Chelsea Whalley is an employee benefits consultant, COO and partner at J Donovan Financial, where she makes an impact through strategic marketing strategies, evidence-based wellness initiatives, education-driven enrollments and designing effective cost containment strategies with enhanced benefit programs.

Paul Wilson: How did you get your start in the benefits industry?

In college, I wanted to be a human rights attorney and then moved into pre-med. During my last year of college, I was hit in the head by a softball. One of the only things I could do after a year-long rehab program was to slowly get back into work; I couldn't go back to school or anything like that. I wanted to help people, so I went into the nonprofit space.

Colonial Life was the title sponsor of my largest fundraiser and, after a year of partnering with them in my nonprofit, I decided to join them and take the leap into insurance. It took me a long time to make that jump, because I didn't believe I could help people like I did in nonprofit. I quickly learned how wrong this assumption was.

After six months with Colonial Life, I ended up opening my own agency. I think I was the youngest in the industry at that time. And that was great, especially because that model introduced me to my current business partner, Donovan Ryckis. He was doing group benefits, and so we had the traditional broker enrollment firm partnership for a couple of years. Eventually we put our companies together to form our independent agency, J Donovan Financial. Having an amazing partner has allowed me to focus on the parts of the business that I love and have a passion for, and he gets to do the same.

PW: How have these experiences helped shape your current perspective and priorities as a broker?

The biggest thing I've learned from my past, including my head injury and my nonprofit work, is that everything needs to be focused on communication. When I was dealing with my injury, I had no idea how to navigate the health care system. When I moved into the nonprofit world, I had amazing benefits, but no one ever told me how to use them.

I think the future of our industry has everything to do with marketing—both marketing benefits plans to employees and marketing yourself. We're in an age of information, but it can lead to overload. How do you grab people's attention? How do you educate them and entice them? You don't see a lot of people effectively doing both and that's something I focus on.

Chelsea Whalley

PW: How are you adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic?

I think this crisis we're dealing with is going to have a massive impact on the benefit advisor landscape. Our industry has already changed so much in recent years and required us to up our game and deal with new challenges, but this is putting that on fast forward.

We spent the first few days fielding calls from our clients, who were just as alarmed as we were. We decided as a team that nothing was going to be focused on revenue; we were only going to help and serve. Having that heart of service is what's going to get us through this. So we reached out to every single client by phone and asked, "What are your immediate needs?" One told us they needed 300 facemasks for their nurses, so we hired friends who had been furloughed and found a way to pay these people we care about to make masks. We were agile enough to focus on the needs our clients had and help them during a time of vulnerability.

We also decided to make a series of two-minute videos to help simplify everything. They're about everything from the Families First Coronavirus Act to the Paycheck Protection Program. We do a video every day to help business owners understand everything that's going on. We didn't just send them to clients; we also sent them to prospects and posted it all over social media. We had HR help, we had attorneys assisting us, and we positioned ourselves as a resource.

PW: How do you see this pandemic changing health care and benefits? How will it change the way you plan and work with clients?

I think it will probably impact our industry more than anything since ACA. We have clients on multi-year strategies to take them from fully insured all the way to self-funded. I believe that all the uncertainty created by COVID-19 will extend those multi-year strategy plans. For example, we have an amazing client who's in year three of our plan. This upcoming renewal was supposed to get them to self-funded; we've been working on it for months and we're really excited about all the things we know and the vendors we can work with to make it happen, but we need to be sure we listen to the client. I had a conversation with her this week and she said, "Even if we save money, change this year would be crazy. There's too much going on for us to take on potential additional risk or implement something new." So we're going to make two proposals for them. One is our "If COVID didn't happen, this is what we'd show you" proposal and the other is "the path of least resistance/how to get through this" proposal.

There are a lot of brokers out there who are just trying to push their ideas, but the timing might not be right given everything going on. People are going to be even more sensitive to risk for a while.

The other way I think it'll impact our industry is there's no room for mediocrity within our industry. I've had quite a few businesses reach out to me and tell me their broker has disappeared during this pandemic. You need to be there for people right now and show yourself as human. We obviously don't know everything; nobody knows 100% what's going on, but if you can present yourself as a human, vulnerable, reliable resource, that will be key.

PW: It will be interesting to see how this pandemic impacts which products and plans people prioritize. Will they focus more on medical and core insurance over perks and nice-to-haves?

I'd speculate that voluntary benefits providers are going to have a huge opportunity because of this. I know a lot of brokers don't like to talk about voluntary, but I think that employees are going to be interested, because it allows them to be more selective and it can also be used as a cost-saving tool.

We've also been communicating with every group that has mental health covered under their plans, as well as EAPs, LTC, at-home nursing benefits or even child care benefits. Those are things that we haven't necessarily focused on as much in the past.

It's amazing how much employee benefits determine the well-being of an individual. An employee benefit program is the dominant source of financial protection and security for most workers in America. I think the magnitude of what we do is often overlooked, because we're busy focusing on things like bottom line and financial discussions. But the human side is so important.

Chelsea Whalley

PW: I know wellness is a big priority for you. Why is that?

After my brain injury, I had to stop running and lifting weights. Anything high-impact really messes me up. So I go into yoga and I now have my certification and teach classes. During this crisis, I've been teaching a free meditation class every Sunday via Zoom. I have a huge passion about bringing the holistic and wellness approach into businesses.

To be perfectly frank, most of the clients I work with aren't ready for that yet, and it hasn't always been as well-received as I'd like. But I think after this pandemic, that could change, especially the mental health and mindfulness aspects.

I think the deeper sense of wellness comes from learning that you have to be your own advocate. I've been blown away by how many times I've had to get somebody upset in order for them to do the right thing, or just kick and scream to have adequate care. So part of the education during our enrollment process is teaching people that you have to fight for your health; it's not something that comes easy.

There's currently no real ROI when it comes to wellness; what you get is a return on engagement. Over time, you can begin to put into financial terms what that means for the bottom line. But having people buy into something bigger than themselves is one of my biggest passions.

I'm working on having companies design their benefits package to reflect their culture, which will help build engagement and encourage people to do what they need to do.

PW: Since you were born and raised in Canada, what are your thoughts on the two countries' health care systems?

One of the reasons it took me so long to jump from the nonprofit world to insurance was because I felt a conflict in my heart. My firm belief is that health care should be accessible to everyone. On the other hand, my grandfather passed away in June; he had a routine surgery up in Canada and he had some issues after the surgery. There wasn't a demand for service like there is down here where people are paying such a heavy price for care; Americans have more of a feeling of entitlement to quality care. I've noticed when I've been in the hospital system up there, you have to kick and scream to get the attention you deserve, even more than you do here. I wonder if that has anything to with the fact that it's free? I'm not sure. That's why I've always been torn.

I do believe there could be a system that would work. Joe Biden is talking about Medicare for More; that idea makes a lot of sense to me. If we can have supply change management and complete transparency with a government-funded program, I'd be OK with that. People deserve to have the best health care possible. If that eliminates my position someday, then I'll find another way to change lives.

The point is to have something that works best for everyone; but at this point, I don't believe the government is in a place where they can provide that. Until then, the employer-sponsored system is the only good option that we have. But if there was a national option that could do what we currently do through employer plans, it would compromise my position in the industry; but we would adapt and change into something else. People are always going to need consultants and educators.

PW: Can you talk about your role and challenges as a young female in the industry?

I can't tell you how many people at different events came up and offered to mentor me, but when I saw the way they conducted business or the way they spoke about their clients or their compensation, or the locker room talk, I wanted nothing to do with it.

Donovan and I have been very adamant when we speak with clients and we hear them say "That's the way we've always done it." For us, that's a sign to either run the other way or to motivate us to help them see why that mindset is a problem. "The way we've always done it"? What does that even mean anymore? Look at what we're going through now; can you do anything the way you've always done it? No.

It's definitely changing. Many brokers are stuck on the informational side, which has its place and is very important, but what about the human side? That's often lacking. But that plays into the strengths of many of the younger people and women who are coming into the industry. Businesses need us. But you must be willing to adapt and be agile, act like a little speedboat instead of a cruise ship. How willing are you to evolve?

And I think a lot of young people welcome that challenge; the thought of doing something the same every single day doesn't appeal to them. They need something that's constantly changing to keep their attention, so it's kind of perfect.

Another reason I was initially hesitant to get into the industry is because when people talked about it, they only referenced the compensation. I remember thinking, "That's great, of course I want to make good money, but what is my impact going to be? How can I leave a legacy and really change people's lives?" I think if we focused more on that, we'd have better luck attracting younger and more open-minded people to our industry.

PW: Finish this sentence: The key to success in this industry going forward is…

To find a way to be a master communicator.

Read more from our Face of Change series:

Instant Insights /

Leave a legacy: A Q&A with Chelsea Whalley

More From HR Executive

Related Stories

Recommended For You