Taking center stage

DALLAS -- Ours is a boring business. Sounds harsh, but it certainly looks that way from the outside. And even most insiders confirm that if you can catch them in a moment of weakness.

Sharon Alt agrees -- hell, it's one of the first things she'll tell you. But she also insists it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, she argues it can't continue to be if we all want jobs tomorrow. Which is why she's made it her personal crusade to entertain agents and employers alike while she battles back escalating calls for a single-payer health care system.

"If you can make people laugh, you can make them listen to you," she says. And, damn, can she make you laugh.

Right now, over steaks and the house Pinot Grigio, she's happy to talk about what's wrong with the industry, what's right and why brokers are just as responsible for the weeds choking back the growth as the carriers and regulators.

Her voice is starting to carry, too.

It rings throughout the Lone Star State, where she plays an incredibly active role on the boards of both the Forth Worth and Texas chapters of the Health Underwriters Association. She's a past president of the local chapter, current media chair, and in 2008 she'll assume the mantle of national media chair for the National Association of Health Underwriters.

Mike Rivera is a big fan. The TAHU president says she's been fantastic.

"She's been a very dynamic and highly respected contributor to our organization," he says.

Her voice crosses the country on her weekly radio show.

But her path to Texas-sized celebrity can't be traced to any self-help book or entrepreneurial manual. Because she didn't just take the road less traveled, she had to pave her own way.

From beach bum ...

Alt's improbable rise began nearly 30 years ago, when the 14-year-old fled her Bellville, Ohio, home with her 17-year-old boyfriend. They landed on a Florida beach -- in Tampa, to be exact. During the day, they would pick oranges with the day laborers, while dusk found them trolling along the beach for bottles. They lived that way -- on the beach -- for three months.

"We got a nickel a bottle, which we stashed in our savings," she recalls.

A few months later, Alt and her then-fianc?(C) returned to Ohio, armed with a modest bankroll and a stack of legal papers. Good thing, too, since officers greeted them at the state line with handcuffs.

"They arrested us as soon as we crossed the border," she explains. "It seems they put out a national all points bulletin on both of us."

But Alt knew what she was doing. They returned just before her boyfriend's 18th birthday, so the authorities couldn't hold them.

After their release, one of the officers even praised her legal prowess.

"He told us he'd never dealt with a runaway who didn't tell at least one person where they went. He admitted they had no way to find us," she says.

Soon after, she stood before a judge with a lawsuit and a pregnancy test.

"In Ohio at the time, you couldn't marry that young unless you were pregnant and emancipated," she explains.

So, she sued for her independence, won and married a week later. She never looked back.

Next thing she knew, Alt and her new husband -- a freshly minted soldier -- found themselves stationed in the Philippines, after a basic-training stint in Fort Worth, Texas.

While her friends attended high school dances and fretted over final exams, she stood hunched over a washboard, scrubbing her clothes by hand. She also gave birth to the first and second of their three children there.

Three years later, after her husband wrapped his tour of duty, they returned to Fort Carswell in Fort Worth.

...to broker's best friend

Holding back a laugh, she recalls the day her husband told her he'd spent $750 to incorporate her business, Alt Benefit Consultants Inc.

"I was so mad at him for doing that without telling me," she recalls without a trace of anger. "We needed that money for at least a dozen other things."

In fact, she couldn't even bring herself to do anything about her newborn company. She let it sit for two years before going to work.

A decade later, the third-party administrator boasts 10 employees and a healthy client base, most in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.

Oh, and for the record, Alt and her husband Chris celebrate their 25th anniversary this month.

Alt's area of expertise is in the design, implementation and compliance of Section 125 and 105 plans. Her average client size hovers in the 250-to-500-employee range.

"Our smallest client has five employees and our biggest is the city of San Antonio, with about 30,000 workers," she says.

But she's feeling the squeeze. As banks, carriers and CPAs continue to dabble in the benefits business, while offering so-called "free" administration, employers are turning away from strictly admin-only TPAs.

"It's strictly a loss leader for these big guys. They just want the business so they can sell employers on all these other products. And the profit margins are already so tight," she laments.

But, as Alt is so quick to point out, there's nothing free in life. And over the long haul, Alt predicts, these same ambitious companies will be backing out of the administration business as quickly as they're jumping into it now.

Until then, Alt finds herself forced to look at other sources of potential income, She's looking at getting into the voluntary side of the business, but as any group broker will tell you, it's easier said than done. She swore an oath she would go into business to help brokers, not work against them.

"Our biggest draw is that we never compete with our brokers or agents," she says.

Alt is also a fiend about paperwork. She has to be. It's why she believes that those big fish dipping their fins into the administrative pool won't swim in it for long.

"Compliance is everything," she insists.

Show and tell

Alt is a strong believer in what she calls tithing. She can't stand brokers who stand around and complain about the state of the industry without doing anything about it. For her, it's simple.

"If you have an insurance license, you should be in an association," she says.

Alt attended her first FWAHU meeting in 1997.

"By the second meeting, I was the hospitality chair," she recalls.

Shortly after that, she penned a two-hour continuing education-certified course covering health savings accounts and Section 125 compliance.

If nothing else becomes apparent after a couple of hours with Alt, it's her passion for fighting for the industry. And it's not simply a matter of ideology. Active association involvement also generates leads.

"I'd say 95 percent of my business comes from [NAHU]," she points out.

She's so passionate about her association involvement, in fact, that her husband manages their business while she devotes most of her time to fighting for the industry -- and employers.

At one happy hour following an association meeting a couple of years ago, Fort Worth agent Peggy Bass tossed out a crazy idea. They would stage a skit -- a game show parody.

"She called it Insurance Jeopardy," Alt recalls, "And I played Vanna White."

The skit played off of the long-running game show -- obviously with a few liberties taken with the host characters -- that also featured a faux Alex Trebek and a handful of uneducated contestants. The point, to hear Alt tell it, was to educate attendees about the business with a cocktail of parody and presentation.

It worked

"Everybody loved it," she laughs.

The skit spawned at least one sequel and a handful of spin-offs, including another game show spoof, "The Price is Hidden," addressing price transparency, and "Bulletproof Man," which took on the uninsured worker.

Yet another popular skit sprang out of a trip to the salon.

"I was getting my hair cut," Alt says, "when the hairdresser just blurted out, 'We should socialize medicine in this country.'"

That, of course, led to the "Government-Run Hair Salon," which framed socialized medicine within the confines of a federal spa. It was an immediate audience favorite.

Alt's also appeared in the debut theatrical presentation of "Death, Taxes, and Rising Health Insurance Premiums: Are They All Inevitable?"

Radio free Fort Worth

Her frequent -- and increasingly popular -- stage performances drew the attention of Brian Travis over at Motovox, an online media distribution company. He wanted Alt to host a new show on the VoicaAmerica Health and Wellness channel on the company's Internet radio division.

Alt couldn't believe it. "I've never even called into a radio show before, let alone hosted one."

So, on March 31, 2005, "Inside Health Insurance in America" first hit the Internet airwaves. The weekly broadcast -- with co-host Mark Bellman -- features some of the industry's biggest names talking about the latest issues and legislation facing brokers, employers and employees. The show, in its second season, also got a new name, "The Benefits Buzz."

In fact, VoiceAmerica recently named Alt its 2006 Health and Wellness host of the year.

Alt readily admits she's a crusader.

"My passion is more for the industry than my own business," she says. And for 15 years, she's channeled that passion into clearing away the cloud of mystique, jargon and misconceptions that swirls around the insurance industry like a thunderhead. And that, she'll tell you, threatens our livelihood more than any legislation or bad press.

Douglas Adams once wrote, "I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."

Sharon Alt packs a bucketful of awe every time she runs an enrollment, takes the stage or steps behind the microphone. The understanding, she says, will come.