The Broker's Voice: Brandon Mills - Vice President, SIA Group

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Broker's Voice. This week, I'm excited to have Brandon Mills with the SIA Group join us. But before we get there, I do have to make a quick shout out to the sponsor of the Broker's Voice. Agency Annex. Steve Kanka and his guys over at Agency Annex build websites designed to help insurance agencies win business. It's that simple. So if you own an insurance agency right now, you're a producer at an insurance agency, and you would like to. To see how your website could be used as that additional sales professional you have never had. If you want to build a website that talks right to your prospects, not a website that talks all about you, you need to reach out to Steve Konka and his team over at the Agency Annex. They built my website, and I couldn't be happier. So get a hold of them. I'm putting the contact information in the show notes so you can reach out to Steve and his team today. All right, let's get into this week's episode. Like I said, I am joined by the one, the only, Brandon Mill of the SIA Group down in lovely Jacksonville, North Carolina. Brandon, how are you?

Oh, doing great. Great to be here. Thank you for having me.

In fact, Brandon, I have to tell you, Amy and I always look around saying, like, what are the best beach communities in the country? What are the best beach towns? You know what keeps coming up? Emerald Isle, which is just outside of Swansboro, right? Where. How far is Emerald Isle from you guys?

Emerald island from Swansburg is no more than 10 minutes from Swansburg, you can see Emerald Isle. So.

And. And from Jacksonville, was it maybe a half hour?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you guys are. You guys are in a beautiful part of North Carolina, just north of Wilmington, just even farther north than Charleston, South Carolina. So I've had a chance to come see you guys, and it's a beautiful, beautiful area. All right, Brandon, I always ask everybody, you are a health insurance advisor running the benefits team at SIA Group. How the hell did you get in this industry?

Well, you know, it's funny, actually. You know, I am born into the insurance industry. My father and my grandfather started the agency. But I took a detour, right? You know, when I was in high school, my uncle owns a car lot, a used car lot. So I detailed cars. And then I graduated to going and buying cars at auctions. So when I went to college, I played soccer in college. And, you know, you get in these. These meetings and. And you meet with people and they say, what are you here for what are you going to college for? I'm like, I want to be a used car salesman. I want to get by cars. And they're like, what are you doing here in college? To go, you know, I'm like, I want to be the best at it. I'm here to play soccer, I'm here to have fun. I'm here to learn. But then, you know, I got into business school and really started learning and just kept listening to my father and my brother, who is four years older than me, and natural progression came to come into the family business. I, I had never heard of employee benefits. I will say that it was a very PNC driven business. Still still has a lot of strong PNC roots, but my father thought I'd be good in employee benefits. And 2007, here I am still doing it.

So there are so many things to unpack from that. Number one, being the son of an agency owner, in fact, a grandson that was involved in the business of somebody that was involved in the business, you would think, you know, there are very few people in our industry that actually go to college for risk management. Go to college, get in the insurance industry. So I thought maybe you might be one of them. But the other irony, Brandon, is instead of being an insurance, you wanted to be a used car salesman. If there are two industries that are compared more than anything else, it is insurance and used car salesmen. So I'm curious, totally off the subject. You loved detailing cars. Is that still a passion of yours today? Cars and, and, and, and owning or, you know, certain maybe unique models of cars, anything like that?

No, you know, I, I, obviously we, our whole family still loves cars, and we do have used car sales and we do have new cars as well that we do now. But, you know, when I worked in high school, I would detail a car and a half to two cars a day. I was not a fast guy. Get it done. We're gonna get 10 knocked out. The attention to detail sort of started coming out on the belt buckles and really getting in deep, getting toothbrushes, getting everything and detailing the cars. So I think that detail has definitely helped me. I never really realized it until later. I was not the fastest guy, but I was going to get it done and it was going to look almost as good as new as a used car could, you know.

Well, it's something, you know, dovetailing back into your career now in the insurance world running the benefits team at SIA Group. Talk about details, attention to detail. You know, one thing you often, you know, One thing you do with a lot of your clients is self fund health insurance plans, which we know is, is something more and more employers are looking at today. And the attention to detail is extremely high there. Right. You make one mistake, especially mathematically, and that thing can go sideways. Looking at where you are at today and where we as an industry are at today, Brandon, where do you see, you know, some areas that employers, if they have a health plan, they provide to employees, areas they need to start looking at right now. Yeah.

You know, and I go back to this and I will tell you I'm excited for the future of employee benefits and employer, but I think the biggest detail that's getting forgotten is the experience. We complain about it a lot and we don't understand why it's so bad, but we really don't understand the function of how many different things are in there. So to me, truthfully, it's the member experience, it's the owner's experience, it's the family experience. How can that be embraced and made better?

That's a, that's a great, great point. Yeah, I think we often talk about where, you know, the experience, it's, it's, it's a lot of lip service. But then when we get into the fine details, what we actually are doing for clients, the experience at the end of the day is still not where it's supposed to be with the consumer. Now I do want to ask you this, if you're willing to share. I often find a lot of agencies I've been part of, agencies that are out building plans, you know, self funded, attacking claims, costs, doing all the right things or at least saying they're doing all the right thing things. But they're always practicing what they're pre, what they're preaching. You know, I've worked for agencies that talk about self funding is the way to go, yet they fully ensure their plan. So when you look at, I'd love for you to share if you're cool with it. You know, I think SIA Group has taken a really important step into that, practicing what you preach and how that applies to the solutions you bring to your clients. Would you mind diving into that a little bit?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's some of where the, the experience comes from. You know, if we take a couple steps back, you know, to 2002, 2016, 1516 area, let's just say SIA Group, we have about 150 employees total, about 68, 70 on the plan. We were getting the blue cross, we were up and up and it was just, you know, we're fighting the same battle as our, as our colleagues and our other companies and we're like, let's go self funded. Like that. That's it, that's where we need to be, right? And we ran the first year self funded. We got, our rates were similar, similar. First year we got like six, seven lasers, $200,000 more in risk. And we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, now that whole year, guys, we didn't do anything. We just went self funded. We, we rented Cigna Network and just, we're here, we made it so $200,000 more in risk on top of everything else. We just like, okay, let's take a step back. So we went back really to Aetna, level funded. And I'll try not to drop too many names, there's a lot of great level funded programs. We went to Aetna, did the same thing, we got our free Iwatches and we just rolled and did what we did. Came out 18% increase in that timeframe. I kind of started really surrounding myself with people such as Andy Neary, you know, some different people. I name drop there, Andy, sorry. And found out that self funded is really just the financing mechanism to help lead you, it's the vehicle to lead you to that destination. So we said, hey, you know what, there's three letter word that's going around. That sounds really good. You know, rvp, rv, you know, reference based pricing. Let's do it. So we actually jumped head in, went reference based pricing, partially self funded, rented the PHCS network for our doctors. Fast forward to 2021. We're running so well. We've made the experience so much better for our employees. They have access to specialty carve outs, they have alternative non surgical orthopedic options, lower co pays, we're looking to lower deductibles, we're looking to lower premiums for our employees. And it's all because.

We realized it wasn't a destination. And it doesn't just happen. It's not going to happen overnight. We decided that the white glove approach that we want to take to everybody and help them, we needed to do it for our people too. So that's our story.

That's, it's beautiful because again your ability now to go out and talk to prospects and tell them that there's not a thing we are telling you to do that we have not tried ourselves, that's powerful. And I want you to go into this a second because your story that you just Shared. The chronology is important. Even as an agency, when you guys dove into self funding, what, five years ago, roughly four or five years ago, you were viewing, you were viewing it as the destination. If we can just get to self funding, we've arrived, right? And you realize when you view it as the destination, you often don't get the result you want. Round two. You and I actually met April 2019 at an industry event and you had yet, I believe to make the moves you've made today with your health plan. You were just on the cusp of doing it and you've done it. You yourself have had experience using one of the solutions you have built into your health plan. Do you want to talk about that? It's one of the orthopedic solutions.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the biggest things you hear of is, you know, we have a lot of people that are struggling with multiple skeleton issues, right? They've got these, these ailments and different things that they just can't, they don't want to have surgery, so they're just in pain forever. I myself had plantar fasciitis, had it for 10 years, both feet. It's something I've learned to deal with. I've tried socks, shoes, everything, right? This was able to be offered to our employees not just for plantar fasciitis, but for necks, for backs, for shoulders, for different issues you have. They can go and see this provider, this doctor and get a non surgical solution that we pay for as a health plan, as a company for our employees. We have a lady who hasn't slept on her left side in 11 years that is now sleeping comfortably either side she wants because of this solution. The experience was fantastic and the results are even better.

And how much did she pay?

Zero.

She paid nothing. So you're telling me you can get healthcare at no cost and have a good experience?

And guess what guys, she had to get an MRI before that and her MRI costs nothing as well because of the solutions that we've put in. So it's out there. And you don't have to be a million life group or a thousand life group or even a 50 life group nowadays. We can do it. And that's what I'm positive and that's what I'm happy about, is we're almost all going to be able to take advantage of these opportunities out there.

Well, I hope people listening in heard this loud and clear because as an agency, you guys, your health plan I don't believe has quite a hundred people on it. You're doing all of this stuff that we just talked about. You're practicing what you preach. You're able to go out and say, we don't. We would never have you do something we haven't tried on ourselves. And now that you're getting results for yourself, it's just going to make it so much easier to implement and get those results for your clients. So, last question I have for you, Brandon, if you're, if you're willing to share, if there's somebody listening in who may be shying away right now from offering a solution like self funding or knows about all these other strategies that are out there.

But again, just not willing to dip the toe in that water, maybe out of fear, a little discomfort, what would you say? Because you were there, what, just three, four years ago?

Yeah. No, I mean, absolutely. I think it's, you know, you really have to understand who's cutting the checks and just look at it from that perspective and the experience. The only experiences our employees were having and are having out there are what the carrier wants them to have. And not that that's bad in all cases, don't get me wrong, there's a place for everything. But you need to look really deep into the experience. And there's so many different things you can do with less money, which is crazy. I know. We don't have to pay all these millions of dollars to get the best health care. It's take a deep look and just talk to someone and help look at the solutions that are out there and they can do it for groups under 50. Like, this isn't something that has to be for giant companies. And that's what I'm really, really excited about for the future of health care.

That's, that's awesome. It's a great way to end because whether you're a broker listening in, you're an employer who offers a health plan listening in.

Get sick of the being comfortable. Get sick of feeling like we're doing just enough and that's all we have to do. Yes, you can get better results. You can build better health plans for less money, but it requires you to go seek those solutions. It requires you to put a little effort and a little work in, but the payoffs are so well worth it. Last question, Brandon, if there's a, an advisor, an employer watching this that wanted to reach out to you, what is the best way to get a hold of you, really?

It's my email address. It never leaves me. You know, a lot of people say LinkedIn, but my email address is bsmillsiagroup.com Scott is my middle name. No making fun of the B.S. mills, please. But that's really it. And I'll be glad to help anybody I can. That's what I'm put on this earth for.

That's awesome, Brandon. For a guy with the initials B.S. you're walking the talk, my friend. So are you sure you're talking the walk in the talk? That's it. I totally almost screwed that up. All right, guys, listen. This was a great episode. Brand. I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Love what you're doing. I've seen your growth over the last two years. It's been pretty phenomenal. So keep it up. And for everybody else listening in, you know, when clarity and confidence collide, massive action happens. Go make it happen today.