Gain the Upper Hand with a Billion Dollar Insurance Disrupter

Marty Johnson is the Vice President and Practice Leader for IBX. IBX has a proven method used by Insurance Professionals to provide their large group of clients with a comprehensive Contract and Pricing RFP to compare with their existing employee benefit lines.

What is it like to run such a unique business within a large industry?

IBX has over 11 years of experience conducting RFP’s on over 4.5 million lives, 3,969 lines of coverage and in excess of $1.1 billion of annual premium with both external and internal producers. The average client has in excess of 1,000 employees.

This company is a reflection of committed professionals who understand going to market on behalf of a large Employer. With close to 100 years of knowledge in Underwriting, Sales, and Client Service, our team is driven by a fiercely independent sense of the best way to accomplish our jobs. So, the internal challenge is to build a consensus on what we do and automate our delivery for efficient client-facing documents. Running $148 million of customer spend last year with over 449 lines of insurance coverage with a small, efficient team requires seamless use of technology supporting this complex job.

What is Strategic Sourcing? What are the benefits of this combined with Insurance Consulting?

Strategic Sourcing is the use of a customized software platform designed to help drive marketplace efficiencies, speed to market, along with constructive competition that manages the Carrier related risk and ensures compliance with requested contractual obligations. The overall outcome results in substantial returns for the buyer, while respecting the Carrier relationships and value-added services and features. The Brokers we support save a significant amount of time and manpower to bring their clients the best offers from the marketplace without sacrificing quality. Relationships will still triumph as a client will always purchase based on more than price. Complex reviews will be expedited with a technical evaluation combined with the financial review.

Have you had any notable cases or clients that you’ve assisted with recently? How were you able to help them?

This year we coordinated a merger of two large health systems, with over 30,000 employees and 18 lines of insurance with an annual spend that exceeded $10 million. The financial results were important but the marketplace coordination of over 22 Carriers represented a completely transparent and rigorous review of their offerings, leading to a client-driven decision for their best choice moving forward. Year to date we have run over $66 million in total spend for over 200 lines of insurance coverage with fourth-quarter Stop Loss yet to go to market.

How do you ensure results in the areas of Life/DI, Dental Vision and Stop Loss?

Results are defined by always getting the best in class offer at the best-in-class “Market Price”, which is really what a client wants in the end. How do I know that I am spending my money in the most efficient transparent manner with the highest quality service available? It really is human nature to want to know that we are doing the absolute best for our clients with their valuable employees. Given the timeline of 45 to 60 days to accomplish this review, and the complexity of insurance services and contracts, technology is critical to finish this project. Saving everyone’s time, from underwriting to sales representatives to account management all with the end user’s goal in mind, makes for the “Best in Class at the Market Price for Employee Benefits”. We often see in excess of 20-25% reduction in costs for employers.

What is the next step for IBX?

Our relationships with Regional Brokerage Firms are critical, so they continue to be the focus of our business. The clients on the platform average in excess of 1,000 Employees because that is where we have credible experience and pricing elasticity that warrants a rigorous review. We continue to seek feedback from our customers on their needs and will continue to look into ways to improve their experience.