fbpx
Who owns your benefits consultant

Who Owns Your Benefits Consultant? It Matters!

“The Benefit Company is Committed to Remaining Privately Held”, one brochure stated.  We recently had an internal discussion about employers being better off as a client of our firm because we are Privately Held.

One of our team members asked, “Do employers care if we are Privately Held?”  An immediate response included, “…nimble, flexible, entrepreneurial – we don’t have to form a $1,000 committee to solve a $100 problem…”   Someone else finished their sentence with, “blah, blah, blah.”

So why is an Employee Benefits Consulting firm’s private ownership relevant to employers?

  1. Client Service Culture:  Teams focus on clients and their employees before the bottom line and their future employment.
  2. Team Stability and Consistency:  Client team retention is high and service culture is preserved.  Happy employees provide better service.
  3. Decisive:  Clients have direct access to decision makers.

How do you tell if your Employee Benefits Consulting firm is preparing to sell or has sold?

  • Increased turnover of staff
  • Inaccessible employees; “9-5 mindset”
  • Reduced innovation
  • Increased “nickel and dime” fees
  • Waves of disruption – email changes, rebranding, database changes, etc.
  • Long-term contracts required
  • “Tone” changes from employees.

When numbers are crunched and ridiculous multiples are being offered to sell, one thing that never hits the P&L is the human side of the equation.  Why should this matter to employers?

Exhibit A:  Over the past seven years, The Benefit Company has not lost an Account Executive;

Exhibit B:  Our seven-year persistency is 97%, and it increases to 99% when excluding clients acquired; and,

Exhibit C:  A common refrain for our employees is, “I plan to retire here.”

Bottom Line:  People over Profits – culture!  That’s why the Benefit Company chooses to follow the path of private ownership, and such is directly impactful to employers looking for long-term strategy and execution.

 

John A. Hearn

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Hearn
Principal

Contact Information

  • Self-funding
  • Employee Benefits Captives
  • Data Analytics
  • Population Health Management
  • Absence Management
  • Ancillary Benefit Procurement
Next Post Previous Post

Comments are closed.