Why Your Pooled Group’s Business Model Matters: An Introduction

Watch the first installment of our four-part series of short videos aimed at helping pooled groups find the right combination of technology and services to grow their business. Watch the video or read the transcript below.

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Video Transcript

Ty Arlint: Hello from Businessolver, and welcome to the first video installment in our four-part series. In this video we will be discussing the Business Models for Pooled Insurance Groups. My name is Ty Arlint, and I’ll be your host. Our goal for this series is to explore how pooled groups can not only use technology but also services to help grow their business and mitigate risk.

I’m joined here by Ryan Eagle, Vice President of Client Success and Ben Pasker, Vice President of Client Operations, and they’re going to talk today about how you can use technology to move your business forward.

Ryan Eagle: Thanks for having us, Ty.

Ty Arlint: You’re welcome. So, Ryan, let’s jump right in. In your role helping pooled insurance groups realize their potential, you’ve picked up some tricks along the way.

Ryan Eagle: Sure, and our point of clarity here with the business models, we’re not talking about VEBA vs. MEWA. We’re actually talking about how a group is structured. How is a pool set up so they know how to work and correlate all their information to a service provider, like Businessolver for example.

Ryan Eagle: So what we’ve seen, Ty, is it’s not really a good, better, best from what we’ve seen in the marketplace today. It’s more of what was the group structure like when it first began? What are they focusing on? Are they focusing on growth? Are they focusing on maturity and retention? Those things come into play when we determine how to set up a service model to support those types of groups. Another thing that we’ve come across is we’ve really been able to fit them into three different buckets. Ben, why don’t you talk about the different buckets that we’ve seen.

Ben Pasker: Yeah sure. My experiences working with these different types of pooled groups, I’ve realized that they fit into three groups. First and foremost is a centralized group. As your members join the pooled group, you have a team that’s employed by the association or trust that really acts as that center point of contact, whether it’s a member issue, a group question, or helping to direct what the trust is moving into. There’s a team employed by the association that really manages all of that activity and acts as that main point of contact.

Ben Pasker: From the other side of the spectrum, we see decentralized associations where they’re all participating and leveraging the pool products for the advantages that those bring to their employees and their groups. However, each individual group within that association is somewhat operating on their own. In terms of employee communication or how they’re leveraging the technology, that can vary drastically with those decentralized groups because there’s a little more freedom to make their own decisions. The third group is somewhere in between or a hybrid of both. Maybe there’s a broker or a consultant that helps fill that centralized point of contact role with the decentralized group and helps manage all the messaging and all the other tasks happening within that group.

Ty Arlint: Ben, Ryan, do you guys see a common type of those three that you see as either most successful, or most of these pools and insurance groups typically try to deploy to create a higher level of success?

Ryan Eagle: That’s a great question. I would say we typically see a centralized model where there is an internal team, and I think that’s more because you get a higher level of control as the pool. They get to dictate the service experience of each of the member groups, if you have that centralized team, but that doesn’t mean that it’s better than any other type of model. It’s really how that group was structured and the expectations that they set for each of their member groups to make sure that that service model stays intact. On the other end, like Ben said, with that decentralized model, I’ve seen them work really well also. That model gives more control to each individual entity versus the centralized model.

Ty Arlint: That makes sense. Well, Ben, Ryan, thanks for the information today. That’s about all the time we have. For the audience, make sure you join us for our next installment of videos where we’re going to talk about the centralized model that Ben spoke to. Make sure that you subscribe to the Businessolver blog so you can get these videos straight to your inbox.

We look forward to seeing you again. Until next time, have a great day.

Watch the second video here for more information on getting the support you need for your centralized pooled insurance group.

For more information on pooled groups, check out our e-book below and learn 6 Ways Benefits Technology Can Buoy Pooled Groups.