“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to” – Richard Branson
There are many reasons why companies should offer popular employee benefits packages. One thing that most organizations of all sizes will agree upon is that treating your employees well not only encourages them to keep working for you, but it also affects credibility, trust, and company culture.
On today’s episode, Porschia will be talking about Employee Benefits 101 and some popular employee benefits with Sirena Dimas. Sirena has worked in the employee benefits space for 15+ years. She takes a client-focused view and strives to provide transparency and control in an industry designed to keep the consumer in the dark.
What you’ll learn:
- Why are benefits so important to employees?
- Which benefits are important to people of different ages and generations?
- If you’re an employer, how do you choose which benefit packages to offer?
Quotes:
“I think of a good benefits package as the golden handcuffs.” – Sirena Dimas
As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Today, we are talking about Employee Benefits 101 Popular Employee Benefits Packages with Serena Dimas. Serena Dimas has worked in the employee benefits space for 15 15 years. She takes a client focused view and strives to provide transparency and control in an industry designed to keep the consumer in the dark.
Specializing in working with companies on a high growth trajectory and companies with a multi state footprint, Serena designs plans that scale and require adjustment, not replacement. Hi Serena, how are
Sirena: you today? Hi, Portia. I’m great. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Porschia: Great. Well, I am [00:01:00] excited to have you with us to discuss employee benefits 101.
But first we’d like to get to know a little bit more about you. So tell me about seven year old Serena.
Sirena: Seven year old Serena wanted to be, um, depending on the day, either a marine biologist working with orcas or a lion tamer. But not being mean to lions because I thought that they were way too pretty.
And I really just wanted to sink my fingers into their main, not like going through the idea of like, if I do that, a lion’s going to eat me, but yeah, that’s what I wanted to do something with animals. That was like what I wanted to do. And I had sheer adults and those are my favorite toys. So that was me at seven.
I want to work with animals and I have my dolls over here.
Porschia: I love it. I love it. I love animals too. And I think my first thought was being a veterinarian. So we’re kind of there with animals and [00:02:00] all of that. Um, so tell me Serena, what was your first job?
Sirena: I worked at Target as a cashier. That was my first W2.
It was weekend. They had me train during the week. I was 16 years old and, um, you know, you learn a lot about people like really quickly. It was really helpful to like observe. I feel like those are, I was able to leave like the front registers and go work in electronics and like start to establish relationships with people that became regulars and like learned how to talk to people.
Ask questions and answer questions and say, I don’t know, which is something that’s really hard to learn how to say. Um, and so that was, I was there for two years and then I went into specialty women’s retail for a couple of years while I was in college. And that’s how I learned what service was, was how to take [00:03:00] care of people, how to leave people smiling, how to start a conversation and build a rapport very quickly.
Right. If you’re checking somebody out or you’re selling them a video game or something, sometimes you have a conversation, sometimes you don’t. But if there is a goal, like you have to upsell a credit card or something, you have to, you have to be quick on finding some kind of common where you can collaborate and have a conversation and make a human connection.
And so that’s really where it started. Yeah.
Porschia: Yeah. I completely agree with all of that. I was a cashier as well. That was my second job. And um, when I was in college, I was a server at Outback Steakhouse. And what you said was something that I explained to some family members of mine. I said, you know, as soon as I walk up to the table within less than 30 seconds, you have to get these people to like you and trust you and believe that you’re going to, you know, serve them.
That’s To your point. So, uh, I loved what you said about service and you provide a very detailed and [00:04:00] high quality service now, which we’ll get into. Um, but I want to know, you know, for you, um, to tell us about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career.
Sirena: Um, the first time I won a client back, there was some, but there was an account that I was working with and, um, this was pre affordable care act.
So I might be dating myself just a little bit, right? But the company was still considered large group and they had 50 employees where now it would be over a hundred and we had lost it to Wells Fargo. And I called the client cause I got the letter and I was like, you know, I thought I’ve taken pretty good care of you.
Would you tell me why? You left and the woman was nice enough to answer the phone and she said, it’s not you, it’s that other person you work with. And I said, oh, well, you can just work with me if you want. Will you come back? She said, well, we’ve had a lot of [00:05:00] problems and this is what’s going on and how are you going to fix it?
I said, can I come see you next Monday? Because in my head, I had no idea how I was going to fix it. I needed to figure that out. But in the meantime, can I come see you in the afternoon on Monday? We’ll have a conversation. And she said, yes. And I was very young in my career. I was maybe 25 or 26 years old.
And I went out and took somebody with me that was a better listener. Cause I knew I wasn’t a good listener yet that had been in the business longer. That could ask really good questions. That was my support to help guide the conversation. And I was able to create a game plan with her and we won the client back.
And I had was going against a very seasoned broker at a time when Wells Fargo was doing employee benefits. And so it was very nice to be able to win that. So that was huge. Um, and I realized then that. One of the most important things that I was ever going to learn in my career was how to listen [00:06:00] to what the actual issue is, not necessarily what somebody is telling you the problem is, because there’s always something underlying the symptom.
Um, and then the second moment that I think really defines me as a person is when I realized that being Latin American in the world and knowing the struggles that my family had. And that my demographics have had in coming to the U. S. and learning the language. I was not going to work with companies where they were going to be hurting communities of color and low income communities and hiring people that historically are disadvantaged where they were putting in a health plan because they had to in order to comply with the Affordable Care Act.
But they weren’t structuring it in a way that their employees were actually going to use it. They weren’t contributing in a way that it [00:07:00] was truly affordable based on the employee. Not by the numbers of this is affordable, but like truly affordable because of where the employee lived. Or a design that the employee was actually going to utilize.
Because you can’t put a super high deductible health plan and enroll somebody that’s low income. They’ll never use it. So it hurts them. It takes away their access to subsidies to Medicaid. And I realized one day that I was no longer going to do that. I wasn’t going to take a sale because somebody else was telling me I needed to make a sale.
I was going to say no. And I would refer them to somebody else that would take care of them. But that wasn’t going to be my demographic. That wasn’t going to be who I worked with anymore.
Porschia: So a lot of, uh, a lot of good points there. So I guess I’ll start, you know, at the last point that you mentioned. So you kind of drew a line in the sand and said, you know, these are the types of companies that I’m going to work with and [00:08:00] these are not.
Um, so when you made that distinction, were you referring those clients to someone else in your company, um, or You know, how did that really work out?
Sirena: Um, I was referring them to somebody, I was at a previous firm and I did refer some to them, um, where I’m at now, there are people that will specialize in that and they’re, they might, I have some colleagues that’ll like do both sides, so they’ll do the property casualty and they’ll do the medical.
Um, and they specialize in manufacturing and in blue collar and they’ll write that business. Where I’m like, okay, let’s sit down and let’s get the best bane for your buck and give the best plan that you can. And I decided a long time ago, I don’t want to be, um, Oh yeah, I’m going to sell you something because you need to place it.
Let’s have a conversation. Let’s talk about how you’re going to make this work. Because you’re spending [00:09:00] tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, in some cases millions of dollars a year. That needs to work for you. Right. If you’ve got 10, 000 sitting in your bank, it’s not making you any money. What are you going to do with that?
You talk to a financial planner. They tell you how to make your money work for you. A business owner needs to do the same thing. Their money needs to work for them. So if they’re investing into a benefits plan, how do you make that return? How do you make sure that it actually works? Because hiring is expensive.
Finding people is expensive. Trading people is expensive. And people look at the whole offering. So how do we make it work in a way that we’re not killing your budget, but it still achieves its goal.
Porschia: I love it. I love it. Um, it sounds like one integrity is of high value for you, and then two, kind of the first instance that you mentioned when it came to winning that client back, it sounds like persistence, is also [00:10:00] important to you and.
Uh, you know, listening to the actual issue. I want to ask you about, you know, that time when you won the client back after you went and met in her office and listened with your colleague, how long did it take for you to actually win her back as a client? Was it instant or, you know, was it six months later, a year later after, you know, uh, Wells Fargo kind of gave it a shot.
Sirena: I had her back within 30 days. It was. I didn’t do much else for a couple of weeks there, but to be full disclosure, I, I couldn’t really do a lot else. There were issues with service, there were issues with structure, I had to figure out how to take what she did it like, see what we could change, and how to do that in a compliant [00:11:00] way, and then what we couldn’t change.
And suggest alternatives maybe to, if not meet her desire to at least appease her. So, okay, I understand I can’t do X, but you came with R and I’ll accept that. And so it was very much lots of back and forth. Okay, here’s the list of what you told me is a concern based on this. I can imagine that these.
Other points are potentially something that if it’s not a concern now will be in the future. Am I right? Am I missing anything? What out of these is your absolute deal breaker so that I can fix your biggest pain points first? And then we’ll go from there. So very, very collaborative, very transparent, very, all right.
I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this, but I’m going to go keep asking until I get what I [00:12:00] feel is a definitive answer.
Porschia: It sounds like a lot of negotiation and then, um, you know, really that client service, you know, is really important to you. And I, I’m so happy that you shared that with us, Serena, because there are so many people, um, who just think.
Oh, well, you know, who cares about that client? You know, we’ll just move on. And sometimes in sales, yes, you’ve got to have that abundant mindset and know that there are other opportunities out there, but it sounds like she shared with you some really core issues that you. Working to fix those with her probably helped you all of your clients, right?
And then future clients in terms of their level of satisfaction.
Sirena: Um, yeah, I believe in learning and walking, attempting to take something from every conversation, [00:13:00] whether it’s. how better to structure something, something that I can do, a pain point that somebody in a similar situated situation is going to happen, like how that they’re going to encounter.
Um, I’m a benefits broker by trade, but that’s not what I do. All benefits brokers, we have access to the same markets, right? There’s however many insurance companies, it’s much more than, Oh, I’m going to sell you health insurance. I’m going to sell you dental. Like it’s the risk advisement. It’s the knowing enough to say, Hey, that might be a red flag.
Have you thought about X, Y, or Z? Have you thought about what that next step is? Okay. You want to have 20 more people in next, the next year. When are those hires happening? Are they happening prior to July 1st? Okay. They are. Hey, in 2024, that means that [00:14:00] we’re going to need to file for the affordable care act.
You’re going to be subject to FMLA. There are other things that we need to think about beyond. Just your plan and how we do how we’re going to manage that going forward in the increase. Yes. The numbers are very important, but the details will hang you. So let’s talk about the whole picture. Okay. You’re cool this year.
You might not be next year. Let’s figure out where you are. And every year, like let’s go through it. What are your growth numbers? How many employees do you have on January one? How many employees do you have on July one? Okay. What was your average? Yes. We need to worry about one more thing. No, we don’t.
We’re good for another year.
Porschia: I love it. I love it. So how did you get into the employee benefits industry?
Sirena: Um, insurance is kind of like certain finance fields where nobody really plans on doing this, right? You just kind of fall into it. Uh, I was a very young mom and desperate to get out of the service industry.[00:15:00]
And my stepdad knew a broker who had just changed firms, who was Building her book at this new firm and putting, booking lots of business and was drowning and needing help. And I was desperate to get an office job. And he goes, here, I’ll introduce you. And we hit it off. I knew nothing, absolutely nothing.
She goes, that’s okay. She goes, we’re gonna spend more time with each other, then we spend with our families. I need to know if I can laugh with you. I need to know that if you tell me something that it’s the truth. You always have to be honest. She goes, and, and it stuck with me. I mess up every day. I don’t care if you mess up.
Don’t hide it. Because if you do that, I can’t fix it. If you tell me that something’s going on, then we’ll fix it together. The client will never know and we’ll be fine. Our personalities need to match. And everything else I can teach you. And… That was it. I started and I wasn’t allowed to talk to a [00:16:00] client if they had more than 20 employees.
I had to write down the questions and call the insurance company and check with her to see if the answer was right. Because sometimes the carrier rep would give you the wrong answer. And I’m like, What do you mean? But that’s the insurance company. She goes, No, no, no, don’t trust their answer. Just don’t and stop before you hang up and wonder she’s like, you know me I’m gonna ask another question try to figure out what that other question is and then ask Because then you’ll know if the answer is right or not.
Wait, what? That was it and I get to meet cool people Yeah. So I stayed.
Porschia: Cool. And she sounds like, uh, a mentor also. It sounds like a little more than just, Hey, that’s my boss or that’s my manager. Uh, it sounds like you, you had a good mentor there too.
Sirena: Yeah. She was a mentor. She was pretty awesome.
Porschia: Yeah, so employee benefits packages are often brought up by our clients.
Um, our [00:17:00] individual clients is just major factors when they’re considering a job offer. Uh, they’re comparing those packages between what, you know, different companies are offering or what their current company already is offering them. Uh, why do you think benefits are so important to employees?
Sirena: You have your tangible compensation, right?
You have your pay, you have a 401k max, right? Even though that counts as a benefit, you can still put a dollar value to that. Benefits, at least in my world, refer to health plans and like income protection, like disability and life insurance. And so I feel like those are so important because it’s the intangible.
It’s the what if. And some of us are more risk adverse than others. Right. And you’ll see that because the people that don’t want risk will go buy a 250 deductible on their automobile policy and they haven’t had an accident in 15 years, [00:18:00] but they don’t want a bill if something happens. And then based on your where you fall in working demographics and your age, you know, maybe you have health concerns.
Maybe you’ve got a family, maybe your spouse is starting a business and now it’s going to be your responsibility to cover the entire family. And so who, which employer is going to not just give you access to plans, but make it so that the plans are affordable and you’re going to have enough options and you’re going to have access to your doctors.
And so there’s a lot that goes into that decision. Um, I think of a good benefits package as golden handcuffs because I’ve certainly met people where they’ve decided to pass on an opportunity. Because the benefits won’t hold snuff to where they’re currently at. They don’t, they’re not, we’re not even talking apples to apples.
They are apples and oranges. [00:19:00] Yeah.
Porschia: And it’s a big difference. I see that with a lot of our individual clients. And, um, sometimes I see, I’ve seen clients who have targeted specific organizations. And they’re not saying it’s just for the benefits, but when I’m asking them why, they’re only talking about the benefits of that organization and what they offer.
So you are absolutely right. Um, so from your perspective, I mean, you look at plans all day. What are some of the most popular benefits included in packages?
Sirena: So
health plans start and for companies under 100. That aren’t in some kind of like finance attorney tech space, you see usually a silver plan as a base plan, you know, so something with a deductible of the 2, 000 range. If you’re talking about some of those more specialized, the tech space, finance [00:20:00] attorneys, you’re seeing, you know, a 700, 500 deductible as a base plan and then the opportunity to buy more coverage.
Dental is always a must outside of the state of California. I always tell employers, look, offer a vision plan, vision, premiums are minuscule, less than 10 a month. Let the employees pay for it. But you as an employer, if you value your employees, if you want to retain them, give them a short term disability policy and pay for it.
Because that’s an investment in protecting your employee. They can have something happen. They can get sick. They can get pregnant and take a six or eight week leave to heal from having a baby. Come back to work, their income’s protected. They’re going to say thank you. They’re going to be loyal to you.
They’re going to appreciate it. And so, medical of course, dental’s vital. And if you’re in one of the states that doesn’t have statutory disability. Short term, short term disability policies, super, [00:21:00] super important.
Porschia: Mm hmm. Um, so one of the things that we talk a bit about, especially with our business clients, so the companies that we work with are, um, you know, preferences of people in different generations, right?
So we talk about, you know, the millennials and the boomers and everyone, uh, in between, right? Um, have you noticed any major differences between what benefits are important to employees in different generations? Totally.
Sirena: So, boomers want traditionally a high end PPO, low copay, low deductible. They want a fixed cost.
Um, millennials… steer towards high deductible plans, especially if an employer is contributing into a HSA account for them. And when they’re able to, they’re maximizing their HSA to save money. And I think a lot of that is because [00:22:00] our demographic as millennials in 2008 to 2010, 11, it was really scary. A lot of us went without coverage, a lot of us ended up having medical emergencies and how do you pay for that?
Right? And the bills are astronomical and they can ruin you financially. And so, and now we make up the bulk of the workforce. So I see more high deductible health plans that I’ve ever seen. And this includes for people with their families. If an employer is contributing to an HSA plan, people gravitate towards that because they’ll know like, Hey, my family goes to the doctor.
We get our well checks. Maybe someone gets sick. Maybe we have a bronchitis. Maybe we need, you know, a Z pack or, you know, prescription for amoxicillin. We haven’t gone to the ER in three years. Okay, we’re going to put the money away. It’s going to sit there. And because then what you do with the HSA account and what I tell my clients to do is fund your out of pocket max.
It might take two or three years to [00:23:00] build up the full out of pocket maximum in your HSA account. But once that’s there, continue to max it every year. That’s their money. It follows them from employer to employer, but once the out of pocket maximum is there, they can invest it and it’s tax deferred. So it’s additional money to retirement.
And let’s be honest, When we started working, it was 65 of the normal retirement age. Now we’re at 67 and a half. At what point are we actually going to be able to retire? Is social security really going to be there? We don’t know. Right. So any way that you can put money away outside of a 401k, because the HSAs have a different limit, they’re subject to a different part of the tax code.
It’s a benefit that pays twice. And it’s great if you’re self, if you’re self employed as well, because you can go buy. An individual high deductible health plan and open up an HSA at whatever your banking institution is, whether it’s a credit union or a big bank or a local [00:24:00] bank, and then it’s awesome. I just had this conversation with somebody who’s with somebody who’s in provisors and she has an HSA plan.
I told her to open the account, max it, use her credit card to pay her expenses, so that she gets points because she gets airline miles and she has to travel a lot for work. Use your credit card to pay the expenses, pay yourself back with your HSA money and use that to pay your credit card bill. So she’s saving income tax on it because, and if you live in a no income tax state, that’s great.
Right. But so she’s saving federal income tax, she’s getting points from her credit card and she’s paying her bills. That’s great. And she’s not paying any taxes on that money. And then once she has her out of pocket max saved, then she can invest it. And she’s in her forties. Her CPA didn’t tell her to do that.
I’m not an accountant. The only class I ever failed in college was accounting. It was [00:25:00] full disclosure, but this makes total sense. If you have the discipline to do it.
Porschia: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. And yeah, I’m a millennial as well as you know, who graduated during that recession and things were very different, um, for us.
And I think that that has shifted a lot with when it comes to mindset, um, when it comes to Gen Xers. So, uh, the, uh, generation in between the boomers. And the millennials, um, be kind of what mid forties and 50 somethings. Have you noticed any trends in what they prefer as
Sirena: far as benefits? Not as much, it seems to be a mixed bag.
And I think part of it is just the mindset of, I’ve been able to put money away, I want something, and again, I think it goes back to how risk averse you are, but I want something that’s more predictable, or, and again, that [00:26:00] Asian demographics where stuff starts to go wrong, where there is sometimes a switch of, I want a, you know, high end PPO plan, the one thing that I do see is that everybody wants to be able to pick their own doctors, and everybody wants choice.
So the days of an employer saying, here’s your health plan and this is what it is are gone. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good health plan. The employee wants to be able to choose what they want. So you have to have two or three options now because everybody wants choice. The cookie cutter model is gone.
Porschia: Mm hmm. I agree. I agree. Uh, in other areas. Right. I’m not, I’m not an insurance. And I remember, you know, when you said everyone wants choice and cookie cutter plans, like I remember. Gosh, maybe 20 years ago, telling my parents about like, you know, dish cable. And why do you have to get 200 channels to get these two that you want?
Well, that’s just the way it is. And I said, you know, [00:27:00] it doesn’t have to be that way. People want to choose what they want. They want. And so, um, to your point, like, I think a lot of industries have been disrupted. Based on that idea, right? That choice. Um, so Serena, I saw this article that mentioned, um, some research that showed almost 70% of millennials would change jobs to ensure that they have fertility coverage.
I thought it was so interesting and I saved it. I bookmarked for this conversation with you. So have you noticed a trend around benefits that comes to fertility and family planning?
Sirena: Absolutely. So I used to get a question maybe every two years about that. And for many years, it was, Oh, we can add a writer onto your medical plan and you have to pay for it for everybody.
And they were super limited. You would have maybe 2, 000 lifetime. It wouldn’t cover things like in vitro. It might not cover [00:28:00] harvesting the exclusions on those writers were longer. By tens of pages than the actual benefits of what was covered. They were very very limiting. Um, and then Things started getting harder for especially millennials in terms of finding a job, of feeling financially secure, of being at the point where they had it, they felt like they had enough of their loans paid off to be able to start having a family.
And what do you do when time is ticking and you’re not financially secure? Like it’s so hard to be able to get to that point where, okay, I can buy a home. Okay. I have enough saved to be able to do this. I can afford to be out of the workforce for four to six months, right? That’s, that’s a huge thing for women that four to six months that we’re out of the workforce.
Every time we have a child is years off of our career and earning potential. And so companies have started asking, and I want to [00:29:00] say the last two, two and a half years, and what they’re doing is really neat. And there’s vendors. That have come up and all they do is assist with creating family planning plans for lack of a better term.
And what employers will do is they’ll say, okay, we’re going to give our employees 10, 000, 15, one time taxable because. This isn’t an ERISA plan, right? And this isn’t something that’s subject to Section 125. So these are taxable benefits. But, you can use this towards the paperwork that goes from adopting a child in one state and bringing them into your home state.
This, you can use it for in vitro, for, um, egg harvesting. You can use it for, uh, surrogate. You can use it to help facilitate an international adoption. Whatever family planning looks like for you, We’re going to give you some money to help ease that. [00:30:00] It’s not going to cover all of it, right? These are things that are costs tens of thousands of dollars, but here’s a bucket because we invest in you as an employee, because we want to make sure that you’re fulfilled as an employee.
And the studies have shown that for every dollar and employees, an employer spends on an employee with family planning, with wellness, with mental health, they’re getting a 4 return. Because that employee feels like they’re cared for and respected and seen as an individual and as a contributor. I feel like that’s super important to Millennials, to Gen Z ers, to be known that, yes, they’re a part of the team, but they’re also individual contributors.
So when an employer says, hey, I’m going to roll this benefit out to you, that employee may never use it. They may be done having a family. But the fact that the employer rolled it out to them, Even though they’re no longer subject to that, like, [00:31:00] cool, thank you so much for caring about me that if, you know, for whatever reason, I had two kids and could no longer have any and felt like my family was incomplete.
I now have some funds to help me. adopt. Thank you for seeing me and for meeting me there. So that’s absolutely something that we see a lot now.
Porschia: Wow. I, I was, you know, I think that I’ve always known benefits were important, uh, you know, just in terms of The way I thought about them and what I hear from clients, but I really love how you shared really that ROI, you know, for every dollar a company spends, they get that 4 return back, you know, from their employees.
And then that’s not even thinking about, you know, the goodwill of it. Right. And the employee engagement piece, which I think does kind of play into that. So thank you for sharing that Serena. Um, Also, how does this, uh, you know, conversation about family planning, um, apply to kind [00:32:00] of, you know, um, Roe v. Wade and some of the new legislation that’s come down when it comes to women wanting to, you know, kind of plan, uh, you know, I guess benefits for those sorts
Sirena: of things.
Yeah. So, um, it’s coming out and what has been done and what is being done is policies are not being rewritten to exclude this. And so if a policy is cited in California, in Florida, in New York, there’s no exclusion around the act. What companies are doing in addition to is they are creating special health reimbursement arrangements.
That will cover travel expenses if somebody needs to go from Alabama into Florida, right? Florida has a 15 week ban, um, so if it’s before the 15 weeks, they’ll cover the travel expenses. So that somebody can come, [00:33:00] they find the doctor, they come, they stay, they have their procedure done, and then they go home.
The procedure’s covered under the health plan, and the travel costs are covered under the health reimbursement arrangement. Word. At least at my firm, we’re not seeing where companies are coming down hard and saying, no, we’re going to exclude it. No, this isn’t something we’re going to be. We’re going to be covering the workplace has really changed since the pandemic and companies that were all in office have decided that they’re going to be all remote and their people can live wherever they want to live because they’re doing their job.
I don’t see as much micro managing as I used to employees really value. Those employees that are allowed to work remote that want to be remote they really value that freedom. So I feel like they really honor the employer that’s doing that. And. I see a lot of desire for equity, and this goes back to the whole conversation about a short term disability policy [00:34:00] where if one person lives in one state and they have access, then the person that lives in the state next door should have the same access, and so you facilitate it.
And really, when you’re talking about claims dollars, it’s not a lot, right? This isn’t torn ACLs. Right. It’s not as common, right? And so maybe you have, you know, out of 100 employees, you’d have two claims. It’s negligible, but your employees are taken care of. Your employees feel supported. Are they going to leave you to go somewhere else where that might not be a covered service?
Probably not. Yeah. Are they going to work harder? Thank you for taking care of me. I’m going to take care of you.
Porschia: Yeah. That, that employee engagement. I completely agree. Um, so what would you say is perhaps the biggest mistake you see companies make with their benefits packages?
Sirena: Not reviewing their contracts.[00:35:00]
I can’t tell you how many times I’ll go into a prospect and ask what they have, and I’ll have, and I’ll hear, Oh, we’re with X insurance company. Like I’ll say Guardian, for example, and it’s not always Guardian. We’ve been with them for 15 years. Oh, what lines of coverage do you have? Oh, we’ve got dental and life and disability.
Oh, okay. You’ve had them that in that one same place for the entire time. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, we’ve never changed it. We haven’t made any amendments. And then it becomes very difficult because how do you tell somebody that their broker’s not doing their job? Because a disability contract or a life contract written 10 or 15 years ago is probably going to make sure, make it so that they’re underinsuring their people now.
And they’re paying for this premium where The employees aren’t even going to get a benefit for it. A dental contract written 15 years ago when a company had 10 employees does not suit the [00:36:00] company with 75 or 150. Their buying power was less, their contract options were less. They’re not able to compete.
So you need to look at it. And ancillary contracts need to be reviewed a minimum of every like 36 months. Wow. All right. The volumes changed.
Porschia: Yeah. Well, we know everyone needs to come and talk to you. So tell us about your firm, uh, new front insurance, and also tell us about, you know, your book of business within the firm and kind of how you can help companies with their employee benefits.
Sirena: Yeah. So new front is, um, the very first tech enabled brokerage. And what that means is because that sounds like a lot of buzzwords. Um, what that means is that our founders I had one person that was an absolute stereotypical tech [00:37:00] guy, right, that, hey, insurance is a pain and there is this stack of paper and you have to do everything manually and things have to go via fax and you have to ask for everything and you can’t see anything and you don’t know how to find information.
You don’t know how to find what’s covered. You don’t know who your people are at the carrier. Uh, cumbersome is a very good word. When you think about insurance, right, it’s worse than banking. It has not progressed into the two thousands at all. And so what we do is the firm is we try to shed light on a very opaque process and we try to make our clients partners.
And so on the property and casualty side, that means that they have visibility into their policies, into seeing how many cars they have covered, into seeing who their drivers are, into being able to request certificates when they need one in 15 minutes, and not have to wait for somebody to answer their phone and email something back to them.
[00:38:00] Right, so we really try to enable the consumer in a way that they can run their business more efficiently. On the benefits side, and We’re creating tools that, um, going back to choice that help guide an employee to what their specific need is based on how much they want to spend in a year with how they want to access their facilities and what their user experience is to the best health plan that’s going to give them the best bang for their buck and maximize their dollars.
Um, so those tools are all proprietary and it’s really neat. To be able to be a part of like developing those and talking to the developers and Oh, what about this? Oh, we didn’t think about that. Okay, good, you know, give us a couple of weeks We’re gonna go make an adjustment and then come back We have a fabulous vendor management program that basically gives us cheat sheets on vendors So if somebody comes to me and says hey, I need a fertility planner [00:39:00] I can go into our vendor management tool and look at all of the fertility management companies and say, okay you have 125 employees These will suit you.
Okay, you want to do this. This will suit you and narrow it down where before I would have had to make 10 phone calls to figure it out or just say, Oh, here I work at these guys call them and it might not be the right fit for them. So it helps me as an advisor kind of vet and narrow down the market and that works for flexible spending accounts or for, you know, wellness providers or flu clinics, you know, Um, as for my book of business, I love All things that are alternative funding.
So I like level funded plans because you can write a level funded plan for a much smaller size company than a fully self insured plan is the level funding is like self insurance light. So the company pays a portion of its claims and the carrier pays a [00:40:00] portions of its claims and they work together.
And it’s beautiful because you can get that way below a hundred lives. If a company is going to scale. When they hit that hundred life mark, they’re not going to underwriters. They’re not going to actuaries with, okay, here’s our census. Give us the best rates. They’re saying, here’s our census. Here’s the last two years of claims.
We don’t have any large claims. What’s your best rate? Not what are you going to give me? And so it puts the power back in the pocket of the consumer. And I feel like a lot of people think about group health plans and they don’t think that they’re consumers. Right? You shop around for the best prices on shoes.
Inflation is insane. You shop around for the best prices on eggs. If you’re getting an electronic, a TV or something, you’re comparison shopping. Why would your health plan be different if you’re buying for a company? You comparison shop. Well, the only way that you can comparison shop and have any, any [00:41:00] power at all is if you have actual experience.
And so that’s why I say I like working with scaling companies. If you know in two years you want to be on over 100 employees and you know how you’re going to get there, we need to get rid of your fully insured contract. We need to put some power back in your hands. And then when that time comes, then you’ve got the power, not the insurance company.
And that’s a beautiful situation to be in. Another thing that I like to do is put in a health reimbursement arrangement. Maybe a company for whatever reason, maybe they’ve got high claimants, maybe they’re not comfortable with the idea of paying for their own claims, but they want to rein in their costs.
So we drop their platinum plan down to a bronze and we put in a high deductible. And then they fund a portion of the claims for the employees. You know, the employees get a little debit card and say the deductible 7, 000 and the company is willing to pay for five. Statistically, 30% of a company [00:42:00] is going to use their entire funding.
25 to 30%. I’ll use maybe 1, 000. Everybody else won’t touch it. So they’re saving money. They’re seeing costs. And then their employees are like, okay, cool. We have almost the same health plan we had before. My company is paying my claims. That’s awesome. And so there’s absolutely creative ways to do it. It’s just a conversation where you have to sit down.
And have buy in from the person. So my process is I’ll go in and we’ll have a discovery meeting. We’ll have a discovery call, right? And I’ll very high level what I just explained and then say, okay, let’s quote, let’s look at numbers and then come back with an actual based on their demographics, right? So their employee ages, the genders, how many dependents they have, the ages of the dependent.
With projections [00:43:00] based on your population, this is what the claims should be. This is best case scenario. This is worst case scenario and present it. And then it comes down to the CFO being risk adverse or not. And okay, yes, we can do this or we’re going to change the amount. Um, same thing on a level funding contract.
That is not a short term solution. That is, we need to be there for three years to see how it works. And then we can start making contract changes. Data for claims is not mature, and so you have two years. That first year, you’re only going to see six to nine months of claims. You really have to wait until the second cycle so that you have a full 12 months to see how the policy is running.
And it’s the third renewal that you have truly mature data. 24 months plus running to see if there’s any trends, right? Because it’s a bell curve. 2020 was a weird year, thanks to COVID. There were huge costs. But the feds picked him up because it was COVID [00:44:00] related. Non urgent surgeries were postponed.
Right. So 2021 saw much higher claims because things were postponed from 2020. But you need to have the look back period to be able to See that like, yes, claims were super low. Okay. They started, then they got high in 2022. They’re leveling out.
Porschia: Yeah. Wow. Lots of great information, Serena. It sounds like your company really simplifies the process with technology for employees.
I love what you said about kind of. Figuring out, you know, helping, you know, someone to figure out the best plan for them. And then obviously what you explained with companies, right? Doing that analysis and providing those projections based on data. Um, it’s, it’s really, really interesting. Um, we are going to provide links to your social channels in our show notes so people can [00:45:00] find you online.
But what’s the best way for someone to get in touch with
Sirena: you? Email. All right. Email. LinkedIn. I’m one of those people. They’re self. I’m in sales. I’m in service. My cell phone’s always on me. So I get pinged.
Porschia: All right. Yeah. Well, we will, uh, let everyone know to reach out to you. Um, and the last question for you, Serena, um, how do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in their career?
Sirena: I think you need to learn how to listen, like truly, truly listen. Be willing to have an open mind when you talk to somebody and meet them where they’re at. And whenever you don’t understand something, ask a question. Because if you’re asking a question, you’re actually trying to understand. You’re not just walking away with an assumption.
And above all, [00:46:00] be nice to everybody.
Porschia: I love it. I love it. Well, Serena, you’ve shared a lot of wisdom with us today and I think some secrets too about benefits that I didn’t know. I’m sure that our listeners can use it to really help them be more confident when they’re thinking about, um, their own. You know, benefits that, you know, their company might offer.
And then also companies, you know, when they’re thinking about what to offer and all of that for their employees. So, uh, we appreciate you being with us.
Sirena: Thanks for having me. This is awesome.
