Jani De La Rosa
Senior Vice President, Heffernan Insurance Brokers
San Francisco
Let's set aside for a second that Heffernan Insurance Brokers consistently ranks as one of the best places to work in the insurance business – and the Bay Area. Just ask any of the company's roughly 400 employees. In fact, just a few months ago Business Insurance called the brokerage the best place to work in the insurance business in the mid-sized broker category.

And never mind that the independent brokerage house, founded back in 1988, is a Bay Area leader in philanthropy, according to the San Francisco Bay Times, which reported the company donated more than half a million dollars in cash to area charities. And, yes, let's forget for a second that last year, while stimulus packages did very little stimulating and jobs dried up quicker than your neighborhood banks, this is a company that posted its biggest profit ever.

No, what we're concerned about is the booming employee benefits division Jani De La Rosa started at the company back in 1993. In fact, when CEO Mike Heffernan brought her aboard to get the division up and running, she was the entire department. Now, less than 10 years later, the employee benefits arm employs 45 while bringing in about $5 million annually.

But it was a slow start early on, and despite De La Rosa's hands-on experience – both on the carrier and broker sides of the business – it took about three years to get the business up and running profitably.
“And that was when Mike told me it was time for me to decide whether I wanted to manage or I wanted to sell,” De La Rosa recalls. “And my heart and soul is in sales; so I chose sales.”

Heffernan's a brokerage house built on niche business. It's quite literally the secret to their success. De La Rosa's no exception. The core of her book of business is nonprofits, a niche she couldn't be more proud to represent. She remains very involved with her clients and has even been known to give large chunks of her commission back to the very nonprofits she represents.

Brian Hassan
Founder, BayPoint Benefits
San Francisco
Brian Hassan's career includes stints with Silicon Valley start-ups to multinational corporations. To say he's got experience on all levels of benefits management and compliance would be an understatement.
Hassan's background also includes “corporate risk modeling/forecasting, payroll and benefits administration, health care claims consulting, hospital and managed care contract consulting and HRIS implementation.”"As a benefits adviser, I find that it is critical to develop well thought-out strategies that compliment the goals and growth of my clients.

I collaborate with my clients and teach them to see benefits as an investment in sustainable business success. It is important to teach them to effectively utilize the resources available to meet their employees' needs. The key is leveraging benefits as a tool to retain and secure the best talent while maximizing every dollar spent so that there is meaningful return to the bottom line. This is becoming of greater importance in today's economy where businesses have to accomplish more with less, putting even greater emphasis on the effective and efficient use of its human capital.

The health reform legislation provides a unique opportunity for benefits advisers to enhance their value to clients. Companies already are wrestling with the problems of a deep recession. Then along comes complex health reform legislation with broad impact yet vague in its application. Employers appear to be unanimous in the expectation that health reform means higher costs and with this comes a myriad of regulations involving adjustments and choices. Benefits advisers are an ideal resource for interpreting the short and long-term impact of the legislation. Because of the extent of the legislation and the legal issues that have surfaced, as well of the phasing in of its provisions, benefits advisers will have quite a challenge to service clients. This challenge is, at the same time, an opportunity.”

Justin Roberts
Managing Director, BayPoint Benefits
San Francisco
Justin Roberts is all outside-the-box strategy with hands-on client attention. This philosophy “drives both his love for tackling challenges and his adherence to the promise of accessibility and responsiveness.”
The managing director at BayPoint Benefits boasts experience working in the professional employer organizations, employee leasing industry, as well as international HR policy formulation, professional and facility claims analysis, payroll systems integration, and benefit administration.

But it's not the past. It's what lies ahead, that concerns this Broker of the Year finalist: “The health care reform landscape is still taking shape and those advisers who anticipate and proactively prepare for the post-reform marketplace will obviously have significant advantages. Whether you believe the health care reform is the biggest hurdle over come in the last decade or you feel that this is a large box of new taxes wrapped up and stamped health care reform, the answer really doesn't matter.

The reality is that the rate of health care spending has outpaced income growth over the past several years. Rising health care costs are a major concern, to the degree that health care costs are soaring not because of better care but because the system lacks incentives to cut costs. Health care reform is much too big of an issue to slip by the American people. No matter where you fall on the utilization scale of our health care system, each one of us will be responsible for a portion of the bill. The confusion stems from the lack of transparency and understanding.

My thoughts and hopes about health care reform are at times at each end of the spectrum. My hope is that with this change comes innovation and advancement from the way health care is delivered to how it is administered. Let's face it: this is the biggest change that the broker community has seen in years but it is just the beginning. The days of the 'insurance agent' have passed. Meaning, delivering that 150-page rate book to your clients and expecting to receive a 5 percent to 7 percent monthly residual income will ultimately result in a diminishing book of business. Those that are 'Benefits Advisers' – individuals that think strategicly and teach clients how to effectively leverage benefits as multi-purpose tools–will be the professionals retaining their clients and capitalizing on less innovative competitors.”

David Shore
Vice President & Underwriting Practice Leader, The Protector Group Insurance Agency Inc.
Worcester, Mass.
If there's anything you take away from a conversation with David Shore, it's that brokers need to learn (pretty quickly) that they're going to have to start doing a lot more work without being able to charge more.
See, Shore, vice president and underwriting practice leader at The Protector Group Insurance Agency Inc. in Worcester, Mass., knows a little something about health care reform. He's living the dream (nightmare?) already in Massachusetts. And has been since day one of that state's historic experiment with universal coverage.

More importantly, though, Shore is a crusader. In fact, what he has to say is far more important that anything I have to add: “As Ronald Reagan famously said, 'The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' By way of background, the Massachusetts insurance exchange, 'The Connector,' which is principally run by former insurance executives, undoubtedly understood the role of the broker when implementing state reform in 2006. Operating in a state with a looming fiscal crisis, they relied heavily on the broker community as non-compensated messengers of reform. Today, that relationship is strained, as The Connector spends tax payer money duplicating the private sector distribution channel with no material added value for small businesses.

With respect to the financial consequences of health care reform [here], I'm disappointed to say that both the cost of care and subsequent cost for coverage continues to rise at a record pace in our state. Facing a tough re-election bid, our governor has taken unprecedented action and all but ignored the findings of the Massachusetts Attorney General and Department of Health Care Finance & Policy on the true premium cost drivers in Massachusetts. As a coincidentally timed April 1 announcement, the governor rejected the small business health insurance rate increases filed by our local, nonprofit HMOs for April, May and June effective dates. These increases reflected the cost of a mature health care reform bill that chose to address access without properly addressing cost. Sadly, I feel that the federal legislation does much the same.

Regardless of which side of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act fence you sit on, the passage of this landmark legislation presents at least one immutable truth for health and welfare brokers: Our clients trust and rely on our expertise and advice; they will turn to us for help. To be successful, we must do more for our clients. We must reinvest our existing commission revenues into resources that help our clients understand, comply, and communicate these changes.”

Lorraine Strickland
President/CEO, Fringe Benefits Management Co.
Tallahassee, Fla.
Lorraine Strickland knows what she's talking about, even if she might swim against the current. President and chief executive officer of Fringe Benefits Management Co., Strickland has been in the employee benefits business for almost 30 years now. She's also a public speaker, author, and is very active.

But perhaps most importantly, Strickland disagrees – strongly – that the health care reform we now face is the end of the world. Change is hard, she concedes, but not changing can be harder: “Yes, it has been a long, painful process, but one which we should celebrate as our American constitutional right and privilege to act upon principles of commitment to the well-being of all. The health care crisis as evidenced by uncontrollable rising costs has not been a bipartisan issue; we all have agreed for some time that a problem threatening our future economic survival must be solved. Of course the specific manner in which the crisis is attacked will be debated but the question of needed reform has been courageously answered.

We cannot expect to evolve into a meaningful and successful society when our basic biological and physiological needs (Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: air, food, shelter) including health and wellness cannot be met. This concept can be misconstrued as socialism when in fact it is basic economics. Remember: there is no free lunch. In other words, we will pay for our uninsured and unhealthy one way or another. Anyone who thinks business owners do not already shoulder the burden of cost is misguided. If employers continue to be expected to provide access to health care as we do now (versus the government) then the cost eventually will be paid by all consumers of goods and services as prices increase to cover the inefficiency of the current systems.

Take a look at Jackson Health Systems in Miami, once one of the top-rated hospitals in the country now facing bankruptcy and insolvency primarily because the rate of uninsured coverage provided is simply too great. The cost will only shift if the hospital closes, not disappear. Unless we are willing to be a society that can literally turn our back on the sick and dying then we must change.

As King Whitney Jr., executive director for the National Urban League from 1961-71, said, 'Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things might get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.' We have the opportunity and the responsibility in our profession to make things better.”