Katie provides strategic direction on broker industry trends and preferred broker programs. Her mission is to deliver innovative and competitive solutions that meet the needs of her clients and brokers, and to foster strong and lasting relationships with our distribution partners. Additionally, she is an executive member of Chief, a private network for women leaders, where she supports and empowers other senior women in their leadership journey
As head of broker strategy, what would you say are some of the challenges and trends that have been affecting the space lately and how are you mitigating those challenges within your department itself?
COVID really has changed a lot of the ways that we do business with our broker partners, they are adapting to their customers’ needs and challenges that have arose from COVID.
Focusing on additional services and needs like absence, and wellness and total overall well-being of their employee population, which includes not only medical benefits, but mental health benefits. And supplemental health benefits, like disability insurance, critical illness insurance, Cancer Insurance.
It's probably more important now than more than ever, that employees have the coverage they need to cover them themselves or a loved one, whether it's from COVID, or some other disability related incident. So, a lot of the brokers that we work with, are working with business owners to really help them provide solutions for some of those challenges. And so, we've adapted as a company, to continue to partner with our employers and our customers to make sure that we're developing products, and developing services that that meet those kind of new needs that are coming up.
I would say another interesting thing is just the change of how we connect with our business partners, which I think has also been impacted by COVID. Many of our business partners are working more remote than they had before. So we have a traditional sales and distribution model, where we meet our business partners where they are and, we have offices across the country, and many of our brokers are doing more business remote.
So, we've adapted through technologies and systems, like teams and zoom meetings, to set up virtual meetings and touch points so that we can continue to connect with our broker partners, wherever they are in the country, which has been beneficial, and it almost seem a little bit, I would say an uptick in terms of communication.
We have adapted technologies and systems, like Teams and Zoom, to set up virtual meetings and connect with our brokers and business partners, resulting in an uptick in communication
It enables you to talk to more people mitigating some of the travel that you might have to do. And so that has allowed us to better equip ourselves with communication technology, so that we can meet really any customer, whether it be broker or employer group, where they are at any time, which is great.
We still do travel, we're looking forward to continuing to be out in market especially myself in meeting with our customers and our broker partners, as we go to some of their national conferences and meetings and clients.
So, I would say some of those challenges that really been the direct results of a shift of COVID. Racing about that really stayed a great thing. But I think my company is well positioned to help fill a lot of the gaps that were created when COVID kind of came out the gate as it pertains to employees, mental health, and wellness, as well as some of the products that employers would want to get there to help attract employees, help keep those employees happy and healthy in the workplace.
What would you say are some of the technologies that you've used, or you've applied in your operations to build or create effective strategies to have better or more efficient broker services?
My company has been at the forefront of some of the newer connectivity, and what we call API connection, which I think set us up for success as we are partnering with some of the benefits administration systems that our brokers were using for their customers. So, the good news is that we were kind of ahead of the game, from some of our competitors, and getting into the market with technology investments around API connectivity.
Some of the things that I think we focus on from a technology is that concept of High-Tech High touch, so that we know the value of human connection. But we also know how technology can help create an environment where individuals can learn, can be through information, it can be increased accuracy, and so forth.
So, we have certain things around enrollment technology that we've invested in to help support how our benefits are communicated to our customers and the policyholders that enroll in our benefits.
We support connectivity and technology investments with some of our third party and admin vendors that allow us to have faster service, better customer experience, reduce possible errors and data, and so forth. So that's been a big investment on our end.
We've also invested in tools and technology that our brokers are using, whether it be voting platform, or decision support tools that help an employee during an enrollment, decide what types of benefits they need. Systems like Nayya, other systems like Emma would be some examples of that.
So, I would say this investment decision supporting tools to help enhance employee understanding at the time of enrollment and benefits selection are things that we've introduced.
And, as a carrier, we also look at investments and know how we can streamline our underwriting process or claims processes as well. So that's that is something that I would say isn't new, it's been something that we continue to look at, we continue to evolve, so that we can best serve our customers.
Advice that you would like to share with the broker community or colleagues and, others such as yourself on how they can evolve and effectively create the best strategies going forward. What would you say are some of the future trends that you see affecting the space and how do you plan on further improving it? Is there any advice that you'd like to share with your peers?
I see a lot of our broker partners already being successful and focusing on an area that I think we're going to continue to be involved, which is total wellbeing for their employee population. So, historically, we've focused on medical benefits, disability and life insurance benefits, and supplemental health benefits.
And I think we're going to hear more and more around tools, and products that help with absence management, that help with mental health, that help with financial wellness. So really, when I think about total wellness for an employee, I think the brokers that are going to be positioning themselves for success in the future, will have a holistic approach to dealing, helping an employer assist their employees with total wellbeing.
And we see some of that today in some student loan repayment opportunities, we see it in some mental health programs like spring health, which is a program that Guardian Life has partnered with to provide mental health solutions for employees.
In addition to that, we're seeing again, increased focus on just meeting the employee where they are in their life cycle. So, a lot of employees do have a significant life event that's occurred. And that doesn't necessarily have to be a life or death. But it's typically something that could incur some type of claim, whether it's a mental wellness claim, they help an employee, annual wellness claim on their health, in general, or whether it's something to where they're having to go and take time off of work to help a family member in pain as well.
So, the total well-being kind of speaks to I think more and more brokers are going to build their portfolio of offerings. We're seeing things like assistance on elder care, there's a lot of individuals that now have parents, specifically their baby boomer years that are having to find resources to support their parents, now that they're older.
That leads to that whole overall wellbeing conversation, the best employers are going to want to have employees taken care of. So, a lot of employers still want to attract and retain their employees. And that's important. Now more than ever, given the workplace dynamics, a lot of companies are going to overcome remote environments, to the benefits that these employers are going to be offering a younger demographic, or a demographic that has really more than four or five generations now in the workplace.
They're going to have to have a pretty robust product offering and total wellness program for their employees, to attract them to want to come work for them, and also, stay with them and be happy and healthy where they are working for them.
Is there anything additional that you would like to share with us something you feel might add value to the article and we missed out on asking?
We're lucky to be and by we, I mean carriers and brokers are lucky to be in a space where we're at the forefront of identifying and offering solutions to help people when they need it most. And I look forward to what the next few years are going to bring as it pertains to some innovative solutions that we'll be able to help bring to the market.
