There is no doubt that every benefit professional reading this article wants to put the client first when making product and service decisions.

That said, the question that must be asked is: "What does it mean to put the client first?"

This is a critical question, but one that few benefit professionals have ever answered. Far too many rely on superficial, knee-jerk responses to this question.

In addition to my role as a sales coach and trainer, I actively recruit insurance agents to ancillary products as a general agent. Whenever I start to discuss commissions, I hear: "I do not care about the commissions; I only care about what is best for the client. If I do what is best for the client, my income will take care of itself."

On paper this sounds great, but it overlooks a key component of the decision-making process. Let's look at a real case study.

A plumbing company had a traditional dental plan with an employee rate of $24.40 monthly. At renewal, the rate increased to $26.15, so the agent began to shop the plan. One of the carriers came in with an employee rate of $24.10 monthly, and the agent was going to move the case to the new carrier.

Should the case be moved, and, if so, why? If not, why not, and what would you have done?

The issues

1. This agent (as most of you probably do) sends the census and plan design to general agents and/or a variety of carriers with a quote request.

The result is that each plan is examined in a vacuum rather than under a microscope. All of the carriers that I represent allow brokers to have access to their own quote engine with the flexibility to move benefits and change commissions. If you are not actively using the carrier's online tools, you are not doing a good job of servicing the client.

In the case above, the $24.10 premium was with a carrier where the commission would have been 6%. Had the agent quoted the existing plan at 5%, he would have discovered a premium of $24.18.

More important, had he called me, I probably could have gotten the carrier to either pay 6% or match the $24.10 premium, if it were important to the case.

2. Looking at only premiums fails to take into consideration the expense of moving the case.

Even with a spreadsheet enrollment, there will be some employee confusion. When employees forget to let the dentist know that they are with a different carrier (which happens no matter how good a job you do in the enrollment), claims do not initially get paid. Employees then go to HR with this issue, and HR has to call you. All of this is a poor use of HR's time.

I can guarantee that unless the carrier's service was incredibly poor, most employers would rather pay a little more to avoid having to change insurance companies.

3. The agent never asked the client if he wanted the case shopped.

I cannot stress how important this issue is. One of my long-time dental clients, a county government, received a 5% rate increase at renewal. In response to my query about shopping the plan, the HR director stated that she wanted to stay with this carrier, but asked if I could get the rate increase reduced.

With those directions, I contacted the carrier and not only got the carrier to hold last year's rate, but this group also got a two-year rate guarantee.

Our value is not illustrated by automatically shopping benefits, but by understanding what the client wants (as opposed to what we think they want) and achieving their objectives.

Servant leadership

The benefit professional who truly wants to put the client first should take a lead from the concept of "servant leadership."

Under "servant leadership" in Wikipedia is this quote from the 4th century B.C. Indian leader Chanaskya, who wrote: "The king (leader) shall consider as good not what pleases himself, but what pleases his subjects (followers)."

This means that we have to put aside our own beliefs about what a good health plan or a good dental plan should look like and instead seek to understand what a good plan looks like to our clients. Instead of automatically shopping benefits at renewal, we should find out if that is what the client wants. Rather than automatically providing our cell phone number to clients, we ought to understand what access to us means to the client.

On the home page of his Web site, Robert Greenleaf provides these questions as a test of servant leadership:

Do those served grow as persons?

Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?

What does this mean? As I have often pointed out, "People do not know what they do not know."

If a client receives a rate increase and we simply ask, "What would you like me to do?" the response will be, "Find me a lower rate." The prospect may not even know that there is another option.

When I asked the HR director of my county government client whether she wanted me to shop the dental plan, she asked if I could do anything about the rate with the incumbent carrier. Had I simply asked: "What do you want?" she would have said: "A lower rate."

When we get out of our comfort zone and begin to ask more meaningful questions, we achieve the criteria in the second question.

Putting the client first is about much more than ignoring commissions, which could ultimately not really be in the client's best interest.

Putting the client first is not necessarily about their having 24/7 access to you. It may be about making sure that you respond in a reasonable time.

The changes that I recommend will not only be good for your clients, but also great for you. Initially, things like running your own quotes when available may appear to take more of your time, but ultimately, you will recognize the power and time saving aspects of this strategy.

Asking the right questions of your clients may be difficult at first, but the knowledge about the client that you will gain allows you to provide a level of service that will be truly meaningful.

Bullish brokers up confidence index

Although it's anyone's guess as to when the economy will fully recover, hope is still in the air about the prospects for increased sales in the worksite market, thanks to the optimistic attitude of brokers.

Eastbridge Consulting Group's latest Voluntary Industry Confidence Index found brokers to be significantly more sanguine than carriers about employees embracing voluntary products (85% versus 60%).

In addition, the semi-annual survey edged up to 92.9 from 88.8 at the end of last year. The index's baseline measure dates back to December of 2005 when the number was pegged at 100.

One indicator is that slightly more than half of the brokers polled reported that sales this year were higher than expected, compared with just 18% of carriers.

"We have said for some time that the attitudes of brokers will determine how we weather the economic downturn," Eastbridge President Gil Lowerre said in a statement. "If brokers get discouraged, then sales may start slowing."

Additional results include:

• Ninety-three percent of broker respondents believe they will be more profitable 12 months from now.
• Eighty-nine percent of brokers expect to acquire more new groups in 2009 than in 2008, compared to just 73% among carriers.
• Only a small percentage of brokers believe sales will decrease (7%), compared to almost one-fifth of carriers (19%).