Trends and Complexity in the Group Benefits Market with Marcie Strouse

Join AgencyBloc for a comprehensive discussion on employee benefits with Marcie Strouse, Partner at Capitol Benefits Group (https://capitol-benefits.com).  This episode dives deep into the ever-changing group benefits market, offering valuable insights for businesses of all sizes.

Key Discussion Points:

• Market Dynamics: Explore the impact of carrier consolidation and its implications for employers.
• Navigating Healthcare Costs: Gain insights into managing rising healthcare expenses and understanding drug pricing models.
• Beyond Traditional Options: Discover innovative solutions like level-funded plans, association health plans, and Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs).
• Employee Well-being: Learn how prioritizing mental health benefits and voluntary benefits can enhance your recruitment and retention strategies.
• The Future of Benefits: Get a glimpse into the role of advocacy, technology, and work-life balance in shaping the employee benefits landscape.

This episode is a valuable resource for business owners, HR professionals, and anyone involved in selecting employee benefits.  Gain the knowledge you need to create a competitive benefits package that attracts top talent and fosters a healthy, engaged workforce.

Insurtech Building Blocs is presented by AgencyBloc, the #1 Recommended Insurance Industry Growth Platform serving the benefits and senior market space with 6,500+ customers across multiple solutions within the platform. With a range of insurance-specific solutions for sales enablement, client and policy management, compliance management, quoting and proposals, and commissions management — all with highly recommended customer support — we've got you covered.

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Transcript

Tim (03:47.63)

All right, we'll kick it off here. All right. So, Cory, great to see you as always. Trying a little different format here, doing the audio and the video component. Marcie, great to have you here with us as well. Absolutely, absolutely. And Marcie, I'll throw you a curve ball right out of the gate here, and you may not have this answer, and that's okay.

Marcie Strouse (04:06.551)

Thanks for having me, I'm excited.

Tim (04:17.806)

Cory and I secretly have a competition with each other to see which family can come up with the highest amount of medical benefit expenditures for calendar year 24. So I'm not done yet, unfortunately, because I know there's a couple of little procedures within my family. So Cory and I are continuing to see who can be top dog.

Marcie Strouse (04:45.111)

I will tell you that is HIPAA protected information, Tim. So I will not be sharing who the winner of that competition is.

Tim (04:49.294)

Ha ha.

Tim (04:53.39)

All right. Yeah, well, well.

Cory (04:55.176)

Well played Marcie. And by the way, this is not a competition either of us set out to win. So winning is actually losing in this case.

Tim (05:00.59)

No.

Tim (05:04.334)

I would agree, Cory. Well, well said. it is the reality of having some active teenagers, in your house that like sports and all things activity and adventure, but, in all honesty, hope, both our families, we reduce the medical spend and have a healthy, prosperous, rest of 24 and beyond. I would be just fine with that. All right.

Cory (05:30.248)

Hear, hear.

Tim (05:32.878)

So welcome to another edition of building blocks podcast. I'm Tim Robinson, your host. I'm here with my cohost, Cory Schmidt. You may know Cory, co -founder and CTO of AgencyBloc, as well as Marcie Strouse, a partner and benefits advisor for capital benefits. Marcie, as I mentioned at the top, so glad to have you here.

Cory and I have spent time, with you obviously, outside of, more, more, I guess I call it a course of business. I mean, the, the really cool thing is you're, you're a customer of AgencyBloc, but then we also use you for our benefits, as well. So I think we've gotten to know you really well. You've probably gotten to know us more than you would care to, but, there's no escaping that at this point. So, so, so great to have you here.

Marcie Strouse (06:30.327)

Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm always excited to talk about insurance. Not that everybody else is, but I'm happy to do it.

Cory (06:37.352)

Marcie, how many years roughly do you think you've been working with us? Any guess?

Tim (06:37.39)

You

Marcie Strouse (06:42.967)

goodness. Seven years now? Yep. Yep.

Cory (06:47.368)

Okay. Yeah. So you worked with our sister company, obviously as well. And so we started as a combined common ownership and had a combined benefit plan. I'd seven years ago, I'm trying to think like how many people that probably would have been at the time. 40. Okay.

Marcie Strouse (06:55.831)

Okay.

Marcie Strouse (07:01.719)

It was like 40 between the two companies. So there has definitely been a lot of growth in those seven years. So yes. Yeah. It's, it's been fun because we brought you from that small group space now to, you know, I mean, I guess I wouldn't consider you guys really large group, but in Iowa, you, you would be considered a large group. So yeah, it's been fun.

Cory (07:09.992)

Indeed. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you've been a great partner. So we're excited to test your knowledge. I mean, ask you about some things that we think is interesting. And obviously we have a lot of customers that do, you know, a lot of group benefits, employee benefits, ancillary products. And I think you have a unique perspective. And what I've always enjoyed about you, Marcie, is you're never complacent with like how things work today and not just looking to renew us for another year, keep us where we're at. It's always kind of pushing the envelope testing.

you know, what our tolerance is or what our interests are. And I think that, it's always good to be kind of, you know, more proactive. So excited to learn some things as well on this podcast today about what we should be thinking about as an employer. excited to chat about that.

Marcie Strouse (07:58.267)

I'm sorry.

Marcie Strouse (08:08.343)

Yeah, me too.

Cory (08:11.944)

Awesome. Well, I don't, maybe to get started, it'd be great if you'd just give the listeners a brief background. Obviously we kind of started there, but maybe a brief background on who you are, who capital benefits is, your, maybe your journey, if you will.

Tim (08:12.27)

So maybe, yeah, go ahead.

Marcie Strouse (08:27.063)

Yeah, sure. So I started, my goodness, almost 24 years ago in the insurance business. And it really was by mistake, or I should say it wasn't intentional that I was going to be in this position today that I am. And so, you know, I basically had been working at a hospital, a clinic and working for a provider whose husband had a small agency up in Ames, Iowa, and he was working more on retirement.

benefits and needed somebody to come in because they were noticing a lot more employers needed help with all of their employee benefits. And so, you know, I like to say that, you know, I didn't grow up, you know, thinking I was going to be an insurance agent, but I really did find my true calling and I have just a really big passion for this. My experience over the years has been a lot of personal experience. I had

twins that were born 13 weeks early, they were two pounds when they were born. So we really fast had to learn what a NICU was, all the ins and outs of just that whole experience and really working in not only just normal insurance avenues, but also with Medicaid.

My children qualified for waivers and one of them still today still qualifies. So, you know, having some experience in that Medicaid market as well as the private market. And so for me, I just knew early on, man, if it's hard for me to navigate this system, knowing and understanding it, I can't imagine how families and people feel when they're on the other side of that. And they're just trying to focus on.

you know, whatever's happening within their family unit. Sometimes it's, you know, real easy injury of some kind, but then other times we're really dealing with some very serious health issues with people. So, you know, you have to be able to walk through that and step through that and meet people wherever they're at, whether they're an individual client or one of our, you know, employees at one of our group clients. And so...

Marcie Strouse (10:36.439)

Capitol Benefits, I was fortunate enough to come together with my business partner. We are celebrating five years. She founded Capitol Benefits Group. And so our agency focuses on health insurance in general. And so we work with employer groups to put together benefit packages that really encompass pretty much anything benefits related. And then we also work with individuals in the marketplace and then the Medicare segment too. So we really have a well -rounded

idea of everything that's happening in that health insurance space.

Cory (11:09.16)

Just five minutes before this call, I saw the anniversary announcement of Capitol Benefits. So congratulations, that's pretty awesome. And I know we worked together before that, you know, when you were working with one of the larger GAs in Iowa through a really good personal relationship that we have with the owner there. But yeah, it's exciting to see all the success that you guys have had at Capitol Benefits.

Marcie Strouse (11:15.351)

No more. Thanks.

Marcie Strouse (11:31.351)

Yeah, and you know my relationship, you know with this previous general agency, KHI, that's also been wonderful. Lynn has been such a big mentor for us and you know she's just provided so much and so we do get to work with them every day. So they really still are our general agency so they are definitely part of this AgencyBloc family as well.

Cory (11:51.696)

Awesome. Love it. Well, maybe we'll get right into the guts of the conversation and the things that we're interested in, Marcie. And I think maybe the first kind of thing on our list is maybe a bit more broad, but I think I'm very interested in what you're seeing with the overall group benefits, employee benefits market in terms of trend and the benefit offerings that you're seeing. I know there's carrier consolidation happening.

There's never a lack of change in this industry. And so I think it'd be great for our listeners just to hear from your perspective, like what do you think the biggest trends are, changes that are happening and how are you responding to that as a broker?

Marcie Strouse (12:33.911)

Yeah, so I mean, this is a loaded question. Just everybody knows that works in this space that this health insurance and health care space has really become complicated over the last, gosh, even five to 10 years, especially since the pandemic. And so what we are noticing as far as just normal trends go right now, we're looking at on average about a 7% increase to premiums from 2024 for the

employer market. And so when we look at that across the country, about they are saying about approximately 153 million people are insured by employer plans. And when you look at the population being around around 340 million, that is almost half of the population that is supported in that employer space. And so a lot of stuff that's happening right now is you have to get creative, you have to be willing to learn.

new products, new things out on the market. Some of the stuff here in Iowa, you know, that we have seen over the last several years have been around drug primary care providers, reference-based pricing, which AgencyBloc got a turn at that really early in the state of Iowa. And so there's also things like PEOs, there's captives that are coming into the market. And so

You know, as an agent, you really have to make sure that you have partners in the space because you aren't gonna always be the end all be all for your clients. And so if there is something that is actually better for them than what you can provide, you need to be partnering with people to make sure that you're really looking at every option out there. We've seen a lot of changes, especially in that small group market.

which has been around level funding. So in the last several years, we've had opportunities to bring self -funded products down to the small group market. And so that gives a little bit more flexibility as far as premiums go, because it's gonna be based off your demographics for your group. And so it's not necessarily gonna be a great fit for everyone, but we have seen some really great opportunities for employers in this space. And...

Marcie Strouse (14:49.719)

you know, even if you were to put somebody in a level funded plan and maybe it only works for a couple of years, then you have had two years of savings. And then at that point, if you need to come back into a fully insured market or do something different, then you can certainly pivot and do that. And so we're seeing more of those types of plans or our states that have association health plans that are available to them.

Unfortunately, here in Iowa, it's very difficult to meet the criteria to be an association health plan. And so we just don't really have as many of those options here, but that's different, you know, state by state. As far as just the ancillary trends and things like that, there's a huge, a huge push around mental health. There is a really big push around that work life balance.

And I think you guys probably have gone through some of this where now some of your employees that would have been coming into an office every day now are working remote every day. And so you have to really work hard to make sure you're being intentional with the culture that you have within your organization, but then also how do you support them where they're at to keep them coming to work every day and wanting to actually be coming to work with you each day. And so

You know, we've seen some trends along the line. I mean, of course, our out of pocket maximums are getting really high. I mean, on average, they're $9 ,000 for an individual. And so, you know, if we look at that, then what we're starting to see is to offset some of those voluntary benefits where maybe we have a hospital indemnity plan or we have critical illness or an accident policy. There are gap policies out there that individuals can purchase.

So we're starting to see, you know, some of those benefits filter in. Some of our smaller employers are really rounding out those types of benefits for recruitment and retention. It's been really difficult for employers to bring employees back to work, to get everybody, you know, excited and ready to come back into an office setting in some cases. And so we employers have to pretty much meet the employees where they're at and help to support some of that.

Marcie Strouse (17:03.895)

kind of stuff. So that's some of the things that we're seeing across the board, HRAs. Again, I can't say enough that you do have to be creative. You have to really be willing to come in and get down to brass tacks and just kind of really feel what the entire group or culture is needing.

Tim (17:27.438)

Yeah, it's interesting. If I think back on my career and what I'd call kind of the evolution of benefits that are provided to employees. And you're absolutely right. I mean, I've been very fortunate working within small teams, kind of boutique startup, all the way to larger organizations.

Rocky Mountain region to West Coast East Coast Midwest so there's even variation Based on regionally where you where you are What gets offered I think when I was in the Rocky Mountain region, we even had all medical airlift that was included in our plan just because it was a very active office and

It was really interesting when you would go through an interview process with candidates and they would ask about benefits and you'd list off a couple of those things. You could just see the engagement. well, this is a culture. This is a company I want to work for, work with because of, you know, they have very similar beliefs, whether it's an active lifestyle or they want to support me in my pursuits in work outside of work. so I think that's.

It's great. I mean, that's, that's how you differentiate it's, it's tough to go out and try and differentiate on, well, I'm going to pay you a thousand dollars more a year or five. If you get in the, into that competitive in nature where you're trying to outbid other employers in the market, just on comp alone, it's, it's not a winning, generally not a winning proposition. If you can bring the full value prop and attract great talent, amazing things happen.

Cory (19:15.08)

That's what you call them meeting employees where they're at. We're going to airlift you off a mountain when you get injured. Right.

Tim (19:23.497)

Yes, exactly. That's great. That would have been, that could have been an awesome tagline for the business. And I think there's a lot more products available, just again, newer to the industry, but it sure feels like there's a lot of amazing products available. And Marcie, great to go through the process with yourself and the team to understand what solutions were available and then what we were able to.

Marcie Strouse (19:30.039)

Yeah.

Tim (19:50.862)

just personally offer our team members. There's a lot of power and a lot of opportunities, especially when you're covering a pretty broad demographic spectrum as well. So I think that's, hopefully we'll just continue to see more of that. Of course, healthcare costs are continuing to rise, but finding opportunities to bring the right solutions.

Based on the culture, based on the demographics of the, of the organization is I think going to continue to be incredibly important. you mentioned a little bit on the, voluntary ancillary, solution side. How, maybe expand on that a little bit. What, what are you seeing as kind of those top items that are really meaningful to employers and employees and maybe, what, what kind of uptick?

have you seen? What kind of adoption have you seen?

Marcie Strouse (20:49.815)

Yeah. So yes, so accident policies are kind of almost a no -brainer because first of all, they're very affordable. And so if that's something that's being offered on a true voluntary basis, that's something that employees can certainly afford. And most of the time, somebody is able to submit some sort of a claim to actually see a benefit out of it. And so some of these products too are including things like

Tim (21:13.134)

Mm -hmm.

Marcie Strouse (21:16.823)

a reimbursement for wellness, which we've been focused on. If we don't start to really focus on that health and wellness side of things, then I don't really know what solution we're gonna have 20 years from now in the healthcare space. And so a lot of it really is just to get people engaged with their health and just being a little bit more proactive that way. And so I would definitely say accident.

plans, we're seeing more hospital indemnity, which is again, kind of those gaps that help, you know, if you do have that hospital event, it's going to pay a per day amount, you know, things like that. Sometimes it's just, you know, an ER visit, you might get reimbursed something for. Unfortunately, critical illness is something that we've seen a lot of employers implement. Just

you know, with the way things are going, it feels like somebody's having some sort of an incident, whether that is, you know, a heart or cardiac issue versus cancer. And so those are big ones. I would say one of the big things that really, I think that has taken over in the last several years are just HSA accounts. Just having a high deductible health plan. I see most employers offering that.

And some of them offering a copay in addition to that, but we're seeing a big trend move towards those high deductible health plans. And a lot of employers are making contributions into the HSA accounts to get those members a little bit more involved and engaged in their health. And so that's really more of like a core benefit. But again, I kind of think of that as ancillary because not all employers are thinking, OK, I'm going to set the actual HSA up.

to be there so that my employees can payroll deduct and do all of those things, make it as easy as possible for them to save for that bad, maybe catastrophic event that comes down the road.

Cory (23:06.952)

I think think a strategy you introduced us to early on, Marcie, Marcie, getting the HSA in place. And I know for a long time we offered the HSA along with the copay plan. But to your point, one thing I wanted to highlight, and I think it was maybe your suggestion when we started this where with the HSA as a company, we were saving a fair amount of money when employees would opt into that plan. And so what we did is we

Marcie Strouse (23:16.791)

Hmm.

Cory (23:32.104)

you know, repurpose some of those funds into their HSA account in the form of a monthly deposit. And I think that, you know, over time that has definitely, you know, paid dividends for us as an organization, because now you have a, an employee base that has HSA accounts that are funded. And so to your point, now you can move the deductible up a bit and it's not quite as painful because that exposure is, is a little more limited. you know, it's still not easy and there are times when, you know, things happen.

Marcie Strouse (23:52.727)

Yeah.

Cory (24:01.)

you know, like we were talking about on the top of the top of the hour here where, you know, you need to dip into that HSA, right? But at least you feel a little bit more safety and having, you know, that account there in case something does occur. One thing I am curious about on the, like critical illness, the hospital indemnity. So I think employers may be moving up their deductibles, right? And then they're offering these voluntary products. Like, is there a shift that's happening as a result of that where

the employee is kind of taking on more of the financial responsibility of the benefits. I'm just curious how that plays out from what you're seeing.

Marcie Strouse (24:38.967)

Yeah, and actually that's a great question. And so typically it follows the market segment or maybe an industry. So for example, if you have an employer that is offering a medical plan today and maybe their contribution isn't really that much because they just can't afford to give more than what they're giving, then they might be offering these products on a voluntary basis, but they are doing it to try and offset the risk or the exposure that's there through the health insurance plan.

And so, but then we also see some employers that actually will pay for a hospital indemnity plan to cover the gap if they do have to make an increase in a deductible or an increase in an out -of -pocket maximum. So in a sense, they're using these products kind of like an HRA or a buy -down, like a partially self -funded plan where maybe they're offsetting some of those costs. So we see it across the board. We've seen some people who have just said,

my gosh, this is such a great retention tool. I'm gonna give you a defined amount or $25 a month and you can spend your money on any of these voluntary products and you pick and choose what is gonna work best for you. So we really do see kind of all across the board on that. But again, it hits more by segment and by industry and it comes down to an employer's budget these days.

Cory (25:59.624)

Yeah, makes sense. I know, you know, as an employer, we've always been trying to like moderate the increase because, you know, whether, you know, we're paying a big percentage of that, but also the employee is paying a percentage of that. And, you know, we're always looking at like, what's the effect on the take -home pay? I was just kind of curious with that dynamic of, you know, you mentioned the out of pocket maxes just keep going up and up. We're trying to fill in with these other benefits that, you know, are voluntary, but it's interesting that those could be actually be employer offered as well, you know, as a different strategy.

to be able to plug that gap.

Marcie Strouse (26:30.519)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we are seeing so much. I mean, we've got some small groups that actually it's been more beneficial for their employees to go to the marketplace because they will qualify for subsidies if they're lower income, you know, nonprofits, things like that. And so when we do that, then we're filling in with these other products on the group chassis that an employer can actually then pay for because they're thinking, my gosh, I cannot compete.

with if your subsidy takes your premium down by 80%, I can't do that. So instead we'll just say we're not gonna offer it. And then in this case, they offer all of these other ancillary products to help with that recruiting and retention side of things. Yeah.

Cory (27:13.32)

Interesting. What about, sorry, one follow up on, you mentioned the level funded at the top. I'm curious, what is the typical maybe group size or profile where you see that having the most applicability?

Marcie Strouse (27:18.455)

Okay.

Marcie Strouse (27:26.295)

I've seen it across the board. I've seen a group of two that has been able to see good premium savings and plan design savings. And then, you know, I would say probably a group that's 25 to 30 is going to, you know, maybe be the most stable and the easiest one and maybe could be on that for long term. But, you know, it just depends. We work with really small groups. We have a lot of entrepreneurs that we work with that are trying to get businesses off the ground. And so

my goodness, I probably have like 30 groups of one that I manage by myself, you know? And so, you know, we're always trying to see what, what we can do for them because in that, in these cases, they're not qualifying for subsidies through the marketplace. They really have to have a group market in place. And so, you know, we do have one carrier that will write a level funded plan for one. But most of the time you do need to have two people that would be enrolled in that. But it just depends. I mean,

if you are, maybe you're a health company, or maybe you're dieticians, and so you're extremely healthy, and you're gonna be able to jump into a high deductible health plan, HSA qualified plan, into one of these level funded plans, and that could work for you forever. So they're really, I mean, this has really been a huge change, a big shift for some of these small employers to actually have some, you know, an ability to make some change in a good positive way, but then two,

You know, if you think about it, these claims, these renewals are based on your claims experience. So you could have one person, unfortunately, that really blows the whole plan up. But then two, if you're part of this and you know that this is the intention, everybody wants to do better. So everybody is a little bit more intentional with how they're spending their healthcare dollars because they know in the end it's gonna cost them if they are being.

maybe with their healthcare spend. And I'm not saying that everybody does that, but you know, we've all seen the plans where it's like, it's only $10 copay. So I'm gonna run to the doctor for, well, guess what? That actually is $180 expense on the back end. You might be paying 10, but you know, that's where some of these situations on the level funding can get, you have to really be watching. You have to be paying attention to those claims.

Tim (29:47.79)

So Marcie, one of the things that I found out or I've learned about you is that you're also very active in legislation and also in various organizations. Maybe talk a little bit about that and then also how can other brokers get more involved? Where can it be very helpful? How can you maximize?

the opportunity there for brokers to get involved in help.

Marcie Strouse (30:19.639)

Yeah, that's such a great question. So advocacy is absolutely a passion of mine. I kind of fell into it and actually my business partner, Tracy, was sitting as the government relations chair for, at the time it was, NAHU for Iowa, the Iowa. And it was, you know, after the ACA had come out and things were a little quiet for a while. We were trying to figure some things out and everything was being, you know, controlled by the federal government.

And so there was a lot of stuff that was challenging on the state level. So I just remember her coming to me and she's like, hey, you should take over the government relations chair. I'm kind of bored. I want something new to do. And I give her so much grief for that, which was awesome. It was great because it really put me down a really fun path of things that I didn't really even know I was that interested in. But on the flip side, my gosh, this has been absolutely crazy. I feel like every year something new is happening, new legislation or bills are coming out that

We're watching really closely and it can be federal, but it also can be on the state level. And so I got involved through, now it's NABIB, the National Association of Benefits and Insurance Professionals, which you guys are super involved and engaged with. And so we focus obviously on healthcare issues and health insurance in general, but then I also sit on the Leadership Council for NFIB, which is the National Federation of Independent Business. And that is, you know,

Obviously I'm a small business owner, but then also we work with a lot of small business owners here in Iowa. And so that kind of gave us a different angle on more of the business side of things and some of the taxes and things that we're starting to impact our groups and our, and ourself. And so I would say it's a lot easier than you think. I think I came into it really intimidated by, you know, anybody that's in office. I don't care if it's somebody at city council versus, you know, somebody in Congress.

But what I quickly learned is they're just people, they're just like us, and they really are trying to solve a problem. And if we don't tell them what the problem is, or what we think a solution is, how are they going to know that? And so, you know, you think about any of our representatives that are at Congress right now, they might have come from an industry that is nothing like the health insurance industry, but all of a sudden, now they're finding themselves in committees or having conversations around health care bills.

Marcie Strouse (32:44.695)

they don't have a clue what's going on. They don't know what we're dealing with as agents, boots on the ground, sitting across from all of our clients, whether that's a Medicare client or an employee or employer. So for us, if we can't bring those stories to them, it's hard for them to understand how to make meaningful change. And so...

I would say first and foremost, get involved in associations in your area. I mean, it doesn't hurt to elevate yourself, to know what's going on, not only just legislatively, but professional development, right? Just knowing and understanding what's going on in the industry. NABIP is one of the ways that I know new trends that are coming to the market and all the different, my gosh, technology.

Thank God for you guys, you are wonderful at that, but I'm terrible, right? So I need partners like you that help me to understand what technology is available to me to make my life easier and to make my clients have a really awesome experience. And so if you are somebody who maybe is really involved in your community, go to the city council meetings, get involved even in school board. I mean, there are issues that...

that are gonna impact your schools, your local communities on every level in this healthcare space. So I would tell you, we hear all the time, the more local representation, the better. So we don't have to go to Congress, we don't have to go to DC, we actually can make really meaningful change right within our communities by participating just in meetings and round table discussions and things like that. So.

Again, don't be afraid, ask your representative out for coffee, have a conversation, just get to know them, ask them what their interests are. A lot of times you form really great relationships and end up making some meaningful change, whether that is just more on that local level or all the way up in DC.

Cory (34:42.824)

I really appreciate how you always use the word advocate, Marcie, when you're referring to this. And I mean, that really is what you're doing is you're advocating for the folks that need insurance coverage. And I think you see things, I know you've even mentioned where you're pushing back on things that look like they're better on the surface, but when you peel back the layers, obviously there's a net, you see a negative effect of some of these things. I think there was a, maybe a prescription drug thing in that realm on the group side, you know, that you felt like,

Yeah, on the surface, it sounds like it's a richer product or better product, but if you really look at the mechanics of it, it's going to drive up premiums, you know, exponentially. So I think that, I think you, you definitely walk the walk and talk the talk in that regard. And also if I don't know if it's possible to flash this up, you know, when we publish this, but I've seen your picture on one of my favorite Twitter feeds, the Senator from Iowa, Charles Grassley. So I know that you're actually.

out there visiting with folks in Congress and talking about these exact topics. And it might've been NFIB, it might've been NABIB, I'm not sure, but I always appreciate when I'm randomly scrolling my Twitter feed and I see a picture of Marcie here with one of our local or national representatives. So appreciate your involvement in that. And I think it's fantastic that you've made a commitment to spend time on that.

Marcie Strouse (36:09.079)

Yeah, and I think that I've really made it my, I guess the challenge for me is to find the people that I'm not on the same page with. So then that way we can have a conversation because most of the time what I find out is we actually want the same thing, but maybe we don't necessarily agree on how we get there. And so that has been just huge over the last few years, just working in all of these different areas. I mean,

Just making sure that you're somebody that is trusted, that people can come to when they do have questions. That's really ultimately what we're here for is to, you know, we are sitting across from the consumers. We feel the pain. We know when somebody is really going through something and maybe one of their tests for cancer just got denied by insurance, you know, like.

What do we do? How do we advocate? What information do we need to get out there to make sure that they're getting the support they need and actually getting the benefits that they're paying for? But then does that actually trigger a conversation that we do need to make change legislatively or we need to have conversations with the carriers and say, listen, how is this not something that would normally be covered by insurance? And so again,

I'm not gonna always agree with legislation that a carrier brings to the table, but I'm gonna listen because they're gonna tell me if it's gonna increase costs. They're gonna tell me if now all of a sudden my premium is going up to a point where I can't even afford it anymore, then we have to kind of pull back. And you are exactly right. The PBM, the pharmacy benefit management stuff is a very hot topic because it is very expensive for a lot of people to be able to afford their prescriptions and it doesn't really matter.

If you're in the Medicare space or you're in the employer space or the individual market, this is across the board going to be a challenge. And so we're watching that very closely. I'm actually really excited. It was announced this week at the convention at NABIB that we worked on a template for the PBM legislation that can be used in each state to help to actually start making some headway with this. Right now, some of the challenges we've come across is the fact that it's not very transparent.

Marcie Strouse (38:18.775)

So digging, pulling back those layers of the onion and figuring out where is everything at, where is everybody at? And so, you know, that's the perfect example of bringing all the stakeholders to the table and let's have a discussion whether it's uncomfortable or not. We have to figure out what's going on because it's not sustainable.

Cory (38:36.296)

Yeah, that's great. we didn't bring you on the podcast to endorse AgencyBloc, but as a customer, you mentioned technology. So we're not, and we're not going to, you already kind of did endorse. So I don't know that we need to ask you to endorse us, but, I am curious, like what are the technology tools outside of the agency management system that you're finding maybe the most impactful for you as a broker? and one area I'm curious about is, you know, a small group, enrollment and managing benefits, just because I think that's a

one we struggled with for a lot of years. And I'm just kind of curious what you're seeing maybe in that space specifically.

Marcie Strouse (39:11.447)

Yeah, so there seems to be a lot of mergers, acquisitions in different programs, platforms, and all the things that agents are using. So I would say enrollment platforms are probably a big thing that agents are using nowadays, and especially because a lot of, like I said, workforce is remote. And so not everybody is coming into an office where they can fill out paperwork and do all of that stuff.

Enrollment platforms are huge. And then even which you guys are solving this problem is some of these just enrollments as far as getting individual enrollments submitted and in the tracking of all of that. Some of the challenge that came up this year, which you guys are going to be a great support for is the fact that we've got all of these call centers and they're hitting all of these individual clients and.

policies are just getting switched right out from underneath agents. And so if you don't have a good tracking system where you're really managing and monitoring and not only on just the communication side of things, but the commissions side of things, if you are not paying attention to that, it could be six months before you recognize a client got switched and before they recognize and now all of a sudden they're on a policy that actually is not good for them. And so again, you have to make sure that you really have these

different resources in place. Being a broker is hard today. It's so many moving parts. It's new legislation, regulations, employer requirements. There's so much compliance that is coming down on our employer groups across the board that as an agent, if you are not helping to support compliance, you aren't providing some level of HR, whether that's even just providing an HR platform.

to your clients, that's where small agencies are gonna lose clients. They're gonna start moving to those larger agencies that have those capabilities and maybe do some of those things. So I can't stress enough how important pretty much all of those resources would be for an agency today.

Tim (41:29.87)

Yeah, that's very helpful. And I, well, we covered a lot in a fairly short period of time here. you know, Marcie, as I said, his beginning, so, so great to have you on it's Cory and I have this running list of topics and guests and you've, you've been on the list and, we were so, so grateful to have you on a lot of fun talking to you.

Marcie Strouse (41:36.855)

you

Tim (41:57.038)

And I think some just incredible insights too. You know, you've been at this for a bit, but I think the one takeaway for me, I've always learned from our interactions, but I love how creative you and your team are at bringing solutions to us as a client. And I hope that our listeners, you know, those brokers and agencies that are offering

group benefits and even individual learn from this as well. It's not a, it's not a set and forget. if you want to be relevant to customers and prospects, you have to be creative. You have to be engaged. You have to listen and each enrollment period, there's additional products or there's changes to products that have a meaningful impact to, to employers and employees.

on individuals. So, I can't say that I look forward to enrollment, but I always find it really, you know, always a pleasant interaction, but I always learn a lot as well. So, with that, again, thanks so much for coming on. Cory is always great to see you. We'll have to compare, we're, we're doing this prior to 4th of July. So I'm going to imagine there's going to be.

some smoked meats that are going to be discussed on various, commode of Joe's or big green eggs or insert. Product, but we'll, we'll certainly, we'll have a follow up conversation on that later. So, thanks again, Marcie. It's a pleasure.

Marcie Strouse (43:20.151)

Thank you.

Marcie Strouse (43:34.231)

Thank you so much. It was great. Yep. Thank you.

Cory (43:35.72)

Thanks, Marfi.