make sure we provide engagement,
we provide education, and we deliver advanced,
continuing, regular support to employees through, you know, hopefully a variety
(16:51):
of mediums that are available.
And we kind of create this intentional rhythm of doing that,
because I think a lot of times a lot is left up to employees.
And the assumption is, if we give you enough stuff, you should be able to figure
all this out when you need to make critical decisions.
And that's, you know, not always the case, and certainly maybe not the best
(17:12):
approach. And so I think.
What are, you know, we've tried to emphasize to most of the groups that we work
with, you know, think of it almost on like a calendar basis, right?
How can you create regular and schedule for employees times for education or
times for additional engagement?
Or maybe it's times for, you know, bring a yoga instructor in and have like,
(17:33):
what can you do creatively that just interrupts the time for them,
but in a meaningful way that's not going to cause challenges in other places,
but to make it, you know, a regularity that they're able to get better connected.
To and more help and more support. What have you been doing?
I know you do a lot of one-on-ones, but what are some of the other things and
strategies that you do when you're working with your clients?
(17:53):
Yeah. And the calendar approach to things is really important,
in my opinion, in just creating a...
Because we've all been in situations where we have a conversation with an employee,
a client, whoever it may be, where you uncover a need or possible solution for
a problem that they're dealing with and have a great discussion around possible
ways ways to address that.
(18:14):
But then it just stops there because you move on to other things.
You've got a lot of other clients, a lot of other employees to work with. That employee...
May not, at that particular point in time, be ready to take the steps that they
need to take to address the issues that they're dealing with.
But the next time you're in there, in that office, or the next time you're doing
a webinar for a topic around benefits, doing an educational,
(18:38):
webinar about how to use an EAP program or whatever it may be,
it will click in that employee's mind to say, oh yeah, we had this conversation
about such and such, and that's still an issue.
Maybe it didn't take the steps I need to take that particular point in time.
But again, it's showing up consistently and being a resource where I think what
you were talking about before in terms of creating a great benefit strategy,
(19:00):
I think a lot of times it kind of gets stuck in the corner office.
Again, you and I can nerd out on this stuff and we know all the terminology
and products and that sort of stuff.
But how do you create a way to effectively communicate and engage employees
around that when they've got a lot of stuff going on in their lives?
It's not to us, this stuff makes sense and you should do it right away.
But just because that makes sense and we can see the steps that they need to
(19:25):
take to address the issues that they're dealing with, they might not be in the
right mindset to do that.
So continuing to just follow up and have conversations, be a resource when needed.
I think it goes back to one statement that another advisor I work with made,
most people don't need a financial plan. Most people just need a budget.
(19:45):
And I don't do financial planning, but it gets to the idea of people get overwhelmed with this stuff.
And if you put a huge plan together for somebody that's 100 pages long.
All right, where do you start with that sort of stuff?
And how do you kind of implement that?
And it's got to be baby steps. It's got to be manageable steps,
and you got to understand that you might have to repeat those steps a couple
(20:09):
of times before you get enough momentum to get employees to engage with an EAP program.
I think a really helpful idea that I've started to implement is trying to get
a champion within the company for different ideas, for example,
around an EAP program. program.
I keep saying EAP. EAP is employee assistance program.
(20:29):
So something that, you know, a lot of carriers offer to employees in terms of,
you know, wellness support,
you know, they can have, there's a, there's well preparation for a lot of employees
when I think it's the statistics 60 or 70% of people don't even have a will
and, you know, just really simple stuff.
You're not going to, you know, the, the EAP program isn't going to set up a
bunch of trusts for somebody, but it's going to get, you know,
(20:51):
sort of very basic, you know, will in place.
And is it going going to be perfect no the problem you know
and they should you know probably take further steps at
some point but just to get something in place is the
again taking a baby step and then building on that and it takes it's got to
be a long it's got to be a long game it can't be you know just short-term perspective
you gotta this is something that's going to build over a two three five year
(21:14):
you know strategy of you know really trying to engage and make sure that people understand you.
The resources that are available to them. I love how you described that long-term
approach, because I do think we certainly, and our team, emphasize that as much as possible, that.
Education is really about the repeated delivery of education,
(21:36):
not any one topic per se, or presentation, or resource might be it.
So when you think, oh, well, let's get this webinar on this topic,
because that'll solve it, or that'll do it, or it's very unlikely that that's just going to be it.
But if you're consistently making sure that this is a part of your company culture,
(21:57):
that there's an intentional rhythm of engagement, so that way you're creating
this space and these opportunities for employees to learn, to grow,
and to connect more, then that in and of itself becomes that mechanism to say,
oh, well, I've been putting off.
They've done six workshops in the last six months and I missed all of them.
Maybe I should catch the seventh one, right? Right.
Because you've created that level of consistency, that's where you start to
(22:20):
catch people more frequently versus just doing it one time a year or twice a
year or whatever, when it's, you know, it's hard to know how serious even the delivery of that is.
But I think that that and I also love that idea of finding a champion,
somebody other than maybe a business owner or the HR person that can also be,
you know, engaging with people to encourage them to take advantage of things.
How do you work with employers in that particular situation?
(22:43):
What does that look like to to get somebody else to champion things?
Yeah. So I think it's really just coming down to if somebody has a good experience
to make sure you ask them to let other people know what that experience was
and how that helped them out.
I can think of a couple of examples just in the last few months where I was
working with an employee who was going in every month for an injection in his
(23:05):
eye because he was dealing with some retinopathy from diabetes.
And every time he was going into the facility, he was getting charged an admission
fee, $500 admission fee.
Just to get a shot in his eye for a 15-minute visit.
So he brought the bill to me and I looked at the bill and I said, this isn't right.
They shouldn't be charging you $500 admission fee just to get a shot.
(23:29):
So I went to the facility and got them to reduce the $500 fee that they were
charge every time he went into the office.
So he now understands the value of having a meeting to discuss because that
came up in a discussion around the renewal.
(23:50):
We were sitting down having a discussion and trying to figure out what plan
made the most sense for him. He said, well, this plan, again,
a lot of out-of-pocket expenses.
I said, what do you mean by that? And he showed me the bill.
And the out-of-pocket expenses were way higher than they should have been.
So I think a lot of people just avoid having those, you know,
meetings, you know, with either a benefits counselor or, you know,
(24:11):
somebody like myself, you know, whoever is there as a resource,
people just say, you know, it's not worth my time.
But it was obviously worth his time in that particular situation because he
understood the value of taking 15, 20 minutes to sit down and,
you know, and talk about, you know, what sort of experience he's had on the health plan.
And I think people, again, don't understand the mechanisms behind health insurance
(24:37):
and all that sort of stuff and what a copay is.
Again, it gets back to that education piece, right? Even the most simple,
that's one of the things that I do is the ABCs of healthcare with the companies that I work with.
So just explaining what a copay is, what a deductible is, what an out-of-pocket
maximum is, all that sort of stuff where I'm not trying to sell anything,
just trying to educate people and help them make decisions that,
(24:57):
again, as the costs continue to increase.
This is one of the most important financial decisions people make on an annual
basis in terms of what their benefit elections are.
So, yeah. So and then just making sure that when those conversations happen,
when you have a win like that,
making sure that other employees understand the value of having those meetings
(25:18):
and just asking the employees that have those experience to share that those
experiences with other employees.
Yeah. I mean, I think that that's about as simple as it comes.
But you're right, because I don't think people naturally do that.
And it is, it's an easy way to create a bit of a buzz in our groundswell and
also help other people be engaged because these are very, very individual experiences
(25:39):
that I think we naturally don't want to talk about.
You know, certainly sometimes people raise their hand or complain if there's
a real problem, but, you know, a lot of the other things that might be considered
normal or even good, they don't just necessarily know that.
You know, other people might have the exact same dynamic. And so it's,
yeah, it is important to, to, for those that are willing to share,
(25:59):
or at least to let people know, like, hey, that was really great.
Or, you know, Josh was really helpful.
And if you have issues, you should certainly sit down and, you know,
talk to him or talk to their team or what have you.
And I think I want to take what we've just kind of covered.
And, and I think one of the things that probably employers need to be really
examining is not a hard dollar cost issue.
(26:20):
It's who's helping you do this?
Do you have the right partners, the right parties that are supporting your benefits delivery experience?
Because this shouldn't obviously fall on your shoulders, the HR person's shoulders,
or people who aren't necessarily licensed and trained in insurance and all that kind of stuff.
What do you think a good partnership between either a broker or benefits consultant
(26:45):
or an HR consultant looks like?
And how have you kind of tried to deliver a better experience for the people
that you're working with?
Yeah. So I think one of the things that I've been guilty of in the past is trying
to do too much myself, you know, in terms of trying to put too much on my plate
and trying to be the expert in everything.
It's, you know, particularly when it comes to the companies that I work with,
(27:08):
primarily most of the employers I work with are 150 employees.
So, you know, if they have an HR department, it's one person,
they're doing 500 different things in the company.
A lot of times they just fell into the role because they've been at the company the longest.
So they don't really have the background or the capacity to be able to address
all the issues around not only benefits design, but compliance and hiring and
(27:32):
firing, whatever it may be.
There's so many different issues that these employers and the people that handle
HR and benefits at those companies have to deal with.
So creating really strong partnerships Partnerships with other professionals
that I, you know, I've developed a trust with, and I know that if I bring them,
you know, in on a conversation, it's, it's going to be valuable to that employer.
(27:56):
And, you know, there's, there are a lot of, there's a lot of consolidation going on.
There's, there's a ton of merger and acquisition, you know, in our space.
So those smaller employers are getting sort of overlooked.
When that local insurance agency that used to do their benefits is gobbled up
by this huge national brokerage and you're 50 employees,
(28:18):
where that was close relationship and you knew the people at the firm and all
that sort of stuff, that changes a lot when that merger occurs. Yeah.
But the biggest obstacle that we have to address now is how to bring resources
to the table for those employers.
And again, you can't do it all yourself. So creating a trusted group of professionals
(28:41):
that can help out in a variety of situations and just sort of saying,
all right, I know a person who can help here and a person who can help here
and maintaining lines of communication between everyone.
Because I think that's really the most important piece of creating an overall
strategy and developing a really strong partnership is making sure that it's not just a handoff,
that you kind of know what's going on in each area so that everyone can work
(29:06):
more efficiently to sort of improve the situation for the companies that we're
working with. I really like that.
And, you know, I mean, I think that that's about as good of a way to describe
it, because we have, we're very fortunate to have a lot of both professional
relationships, as well as access to resources through, I mean,
even just making sure that our carrier partners are helping out, right?
(29:26):
You know, it's, it's another, you know, the guardians, the UnitedHealthcare,
there's a lot of resources that the insurance providers that you're already
paying for policies from, they've got a lot of stuff that they want to make
sure they provide to you.
And taking advantage, like you were saying at the very beginning,
of all of those things, but not in any overwhelming sense.
(29:47):
Because there's a lot of things that you can pull off the shelf,
but you want to make sure that it's done, that it's right, and that it's going
to be value-added and that the right parties are involved in that.
And I think that, yeah, I mean, that's a huge, I have to imagine it's a big
relief when people are working with you and you're able to tell them,
it's not just me, but I also have some other resources here to help with these
(30:07):
things so that way you're going to get the best care and experience possible.
It's going to be a pretty good experience. experience. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, you know, there's, it never, when you get a lot of different personalities
and a lot of different, you know, perspectives on how to do business and whatever it may be, again,
you know, it can get confusing if the, again,
(30:29):
the communication needs to be there where you understand sort of the overall
objective for where the company is looking to go and putting the right pieces
together for them, because you can't solve all these issues all at once.
So sort of prioritizing what needs to be addressed first and taking steps along the way.
That's, again, getting back to sort of playing the long game rather than just
(30:51):
going in and reactively adjusting to current situation.
You need to be thinking about how that will impact the overall strategy years in advance.
So yeah, I think it adds a lot more complexity. complexity.
I think the old way of doing health insurance brokerage was a lot easier,
(31:13):
just kind of spreadsheet a bunch of carriers and the rates and that sort of stuff.
But I think it's much more interesting and engaging to take the approach where
trying to address a lot of different issues and.
I enjoy it. I think it's, you know, it's the employees that we work with are
dealing with a lot of, a lot of stress, a lot of, you know, financial insecurity.
(31:36):
And, you know, there's a lot we can do to help. It's just a matter of figuring
out the best way to do that. Yeah.
And I'm glad you brought that up
because we both read a bunch of not just articles, but some great studies.
And I was just looking at this before we even started our conversation that
went from Guardian in 2023 that said, financial wellness and well-being is at
an all-time low, which for us probably wasn't a surprising thing.
(32:00):
But it goes back into what we were talking about in terms of those,
you know, looking at benefits in a larger context of those three overall domains,
you know, from health to mental and now financial and finding that to be something
that probably, you know, hasn't been cultivated enough or focused on enough.
(32:22):
I like what you were saying about getting in.
Yes, can it be more complex to be doing more things in terms of education and delivery?
But if you're doing it consistently over time and you've got this strategy of
engagement, this strategy of cultivating a better experience for employees,
I have to imagine that you said it earlier, that that does improve the bottom
(32:42):
line experience for everybody involved. Yeah, absolutely.
And I think a lot of our more mundane tasks, one of the articles you sent over
was talking about AI and some opportunities.
I think a huge opportunity that is presenting itself in our space is a lot of
our time is taken up by these administrative tasks and paperwork and compliance
(33:03):
and all this stuff that is sort of mind-numbing to me.
But it has to be done, right? I've always been more...
Intrigued by the you know the theoretical side of
things like what what could be done and you know sort of you know
how to you know move the move the ball down the field or
whatever specific you know objective is is that on the table at that particular
(33:26):
point in time but there's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes to achieve
that and it can't be overlooked but the more we can sort of get that stuff off
our plates through you know you know automation and ai and whatever it may be,
I think the better we are going to be as an industry at sort of helping the
underlying issue that exists within the companies.
(33:49):
I mean, let's face it, as a country, we just aren't very healthy.
And we talk all day about ways to address the cost of all this stuff,
but it isn't addressing the underlying issue that employees just aren't healthy.
And it's not just employees, it's Americans in general. And I think there's
a lot of reasons behind that,
but as we can sort of offload all this
(34:10):
you know the paperwork and the day-to-day stuff we we as
a profession and are the companies that we work with
are going to have more time and energy to devote towards
the things that really matter to the employees that
we work with and i think it's exciting i think we're kind of especially being
your your firm's larger than ours but just being sort of a more local regional
(34:33):
outfit we have the ability to adapt and change and you know kind of bring ideas
to the table and say, hey, is this going to work?
And if it doesn't work, you know, we can move on from that pretty quickly.
We don't have all this infrastructure behind us where, you know,
we've created all these, you know, mechanisms that need to be,
you know, redirected or whatever it may be.
You know, I think it's an exciting time in the benefit space.
(34:55):
And, you know, both from a growth perspective, but also the impact from the
perspective of the impact that we can have.
And I think it's got to go and the conversation has to go outside of just,
you know, what we can do from, you know, products that we can bring to the table
but more meaningful conversations.
And it can't just stop with the companies that we work with.
(35:16):
I really think that we need to focus on sort of building the communities that we work into.
And that's, both you and I are pretty involved with NAFA.
I think that's a huge opportunity with some of the financial literacy initiatives
and that sort of thing that are going on, both at a national and a state level.
I think there's at least a dozen states now, maybe more at this point,
that have financial literacy requirements in schools.
(35:36):
We're working on that here in massachusetts and you know it's
it's got to be you know it's got to be something that starts from from you know
the time that kids are you know learning about all the basics you know this
has got to be one of the basics that they learn about and you know again maybe
a little too too optimistic to think we could you know solve all these problems
(35:57):
but you gotta kind of take steps.
Take the steps that you can individually to address it. And if enough people
get behind these ideas, you know, it will, you know, lead to a more productive,
you know, more healthy society overall.
Well, and I think that that's a great kind of last point to bring it all home is that, you know, it is,
I think all of our imperatives, wherever we are in the ecosystem of, of,
(36:23):
you know, employing Americans that what we can do to impact our little portion
of it is important, but it also has ramifications beyond that.
And so if everyone can really expand their paradigm and recognize that,
you know, if I take not just care of my employees by giving them a benefits
package, that's good, but actually delivering those benefits in a way that improves their lives,
(36:46):
that improves their health, that makes them less stressed out at home,
not just at work, then that has, you know, that has a ripple effect.
And, and also, you know, what can we then do to go beyond that in our communities at the state?
And, you know, yeah, we can't boil the ocean, but we can, we can take these steps.
And the more steps we take, I think the better it's going to be.
So I, I agree with you a hundred percent.
(37:06):
I appreciate you coming on today, my friend. What kind of, what kind of parting
thoughts do you want to leave with our audience? Any, any shout outs you want to make?
Well, shout out to my, my partner. So we, we joined I joined forces back September
1st, Brian McDermott and I.
We kind of had been working together a little bit, sharing technology and that sort of thing.
And through discussions around different cases we were working on and that sort
(37:29):
of thing, we figured out that we have a very similar approach to business and
what we want to do professionally, but also personally as well.
It's a very meaningful and important industry that we're in.
And we can really do a lot to improve the lives of the people that we work with.
And it's easy to get sidetracked by the frustration or the day-to-day things
(37:53):
that we have to deal with working in insurance.
But overall, I think there's an increasing recognition of the importance of
the benefits that companies provide.
And yeah, just looking forward to sort of seeing where this goes.
You know uh we officially launched september 1st
and you know we're we're really looking to
grow so onward and upward i think uh yeah there's
(38:16):
there's a lot of opportunity out there and especially especially with the companies
in the space that we're working with so it's awesome yeah ron going out there
and making it happen that's fantastic yeah how can how can someone get a hold
of you how do you want people to find you yeah you can go to our website uh
prison prismbenefits.com, P-R-I-S-M.
If we get the captions on LinkedIn, we've done a couple of LinkedIn posts where
(38:38):
it was prison, P-R-I-S-O-N benefits.
We're not looking to lock anyone up. Yeah, it's P-R-I-S-M benefits.
And then you can always reach out through email josh at prismbenefits.com.
Happy to have conversations with anybody that's interested in exploring any
of the topics we discussed.
Because regardless of whether we end up working together, I think it's fun to
(38:59):
talk about this stuff And, you know, kind of share ideas.
And yeah, so I really appreciate you bringing me on and looking forward to seeing
where where where all this stuff goes.
Awesome. Thanks, my friend. Appreciate it. Thanks, Brian.
Music.
(39:30):
Thank you
for watching.
(40:00):
A registered representative and an investment advisory representative of Dempsey Lord Smith LLC.
Dempsey Lord Smith LLC is not affiliated with the Haney Company.
Security is offered through Dempsey Lord Smith LLC, member FINRA SIPC.
Advisory services offered through Dempsey Lord Smith LLC, a U.S.
SEC registered investment advisor.
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