Nelson Griswold

What will the successful post-reform 21st century agency look like? EBA contributor Nelson Griswold predicts what will set you apart from the herd.

With serious concerns about medical commission cuts and maintaining top-line revenues, 58% of brokers and consultants are embracing two specific initiatives EBA contributor Nelson Griswold explains in the December issue.

We know that HR directors, benefits managers and C-suite executives are horribly frustrated with employee benefits - not simply with the high cost of the medical, but perhaps most with their lack of control over the process.

I couldn't believe my eyes. I stood a mere three feet away from the mentalist Alain Nu, who lightly pinched the handle of the heavy, solid spoon between his thumb and fingertip. As I watched in amazement, the curved handle of the spoon . . . slowly began to . . . bend! . . . and it continued to bend . . . without Nu touching it.

In 2012 the rate of medical inflation will continue to rise, PricewaterhouseCoopers reports. Employers are frustrated - not so much by the high cost of the medical as by the apparently intractable upward cost trend that is making benefits plans unsustainable.

The traditional model of the benefits brokerage is terminal and on life support. As I talk with brokers and consult with agencies across the U.S., there's a growing desperation as they realize that "carrying quotes" isn't enough anymore. Even modifying the plan design and then shopping the medical for the lowest quotes no longer will get - or keep - the account.

Discover the multiplicative impact that cross-selling voluntary benefits has on your revenue stream.

The idea I'm about to share with you is the second most valuable idea I'll provide you this month.

Want to know how workplace voluntary benefits can be your new secret weapon in sales? Read on. But first, a tale of three benefit brokers...

Years ago when I approached a crusty old broker from down south about enrolling his voluntary benefits cases, he told me he didn't sell voluntary because, "Boy, the juice ain't worth the squeeze."

Voluntary benefits is often referred to as "worksite marketing." Many carriers, in fact, refer to their voluntary products as "worksite voluntary benefits." Recent developments in enrollment technology, however, are rapidly making the term "worksite" obsolete and no longer relevant to the voluntary benefits process. The term "worksite" derives from how these benefits have had to be enrolled. As products that are voluntarily purchased by employees, the only consistently effective means of presenting (and selling) them have been one-on-one employee meetings with licensed benefit counselors (enrollers) at the workplace during the workday.

Worksite voluntary benefits as we know them are dead. Driven largely by the spiraling cost increases in group health insurance, over the past decade or so employers have been shifting benefit costs to employees.