Reid Rasmussen is one of the few who’ll say it: Reform’s beengood for him. Of course, he’s quick to clarify.

“I’d rather not have reform the way that it came,” headds.

But you could argue it gave birth to his business. And forbrokers who can look past the inky blackness of the tunnel, thereis a pinprick of light peeking through the other side.

Benefits – especially on the health side – cost more thanever. While employee satisfaction with those benefits hover at anall-time low. So, as Rasmussen points out, no amount of health carereform in the world will solve that issue.

“We have some different approaches. We’ve pushed people to thesehigher out-of-pocket costs plans, and we called it ‘consumerisum’and have worked for years now, but the out-of-pocket costs arecontinuing to grow there, too. Members need tools to help them bebetter consumers,” he says.

Keep in mind this tirade came by way of asking what,specifically, he does at Benefit Brainstorm, a company he startedjust three years ago, on the eve of the Patient Protection andAffordable Care Act’s passage into law – kind of like picking upsome Facebook stock at the opening bell.

At its simplest, Rasmussen’s firm design and packages ancillarybenefit plans – working with both carriers and brokers to offerclients the most comprehensive – and affordable – benefits plans.(And, no, we didn’t just rip this off the company’s website.)

But I’ll let him finish the story.

“Most agents have done a poor job of actually finding some ofthose tools,” he continues. “There are companies out there doing agood job in this space, but the practical issue is they cost solittle that a lot of agents don’t go and do their research to gofind three (or four, five or six) of these different consumerismtools to implement because they make so little money off of them.And it’s not an insult.

“What we did at Benefit Brainstorm was we saw there were somegood ideas out there. They [were] marketed by people focused onjust one little portion of the puzzle and didn’t have an insurancebackground so they couldn’t message it properly for an agent. Sowe’re a single-source solution for non-insurance benefits with thegoal of working with these various vendors who have these othertools.”Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, how’s businessbeen?

“It’s good. [I’ve learned] you need a different message whetheryou’re talking to small group, large group or an individual. And soa lot of what we’ve learned in the first few years is how tofinesse that differently for the large group vs. small andindividual sales. We’ve found a lot of the innovative brokers whoare more strategic in their approach and in their sales. We’veworked with a few carriers to build programs with them.

“Regardless of what happens, our business is gonna continue. Butreform is pushing innovative ideas to the forefront, so we’rewinning more because of reform and because it’s pushing brokers tofind some of those unique solutions.”

Benefits Selling: I’ve found brokers won’treally look for that sort of thing unless they’re forcedto…

RR: I’d agree with that. You know you takesomething like telehealth. It’s been around for a decade. It’s beenavailable at the small broker level for a little while. It’s a newidea, it’s different and in the past the broker would look at itand say, “Well, I don’t make that much money with it.” Whereas nowthey’re so much more open to say, “I have to find different ways toserve my clients.”

Their clients have been pushed to the wall as far as costs goand they’re being pushed to find new ideas. You know none of uschange if things are working well, and we’re making a ton ofmoney.

BS: So where do you see yourself going forward.What does the next year or two look like for you?

RR: Nothing but growth. We’re seeingtremendous interest from brokers. A lot from those who work onlarge [cases] because those larger groups … are looking foreverything they can do – beyond just wellness programs – to cutdown their loss ratio and so our services more than pay for itself.A company loses money every month they don’t have our programs inplace.

Carriers are starting to wake up again to some new ideas.They’ve been so busy with health care reform for so much of thelast two years that many of them couldn’t think about a differentidea even if it made complete sense to their bottom line. So we’regetting some carriers who’re looking for how they can expand beyondjust medical. And more and more brokers we see are looking for newways to help clients and make money. In all those categories we’reseeing growth, so that’s our biggest issue: figuring out we’ve gotto focus our energies on those really producing the biggest bangfor the buck. A lot of the next year is going to be staying focusedon those who are very strategic and ready to move. And brokers whoare just kicking the tires. We aren’t gonna spend as much time withthem as we have in the past.

BS: You’re in a unique position to weigh in onthe relationship between brokers and carriers. How arethings?

RR: I worked for both carriers and generalagencies over the years. Now I’m an independent. I think brokersare all looking at the carrier relationship as a love-haterelationship. Maybe that’s not the phrase. I don’t know that I’dsay it that way but here’s what I would say: I don’t think thecommission cuts are done.

Last year around the country we saw a lot of carriers cut about10 percent on the standard commissions. I think there’s probablyanother 10 percent deduction that will probably find it’s way intothe market over the next two years. And there aren’t many peopleactually saying that. I think the – I think there will be someefficiencies that come out reform that will make business a littlebit easier to process. Some of the forms, some of the processes forsubmitting business will be more consistent across carriers. Somaybe it will be OK the prices come down a bit.

BS: How do you see brokersresponding?

RR: My guess is that a third of today’s brokerswill be out of the business in a few years. Our average age is,what, 57? I speak to groups of brokers around the country andit just looks to me that a lot of them aren’t gonna relearn thewhole industry all over again.

I think the other brokers who are there, those who change andare much more strategic and are willing to change the way that workwill pick up new business. They’ll learn how to serve the clientsin more ways than they ever did before. I think clients or brokerswill bill for certain services whether its HR consulting orgovernment reporting consulting, there will be areas where they’rebilling for services they wouldn’t have thought they would be. So Ithink brokers will do fine. I think people want advice. They wantan advisor, but the brokers who stick around are gonna be those who‘do business differently in the future than you do now.’ And Ithink those brokers who do will do very well.

BS: Do you also see voluntary products playingmore of a role?

RR: A lot of the brokers have never reallylearned how to sell differently into the voluntary space, as youknow. And a lot of agents might have dabbled in it. I won’t say I’man expert in voluntary, but I think an agent is blind if they’renot trying to figure out how to work in that space.

BS: What about the potential death of theemployer-paid benefits model? What does that mean for brokers? Ordo you even buy into that at all?

RR: I think employers are still gonna beinvolved in benefits. I’m from Canada originally. And in Canada alot of employers are still the channel to provide benefits toemployees. And this is 45 years after it was implemented as a muchmore nationalized program than we’re gonna have here. So you knowit works there and it continues to be sold that way. So I thinksome employers will get out of it; yeah I do. And I think thatdynamic of why an employer provides benefits will change. Insteadof it just being “I have to do this” they’re gonna very consciouslyunderstand why they’re providing benefits to their people and whythey want to. So I think some brokers will remain in the employermarket and will get better at articulating why an employer wouldwant to provide benefits to their people, and they’ll talk aboutthe social aspects within their group and they’ll talk about thefinancial and they’ll talk about the issues more than we have soldthat in the past decade, right? I think there will be tens ofmillions of Americans who used to get benefits through theiremployers who will be out on the open market. I think it will be ahuge market for people who can talk to a consumer about theirbenefits.

BS: In that regard you can almost arguethere’s this huge opportunity that’s coming as much as a you wouldargue it’s a disaster?

RR: I completely agree. Like I said, it will bedifferent: It will be those brokers who are strategic and willingto change the way they do business, not do it the same old way. Theentire industry needs to learn to be able to talk to the consumerbetter than they ever have. They’re horrible at it. And in thatsense people who have the voluntary experience will smoke thebrokers who don’t understand voluntary sales.

BS: So on the consumer side, do you see furthergrowth there, too.

RR: Completely.

BS: Do you see the consumers getting it morethan they used to? Or are they just being forced to?

RR: Honestly, not really. I see a certainpopulation of the country care about their health and fitness. AndI see a whole bunch of others who know they should eat less andthey should move more and just don’t. And they don’t want to betold what to do and I think wellness programs within companies aregood. But honestly it’s not like we didn’t know we should behealthier. It’s not an information issue; it’s a motivationissue.

But do I think consumers understand their health caremore? I think there’s appetite for them to understand it more. Ithink they’re completely frustrated with the system we’ve created.One of the services I mentioned we implement are advocacy servicesand basically it’s like having a friend who’s an industry insiderin the insurance business. People love the idea of having somebodywho can help them navigate the system. They want to able tonavigate it more and they want to be able to navigate it better,but they really don’t understand anything we’re throwing their way.Explanations of benefits are explaining anything, and it’s nobenefit to anybody. It’s a waste of paper, and people need somebodyto explain it to them and so that’s why we have these services. Ithink we’re gonna see great opportunity with things likeoutsourcing those services. People need help. And they do – toanswer your question which you started with is “are people gettingit more?” I don’t think they are but I think they’d like to.

BS: So are we seeing the death of the smallgroup?

RR: I think there will be a tremendousfluctuation in the small group market in the next couple years. Ithink what will potentially happen is agents will lose the smallbook group of business right now, we’ll be going through theexchange because the members will get subsidized if they go throughthe exchange

Why? Because 53 percent of the population will get asubsidy if they go through the exchange. I think we’re gonna seehalf the population go through the exchange for their medical. Andso that’s a huge incentive for employers and small groups to shiftwhere they get their medical and I think we’re gonna see it happen.I think brokers are gonna see a tremendous amount of their bookgone. They’ll scramble to figure out how they can sell anythingelse to those people, keep them as clients. And that’s where I’mvery positive about our business and where some of our growthopportunity is: cross-selling to small groups because brokers arefrantic to serve those people other products.

BS: So do you see us headed down thatpath?

RR: America’s social structure is differentthan every other country in the world that has nationalized healthcare. And as such I don’t think it will play out the same way herethat it has in other countries. But every time I talk to thepeople, they’re upset by their insurance. It’s confusing and theyfeel as out of control with it as they think it would be if they goto the government. So it’s kind of how we’ve gotten here. I reallywished we hadn’t and I think the freedom-thinking American isn’tgoing to play well with a nationalized health care program likeCanada’s. But I’m concerned how much the government is gettinginvolved in the health care system. I don’t think it’s gonna bringefficiency. I don’t think it’s gonna bring lower costs. I thinkit’s gonna bring a lot of burden of bureaucracies and I don’t thinkthat will play well in America.

BS: So are we responsible for where weare?

RR: I wish five years ago we, as an industry,had embraced transparency and consumerism. We spoke about it, a fewthings got implemented but we didn’t pursue it like our livelihoodsand the freedom of choice in the American health care systemdepended upon it. We might have missed the window. I won’t blamethe carrier. It’s one-sixth of the American economy. We’re allresponsible. And the public is responsible for not rioting when thebill got signed by a minority two years ago. I won’t blamecarriers, I won’t blame agents. But we’re here now.