When we announced late last year that Shea Insurance would be re-opening after we had sold the company five years prior to, the biggest question that people have asked us is... Why did you sell Shea Insurance to begin with?
1. in 2012, obamacare implementation
As a smaller agency, we feared that we didn't have all of the resources to be able to offer all of our clients what they needed to implement Healthcare Reform/Obamacare. Boy was I wrong. It turned out that smaller agencies can better customize compliance related plans and more efficiently than the National Agencies who don't have the resources to pay attention to each individual client.
2. HINDSIGHT, my family needed me
I believe in an all mighty God who loves me and has a plan for me. The decision to sell wasn't an easy one. As I mentioned above, I thought that the answers to prayers to sell the company was due to market factors, but the real reason was because I needed to spend more time away from the office and at home.
A few years after selling our company, my wife asked me if I would be willing to adopt another child. We already had three daughters of our own and after a little thought, I told her, "YES." You can read the whole story on my wife's blog www.millionwaystomother.com but in short, we ended up fostering and adopting two more children.
I now know, that there was no way that I would have said yes if I had still been running our company. The time would not have allowed me to do so.
3. Re-open, I am too young to reach my ceiling
As an employee, I hated watching the revenue being sucked out of the agency rather than see reinvestment. I got bored just trying to do the same stuff with the same sales tools that I had 8 years ago.
Let's do something fun and innovative. To start, I am not an insurance broker but rather an Employee Benefits Consultant. The distinct difference is that one is trying to sell you a policy so they can earn commissions... the latter will sit down, understand your business, and build out a benefits package that recruits & retains top talent.
4. Customer service needs to be first
Insurance Brokers & Employee Benefits Consultants do not have a product to sell. They are facilitators of a product. Simple-middle-men. Why is it so hard for middle-men to understand that customer service needs to be at the core of their fundamental business model?
When a company has services that they can add to clients but then wait for the client to ask for such service... they are not putting the customer first. Ask your broker for their latest sales material, then ask them why you have never been offered many of the services that they are offering to court new prospective clients. Truthful answer, they'd rather suck the profits out of the business than treat their customers' needs first.
5. health insurance means helping people
Health Insurance is pretty much the only insurance that you purchase with the expectation to use it almost immediately. When you have to use it, it can be stressful. When you have health issues, the last thing that you want to worry about is if your insurance is going to cover the big expenses. I love being the advocate and assisting as much as possible to help alleviate that stress. I love telling a client to not worry about the insurance because we have got it handled and they can focus on getting well.
I am looking forward to what Shea Insurance 2.0 has to offer. Let's shake things up!!!