Veer Gidwaney, Founder & CEO of Ansel Health

This episode of CEOs You Should Know features Veer Gidwaney, Founder & CEO of Ansel Health.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I grew up in Canada throughout thecountry, but my formative years were in
Edmonton, Alberta. I went tothe University of Western Ontario, which is
in London, Ontario, just southof Toronto. I didn't finish my full
four year plan there and left afterthree to start up my first company.

(00:22):
Now Vera doesn't know this, folks, and I'm not going to spend a
lot of time on and I'm goingto have to talk to him offline about
this. But I too, amfrom Edmonton. Our listeners know this about
me. I was there. Iused to work for CBC Sports. I
was there during the Gretzky year.So were you and I are gonna have
to talk offline? Okay, we'regoing to have to do. Yeah,
it first time it's happened on thison the series two in the four years

(00:43):
that I've done it too, Sothat's fantastic. So well, listen what
I want to do, of course, talk about everything that is that is
your health company currently. But Inoticed 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 years of yours.So can you talk about your vision and

(01:03):
things you wanted to do coming outof 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. Well. Ithink 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.

(01:26):
I'm not sure that was necessarily strategicallythought out when I was twenty years old,
but there certainly has been some importantconnection points, I'd say since the
early twenty tens. The last companyI was a part of, called Maxwell
Health, was in the field ofHR benefits, and then we certainly got

(01:46):
exposed to some of the core challengesaround healthcare and health insurance and affordability and
out of pocket exposure and medical debt. And that company, while it was
in that world, was not specificallytargeting the problem that Ansel is about today,
but as a you know, putthought into what it made sense to

(02:07):
focus on. Next, you know, the story of Ansel really started to
take form. Can you go withjust a little bit Deeper Die because I'm
always interested in our series here becauseI realized that passion as a CEO and
as a leader, that people arepassion about what they do and that's how
they get to the top with alot of hard work, effort, of
course, some timing and a littlebit of luck and all the other things

(02:28):
that go with that. But whythe health industry for you? You know,
I think that it's an area tohave impact and in a way that's
meaningful for folks. And I think, you know, especially in the in
the American context of healthcare, youcan't really separate health and wealth or or
financial well being perhaps is a betterway to put it. Because of the

(02:49):
sheer amount of cost associated with health, it's almost a given that that health
expenditures are going to have an impacton other parts of your budget. And
if you look at the country ata 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, wecould be making. So when you look

(03:10):
at areas to have an impact onpeople and build something that matters, this
is certainly a space that's been reallyimportant to me. You know Vera as
you were talking about this, andI too have experienced this living in both
countries. I imagine it's been veryfortuitous for you to be living in both
countries, knowing how socialized medicine worksin Canada and how it works here in

(03:30):
the capitalist society the United States,the good and bad with both, and
trying to do the best you canwith the current company you're at. So
I imagine that you know through thatlooking glescensing how both work. It's been
pretty interesting for you to educate yourselfproperly. Yeah, very much so.
And I think the labels of socializedhealth care and healthcare in a capitalist country,

(03:52):
if I may done this is perhapsnot in my view, the right
frame, because every country in theworld other than the United States it has
a single payer system. Of course, many of them are capitalist countries,
so you know, and I thinkthat there's there's certainly some correlation between the
system we have and the fact thatwe have the highest costs with some of

(04:15):
you know, outcomes that don't necessarilyreflect what's being invested. So that's a
separate debate. But I think thatthat the unfortunate reality, though, is
that in this system people have farmore out of pocket exposure when it comes
to healthcare. Now, there aremany ways to solve that problem, the
most effective of which I personally believeis a much more macro related focus.

(04:39):
But in the absence of that,you've got to look at what tools we
have today, and there are,in our view, the opportunity to build
a financial product and insurance product thatthat helps alleviate some of the some of
the pain. What's the mission statementof Antel Health. Yeah, our mission
is to make sure that health distressdoes not result in financial burdens. More

(04:59):
often than not for folks, ifyou have an unforeseen medical event, it's
almost certainly going to result in somefinancial stress for you or your family.
And that seems like an odd connection, but unfortunately it actually really is.
And our aim is to alleviate thathere for all our new listeners. And
it might be introduced to Ansel Healthfor the first time if you were to

(05:20):
give him a thirty thousand foot viewand tell them this is exactly what we
do. What would that be?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 planthat pays cash benefits for over thirteen thousand
injuries and illnesses. In the pasttwelve months, twenty percent of our members

(05:44):
have had a claim paid. Andwhat that means is that a lot of
people are getting help from this productbecause it's paying out cash when they have
something that is unforeseen that takes placefor them. You got some categories on
the website either way, we'll giveat the end, folks. But you've
got the employers, the brokers,and the members. I know they're each

(06:05):
different. Can you talk a littlebit about that. Yeah. One of
the nuances of employee benefits in theUS is that most folks get those benefits
through their employers, and most employerswork with third party consultants or advisors or
brokers to help them make decisions onwhat benefits to offer. So in order

(06:26):
for us to ultimately be used bya person, a real person, it's
because they will have gotten the benefitfrom their employer, and it's because that
employer is working with a broker whorecommended that they consider anseling. You know,
listen, I read the news.I know you do, and everybody
does about the health industry up anddown, all sorts of different stories there.
It can be expensive for some peopleat sometimes medications. I could go

(06:48):
on and on and on about allthat, But when it comes to the
industry right now, what kind ofchallenges are you facing that you know you're
going to get through them, butright now there are challenges for you,
you the company in the industry.Yeah, you know. One of the
I think one of the challenges forinsurance as it pertains to health, which
is different from property and casualty,is we use the term loss ratio,

(07:12):
right and the loss ratio is sortof for every dollar of premium that someone
pays, how much value do theyget back? So how many dollars will
they get back? Typically an insuranceand obviously, as an insurance company,
to be profitable and make money,what you charge has to be above what
the loss ratio is. The troublethough, is that, you know,
when you think of the term lossratio, I think any logical person,
any logical organization would be focused onminimizing the loss ratio. Of course,

(07:39):
the problem is that if the insuranceproduct 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 thatI sell. Now, when you look
at it that way, you knowwhat company is right in mind would think
about reducing the value of what theyoffer to their customers. In fact,
we think of the exact opposite.So insurance, as it pertains to help,

(08:00):
has got this interesting dichotomy that isalmost working against the customer. And
you know when we went back tothe drawing board here and said, look,
lots of people are getting having unforeseenmedical events. That happens, that's
life, and as a result ofthe current system, they end up having
to pay bills that they didn't foreseeand it's hard for them. Okay,

(08:20):
well, if you're going to tryto help those folks, the first thing
that comes to mind is build aninsurance product that covers a lot of things
that actually happen to people. Sowe've done that and we've demonstrated that it
works. So when I said earlieron that twenty percent of members have acclaim
paid in any given year, toput that into context, that's a very
highly utilized employee benefit. So ifyou look at a typical company, you'll

(08:43):
have medical insurance, which is themost utilized. Makes sense, then typically
dental insurance and then followed by anselextraordinary 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 oneof innertia. Uh you know,
I think of a famous war andBuffet quote that is that the market can

(09:03):
remain irrational much longer than you canremain solvent. So we know we're right,
we know we're delivering value to theconsumer. It's objective, there's no
subjectivity about it. It's clear whatwe're doing. But yet it's hard to
shift an industry. And it's hardbecause you know, you you got to
it earlier on is there's a there'sa value chain through which benefits are bought

(09:26):
in our country. And as aresult of that, you know, you
got a lot of folks along thatchain 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 isto change people's minds and not the end

(09:48):
consumer they get it, it's thefolks in between who need to get it
to them. Ultimately, we areanother fun question. Then we get to
ask the leaders and CEOs of thisseries is about sustainability and growth And I
know it's different for everyone, andthis, of course is relative to what
you do as CEO. When itcomes to ANSEL Health, it sounds like
sustainability is there, so as youwork with that and you're feeling that,

(10:09):
what about growth? I know thateverybody and all CEOs especially have successful companies,
look down the road to what's nextnot only for ourselves but our members
and our staff and all the peoplethat are part of ANSEL Health. So
can you talk about sustainability in yourindustry and then also about the growth that
you plan on doing. Yeah.From a sustainability perspective, I think the

(10:31):
key thing for us is to beable to run our business very efficiently and
to automate as much as we possiblycan. And I think all leaders and
businesses today are thinking about that acutely. In our case, specifically, because
of how our insurance part oft isdesigned, it enables a fair degree of
claims automation. So if you thinkof where a lot of expense lies in
insurance companies with high volume claims isit's the expense of administrating it if we

(10:56):
can do that with marginal expense,which we can, and the reason we
can is that the vast majority ofour claims are paid based upon information we
receive on a medical claim. Soyou know, the medical claim has a
diagnostic code that we cover. Thenwe pay an ancel claim based upon that
diagnostic code. So there's no subjectivityin claims analysis for us. It's an

(11:18):
objective assessment. So if we havethat diagnostic code, we can automate claims
payments. So that efficiency is sortof one key part of sustainability, and
it's baked into the core design ofour insurance product. It's not just technology
innovation, it's a combination of thetwo. From a growth perspective, you
know, I think the problem thatwe've outlined here is that people have high

(11:41):
deductible health plans. They have alot of cost exposure. That's not a
new problem, it's getting worse everyyear. And if you ask most HR
leaders or chief financial officers or justeveryday people what is their biggest concern about
their health insurance or their benefits,They're likely going to say very quickly,
I got a pretty high detectable andI can't even and afford it. God
forbid, something happened to me thatI that I wasn't expecting. You're going

(12:03):
to hear that from the vast majorityof folks. So if that's true,
then why on earth does everyone nothave supplemental insurance today? There are dozens
of companies that sell what I wouldcall the traditional incumbent products that are trying
to solve the same problem, butare actually cover very little, so they're
they're not the same insurance product.And and so growth for us is to

(12:26):
is the realization that that we canget 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'regonna we're gonna be able to expand the
market and get this in a lotof folks's hands. So the market is
there. The approach we've taken.We talked about brokers and employers, but

(12:46):
our approach is a step above fromthat, where we've said, let's try
to form a coalition with like mindedinsurance carriers who believe in the vision we
believe in. And we have severalof 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 productthat are their own product that run on

(13:11):
our platform. The reason I mentionedthis is that their sales teams are out
talking about Boya Protect and Cemetra Healthand Nationwide Provide, which all run on
our platform to the product that we'vebeen talking about today, but they're owned
by those companies and this idea ofworking with the industry with collaborators to grow

(13:33):
this market is a key part ofour growth strategy. VERD like to do
this because we always ask our leaderswhen they do have time when it comes
to philanthropic and charity work, ofwhat 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. Yeah. At the very inception of the company,
I think maybe three or four monthsand we started a program called Ansel

(13:54):
Cares and through that, every monthone of our employees picks an individual that
it's typically off of GoFundMe and welook for someone who's had an unforeseen medical
event and is raising money to youknow, make sure that they can get
through it. And we we wantto ensure that it's something that we would
have covered, but since we covera lot, it's particularly everything. And

(14:18):
we we donate you know, moneytowards towards the fundraising effort every month and
we've been doing it religiously every singlemonth since inception. And and the reason
for it. I mean, obviouslywe want to give back and you know,
do some good. But we realizetwo things. One is that obviously
not everyone has actually yet, sowe need to help people who don't have

(14:39):
it yet in our in the littleway that we can. But the other
part of it is to is toillustrate to our team every day and our
stakeholders who hear about what we dowith Ansel Cares, to just understand the
stories. And you know, thisis you know, when you look at
any company that's trying to do somegood, uh, it's it's I think
sometimes you can get blinded when youlook at the strategy and the numbers and

(15:03):
the vision. You can get abit blinded from like the actual practical reality
of what happens and the most satisfyingpart of building this company. And we
see it through the stories and AnselCares. They're no different from the stories
that people have that get ansel claimspaid every day is that these are real
people with real families who are goingthrough a very tough time, and more

(15:24):
often than not, they're not thinkingabout their insurance. They're thinking about how
they're going to get better. Andwhen we can call them and say,
hey, we just sent a thousanddollars to your PayPal account, you know,
we hope this can help you knowyour family towards recovery. It shouldn't
shock you to hear that. That'sa pretty pretty heart opening experience for both

(15:45):
the recipient and frankly, we're justdoing our job, so we're not doing
anything special in that case, butmore often than not that that person feels
like we've done something incredible for them. 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 thecompany in general, because I know that
in the world, whatever we do, there's always competition, and when we

(16:07):
talk to leaders, were always tryand get to tell our listeners that whether
you're a leader or future leader,you know, brand, product, your
staff, your customers are so manythings that you have to juggle in the
air. All the time, andone of them is differentiating yourself from competition.
So with that said, what's thatlike for you when it comes to
ancel health. It starts with sortof the founding principles of the organization and

(16:30):
in particular and sort of the originconcept. So the product that we've designed
is just fundamentally different from the incumbentproducts for two main reasons. One,
we cover thousands of conditions and illnesses. That's sort of, for the most
part, in order of magnitude,more than what the competitors cover. And

(16:51):
second of all, we base theproduct purely on diagnostic codes. So I
mentioned this a little bit earlier onbut to give you a tiny bit more
detail, the incumbent products have alot of objectivity on whether they pay.
So you might have had a brokenknee, but how you got the broken
knee, how it was treated,where it happened, all these things factor
into whether the claim is paid.In our product, none of those things

(17:14):
matter to us. All that matteredwas you broke your knee, and we
cover broken knee, and so there'sno discussion we need to have with you
to decide whether we're going to payyour claim. We pay your claim because
that's a diagnostic code that we cover, so that was a key innovation.
Those two things have enabled us todo significant work as a result, much

(17:36):
higher utilization, more fair value ratioclaims, automation, very high NPS.
We have an NPS of ninety.I mean, there aren't many insurance companies
in the world that have NPS scoresof ninety, and it's no surprise that
we do. When we call someonesaid we just sent you a PayPal for
one thousand dollars for your broken knee, they're going to rke you pretty high.

(17:59):
That's not a norm insurance experience.But that's the nature of what we've
built. It's not something that we'redoing that's special after the fact, it's
just at the core of what we'vebuilt. So that's the differentiation. Now
we're not trying to hide that.I mean, there's some secret sauce there
obviously, But our strategy, likeI mentioned earlier, is to partner with
other companies who want to help usbring that to market. So if another

(18:21):
insurance company were to come to usand say, hey, hen, so
we really agree with what you're doing, it makes sense, you know,
how can we bring a product likethis to market. We will tell you
how and work with you to doit. Now, there's obviously economics in
that for us, that's part ofour 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 andprotection. I think there's more than enough

(18:45):
of this market for all of usto do well. And the biggest challenge
we have right now is there aren'tenough people talking about a really good solution
of this problem. So you know, it's almost selfish for us to hide
that solution and you know, dependon our approach to getting big, which
which could take a very long time. It's a big market. We're a
small company, but by collaborating withothers, many of who are investors in

(19:08):
our company as well, we getthis solution into people's hands quicker and they
need it. Yesterday we er thanksfor all that. That's fantastic stuff.
By the way, I think thelast couple of minutes you got everybody's attention
with what you do and how youexecuted 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 ourlisteners, and maybe just a few takeaways

(19:30):
that we've either talked about that youlike to recap or maybe things we haven't
talked about, but the overall companyabout what you offer, what you do,
and get some final thoughts and takeaways. The floor is yours. Well,
like I said, excited to havebeen here and had a chance to
chat with you, you know,hopeful that we can we can have an
impact as an organization. You knowyou'd mentioned earlier on some of the important

(19:52):
elements of building a business, havinga market and you know, a good
strategy and the mission. But I'dadd to the as well, just fantastic
people. I mean, at theend of the day, ideas and execution
come because you've got folks who believein what you do and share your values.
And we're fortunate to have a teamof folks who do that. We're

(20:12):
always looking for people who share ourmission and values. So if there are
folks out there who are excited aboutwhat we're up to, we'd love to
talk to you. Our website isJOINANSL dot com. And yeah, thank
you very much for the time here. It's been a pleasure. Thank you
so much for joining us on CEOs. You should know tak care Dennis, but my