Fresh out of her first year of high school, the 15-year-old girl really wanted a summer job. So she answered a help-wanted posting in her home town of Mt. Prospect, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, from someone seeking office help for the summer. An independent insurance agent, it turned out, needed somebody to do typing, filing, auto quotes, filling out apps for signature, and the like.

Meet our 2010 Employee Benefit Adviser of the Year.

Today, Annette Bechtold - now a 30-year veteran of the insurance industry and V.P. of Operations at Digital Insurance, the largest and fastest-growing benefits broker in the small-employer market - recalls the epiphany she experienced that summer: "One Saturday afternoon I was alone in the office while the agent was out on appointments and a client called in all frantic, watching their house burn down. That really made an impression on me - I realized what insurance truly is and how it helps people."e_SClB She was hooked. "I often hear a story about how a colleague fell into the industry - well, I actually planned it. When I went off to college at the University of Illinois, I just knew I was going to be in the business. I was a finance major with a specialization in insurance and risk management. Some people say, 'Wow, I've never met anybody who actually planned to go into insurance,'" she laughs.

Working her way up

Soon enough, Bechtold got her wish. After graduating, she took her first real job in the business, with John Hancock. She started out at the very bottom, learning how to pay claims for their fully insured and self-funded clients.

After four and a half years, Bechtold was a claims supervisor for a large self-funded client of Hancock's, managing two medical units, a dental unit and a customer service unit. She also did some of their claims training at various offices around the country. "I loved it; it was a great way to learn," she recalls. "If you understand the contract, then you understand how to sell it - who it fits, how to prepare your customers and how to best help them."

But she was starting her family and the commute to Hancock's Schaumburg, Ill., office was a long one. So Bechtold took a job with Cotter & Co., the co-op for True Value hardware stores and a Hancock client. (Coincidentally, Cotter was the first claim case Bechtold paid in training when she started with Hancock.) "They used all of Hancock's paper and policies even though they had a captive health program, and Hancock's underwriting and claims systems to process everything," she recalls. "I started out doing training and audits, and compliance, and basically building the processes and procedures - which they really needed help with." And so she began a 16-year stay with Cotter and its successor.

After about a year and a half, the claims manager retired, and Bechtold took over managing that operation. Then in 1997, they separated the insurance agency part from Cotter and rechristened it Member Insurance.

Bechtold's time at Cotter/Member Insurance "is probably where I learned most of what I know," she says. Even though it was one group of True Value stores, it was treated as if each was an individual group from an underwriting standpoint, operating in 50 states and subject to all the requirements in each state. "I had sales people selling the product; I had people doing eligibility and underwriting; I had claims payers; I had nurses doing utilization review and case management; we had to maintain all of our own network contracts in addition to where Hancock had networks. And then we had to put together cert booklets and understand which state laws governed. So it was really almost operating a small insurance company in 50 states. It was a great learning experience - more than I would have had in any other setting. "

Operational evolution

In 2001, Member ended the captive arrangement. After state reform of the small group rules in 1994, and then HIPAA in 1997, it was no longer as favorable an environment for participants as it had been in the past. They moved to a fully insured environment and transformed that operation, which was basically a small insurance company, into an insurance brokerage.

"We took on all the functions that a brokerage has - going from one carrier to multiple carriers in all the states, getting appointments with all the carriers, deciding who we going to work with, and creating much more of a sales environment rather than a carrier servicing environment," Bechtold remembers.

After things settled down, she moved to Georgia to open Member's eastern office. She hired staff, and managed Member's benefits nationally as well as their property and casualty sales - first for the East Coast, and then nationally starting in 2003.

"We decided that P&C is what the focus would be going forward. So we found somebody who would do our benefits for us, who could bring more resources to bear and really handle the benefits better - and that was Digital Insurance. So we ended up moving all the benefits business to Digital in 2004," says Bechtold.

Refocusing on benefits

Later that year, Bechtold agreed to take over looking at the operational piece for underwriting for P&C and service. But another epiphany soon followed.

"This was kind of that moment in my life where I woke up one day and said, 'I have just done everything that was presented to me, and learned a ton. But I never stopped and asked myself, what do I want to do and where do I want to focus?' I realized that I really missed benefits a lot."

So she toyed with the idea and ending up having the opportunity to join Digital. "They were already a partner of Member's, so I had worked with all the folks here and really knew what a great organization they were. I also knew how much they cared about their clients - that was a huge thing for me. I've always been very focused on what the client needs, what I can do for them, how can I continue to make a difference in their business. That was the same philosophy that Digital abided by. That made the decision to move to Digital easy for me."

Recalls Wayne Fell, Member's CEO: "Annette worked on the P&C side because that's what was left, and gave it her best shot. But her first love was benefits. She was one of those people you never want to lose, but at the same time her passion is benefits and she did such a great job for us, you just have to wish them well."

Bechtold recalls that the transition to Digital in September 2005 was bittersweet, "because I had put so much into Member and had gotten so much in return. It was a win all the way around - I got to work in benefits, which is what I love, I got to maintain the relationships with clients that I knew, since Member's block of business was here, maintain my relationships with the folks at Member, and then really just work with folks that have the same passion toward benefits and their clients that I do."

Supporting growth

Up until that point, the Digital model was centered around partnering with other brokers and managing their clients. CEO Adam Bruckman explains: "Our business model has always focused on the smaller end of the market. We handle thousands of small employer clients and partner with agencies that have struggled with helping a 10-life or 20-life group. So we built what we think is a pretty nice platform to do that efficiently, but also provide them more service."

In looking forward, Bruckman and his executive team resolved to start growing organically as well. But they realized that growth can't just come through block transitions and partnership arrangements - it needs to be supported by the right systems, processes and technologies.

"What we call Operations is really client services, so about half the people in our organization report through Annette's team," explains Bruckman. "Everything that touches the client, the tools we develop to help clients make decisions or educate them about health care, all rolls up to Annette."

So from December of 2005 until June 2007, Bechtold took on the task of creating and refining Digital's processes and systems around their "sales desk" - internal sales people who sell the "brokerage experience" to Digital's end-consumer clients via phone, with products and services offered all across the country. "That was challenging," Bechtold recalls - getting the right team of people in, the right procedures and processes and systems in place to be able to manage selling individual and group products.

Then in June 2007, Bruckman moved Bechtold into her current role as V.P. of Operations. "She has skills across so many areas and I feel that we found the perfect role for her," he says. "She's just taken the organization to another level."

Digital's training program

One of her first steps in her new position was to amp up the company's training efforts. "When I took on this role, one of the things I realized was that the transactional account management that Digital had created was a perfect foundation, but it wasn't the end point where we needed to be," she says. "Continuing to provide value to your clients meant that you really needed to become a business consultant to them with regard to their insurance program. To do that meant a big change from reactively servicing somebody's insurance to proactively helping educate them and making that a continual process instead of just talking to them once a year."

So she changed the service model, changed the structure and began developing a training program to help the staff make the transition to a more consultive role, as well as the sales orientation that goes with that - how to ask good questions, how to understand clients' businesses and how to build relationships in a different way than a reactive service-oriented person does. "Both build relationships that are very important, but it's different," Bechtold notes. "One is when the client needs you because something negative happened and you're trying top help them fix it, or they're confused. The other is to start from the ground up and become somebody they trust when they're making business decisions, and helping to educate them about the important components of a business decision."

Drawing upon her years of experience at Hancock, Cotter, and Member Insurance delivering training, Bechtold developed a modular training program that would achieve those goals and support the coming changes in Digital's business model as the firm grew.

The first step was to involve the entire staff in building the content. Next she tapped staffers who showed an aptitude for training or for the subject matter, and helped them with their presentation skills.

"There's nobody better to do training than somebody who does it every day. For me, it was important to make sure that first we would tackle the details - the technical knowledge of all the markets, and all the rules, and the state and federal laws and all the things you have to know to be valuable to your client. And to me, that can only be done by somebody who is living in those environments every day."

So all of Digital's training is delivered exclusively by Digital employees. "It's worked great," Bechtold attests. "We're not dependent on one person - a trainer - and we've developed new skills in our existing staff. I think that's important - it makes them feel good and also creates some mentorship. As new people come into the company, they know some people right away and feel comfortable asking them questions."

With employees all over the country, Digital flies a group in for a week-long training session about once a month. The week consists of 10 to 20 different modules on a broad range of topics: systems, consulting, compliance issues, how to make impactful phone calls, health care reform, and specific procedural issues unique to Digital. Some are in a classroom setting, while others are one-on-one, depending on the subject.

One of the biggest payoffs has been the program's impact on the trainers. "It's really a great growing experience for folks who do it," Bechtold asserts. "If you're doing something every day, but you have to stop and explain it to somebody else and make sure they understand, it really makes you think things through again, which I think is a great exercise for anybody. When you're training other people it does make you think outside the box and to think as they do. That helps you come up with new ideas, and ask, 'does what we're doing still make sense?' Also, it challenges you to be better. I wanted that for our folks."

In early 2009, Bechtold launched the second phase of Digital's training program, a three-day, in-depth program called Advanced Consultative Techniques, or ACT. Based on feedback, she and her managers are currently working on "ACT 2," adding some new modules.

Revamped suite of products and services

In early 2007 the Digital management team took a fresh look at their product lineup. Recalls Bechtold: "We said, 'Okay, we need to continue to drive value to our customers, but what does that really mean?' We could offer a bunch of products and services, but if nobody uses them it doesn't really add value."

So the management team embarked on a collaborative effort to bridge the gap between being just a vendor to a source of something more valuable - in other words, what kind of tools and services really make a difference? "It really fell into my area for the most part," she recalls. "My staff and I talk to a million small business, so we are closest to the client."

The new suite of products and services rolled out in April 2007. Today it includes:

* Discounted vision, dental, life, disability and other supplemental products

* An employer needs assessment tool

* A benefits resource center featuring an on-line library of job descriptions, checklists, PowerPoint presentations, sample policies, forms, HR news, training exercises, FAQs, wage and salary data, and an on-line "Ask the Expert" help desk

* Detailed benchmarking studies

Bechtold also incorporated three client services into Digital's product lineup:

* A "Concierge Service Center" staffed by experts who answer questions for employees so business owners don't have to. On average, the Center fields 1,200 questions a month on employee claims, eligibility, plan designs, provider networks, billing, pharmacy issues, ID cards, enrollment, etc.

* A "Wellness Management Center" - a personalized on-line management system distributed in partnership with the Duke University Center for Living that includes health risk assessments, interactive education lessons, health logs and trackers, wellness calculators and self-care resources

* A "Healthcare Reform Resource Center" Web site including a reform timeline, FAQs, sample employee communications and information about the law's small business health care tax credit

Currently, Bechtold is working on a health care reform discrimination testing program for employers. She also hosts live Web seminars on health care reform, the first two of which drew more 500 employers.

'True partner'

Digital's clients value the consistency and responsiveness of the firm's service under Bechtold. Kerry Finnegan, a senior partner at Mercer and their principal contact with Digital, offers an example: "We've had a number of situations where because of our interactions with other lines of business at Mercer, we might need information at a moment's notice about how a certain account is faring. Annette just bends over backwards to get that information to us, with a real clear understanding of how that information will help us."

Says Finnegan, "She is a true partner in terms of trying to improve the client experience and being aware of trends that we can take advantage of on behalf of our clients. With the sharp client focus that we have, it's amazing to work with a partner with the same enthusiasm that protects and nurtures everything we try to do for our clients. Annette embodies that."

Digital's strategy for growth

Last year Digital was among the top insurance firms on Inc. magazine's list of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the country. The company was ranked 20th in the insurance sector, with a growth rate of 140%. And last year, Bechtold's operations team achieved a 193% growth rate in cross sales. So clearly, growth is a key to Digital's business model.

How does a brokerage grow that fast? In four different ways, Bechtold explains. First, they continue to partner with other agencies, which was their original business model. For example, Bechtold explains, a brokerage will say, "You know, it's resource-intensive in this small space; our focus is to work in middle market or large market, so Digital, we want you to manage our small market cases."

Digital also works to gain additional business from its 225-plus partners. "They continue to push up the level of what they send us. They may have picked a threshold that might be based on revenue - everything under $2,500 in revenue, for example - or it might be based on everything under 15 lives. And so they raise that threshold annually as they refine their own business," Bechtold explains.

Second, Digital's business development unit is constantly looking for opportunities in which they can work with brokers as either partners or acquisitions. In a block acquisition, they may work with a broker who is deciding to exit the business but lacks a business perpetuation strategy, or wants to retire or do other things, or with a broker that's staying in the insurance business, but wants to shed its benefits business and focus on their primary lines, like P&C or financial consulting. Since the end of 2008, Digital has made several acquisitions, and this model has become a big part of the company's business.

The third way is via agency acquisition. "This year we began a program to partner with really good, strong local agencies, and bring on the producer in that office to create organic growth for us moving forward," explains Bechtold.

The last piece of Digital's growth strategy is their sales desk. Says Bechtold, "We have a very talented inside sales team. Our partners will send over the leads that they receive in a particular space, and have us sell it, service it and manage it."

Says Bechtold, "Every single day is spent in conversation about how do we do more for our clients, how do we get better at what we do, and how do we continue to grow. We have grown by anywhere from 30% to 50% every year that we have been in business. Obviously the bigger you get, the harder it is to maintain that number, but we're still at about 30% for 2009-2010.

"Small businesses need a lot of help. And it's hard to do that in a cost-effective manner. So I think we've gotten some things right, and we'll continue to push forward in the area of being more efficient and to help more people."

Bechtold also credits Bruckman and the rest of Digital's executive team: "We have a really dynamic leadership team who listens to its employees and cares about what they have to say. I think that's huge. I've never been around an organization with a culture that's this open. I have employees ask me questions on Facebook in the evening - 'I'm sorry to bother you so late, but ...' This is very much a family environment."

Ask the guy who knows

It's clear that Bruckman values his V.P. of Operations very highly. "The two things that Annette does exceptionally well is understanding who the right people are for important roles as we grow the company, both in management and the consultant-level positions, and also, what's the right technology, and process, and ways to set it up so that we can deliver the same services that might be found in a traditional agency model, but at a very high volume of business.

"It takes some thoughtfulness about setting it up and being efficient - where the right skill sets are; you want the right people who are good with customer relationships, and so on. There's a lot of plain common sense involved, but it also takes a very, very driven person with a special skill set like Annette has."

Member's CEO Wayne Fell sees Bechtold in the same light: "The gift that she has is that she truly cares about the people she's dealing with. If you watch her talk to clients or potential clients, there's so much empathy - it's all about 'What do I need to do to take care of this client?' Certainly she's in the business of making sales, but [the sales] come because of this empathy.

"In the world of selling benefits, that's the greatest gift you can have. In benefits, clients want to trust you. That's true of any insurance line, of course, but health insurance is the one that scares people and causes anxiety. They really want to have somebody they can trust. So that gift, where you can sit down with a prospect and in a matter of minutes you can see the difference in the body language, creates that bond of trust. And when they leave after 10 minutes, it's like they've known Annette for 10 years.

"She also has a work ethic that is just amazing to me. She goes 12 to 14 hours a day. I don't know if she ever stops working. I remember telling her, "Sometimes you've got to just say, 'to hell with it,' and take an evening off.' These two things - the empathy and the work ethic - are an astounding combination."

Digital Insurance by the numbers

Founded: January 2000

Digital Insurance by the numbers

HQ: Atlanta

Employees: 200

Total clients: 20,000+

Small-business clients: 18,000+

Covered lives: 350,000

Premium under management: $920 million

Business partners: 225+2009 revenue growth: 30%

On training ...

"I think life is all about training and education. We're all learning all the time. I think that in college I had some professors who held some information back so they would always be smarter than you. I've always felt to the contrary, that if everybody knows what you know, it only helps you. Otherwise, you can never move on and better yourself. Whether it's your clients you're educating about benefits and how they impact their business, or different creative solutions - there's always something new.

"This business is not rocket science, but when you're working in 50 states like we are, there's a lot to know. This is especially true in 2010 with health care reform becoming a reality. There was always a lot before, but now it's exponentially greater.

"We're needed even more, I think, to help all of our clients navigate through all the questions: What does this mean to me, what does this mean to my business, what decisions should I be making, how should I set things up, what can I expect? We've gone from 60 miles an hour to 100 miles an hour, but in a good way, I think."

On health care reform ...

"The first thing I have to do every day is continue to educate myself about health care reform. Things are developing so fast. I started out when the first bills were introduced, trying to understand what the impact would be on our clients. I felt that even if it didn't pass, it wouldn't be left alone and these issues were going to continue to come to the forefront. So I needed to understand how to best prepare for what we needed to be doing to help our clients."

As the regulators issue their rules, more becomes revealed as you work through the nitty-gritty. That's where we are now. It means a look every day at what has come out of the Department of Health and Human Services, from the IRS and other places - and then figuring out how we can make it easy for our clients - how do we boil that down so they can run their business and make good decisions in a short amount of time?

"It has become a monumental task, but I look at it as an opportunity for us to further our value to our customer base. Also, reform has become a huge talking point for us with prospects.

"Not every broker looks at reform as an opportunity. Some look at it from a fearful standpoint, or hope it will go away, or don't know what to do, or don't have the resources to be able to devote enough time to keep up with it. I think all brokers are struggling with that. The smaller your resources are, the more likely it is that you're not able to keep pace with what's happening. That can put you at a disadvantage."