Voluntary Benefits
Published by Dan Johnson on March 30th, 2022
As I’m about to retire I look back on my 40 years in this amazing and crazy insurance business. I think of the first lessons I learned coming into the insurance world about the industry and what we do for our policyholders. These lessons are as true today as they were back in 1982. Some of those tried and true lessons were:
Lesson #1
In the insurance industry we sell “Promises to pay”, we do not sell widgets or something you can touch or feel. When I first heard this term way back in 1982, I did not have a concept of what this meant. My background was that my father owned a corrugated box factory I worked at all through high school and into college. We made something tangible, corrugated boxes that I could touch. I now know and understand what this phrase meant because policies we sold at my original insurance company, Capital Bakers Life, are still paying out benefits today.
In fact, my brother-in-law passed away two years ago. I had convinced my sister and brother-in-law long ago they should make sure they had life insurance to protect their growing family. We sold them a Capital Bankers Life policy with Waiver of premium on it. My brother-in-law eventually developed diabetes, became disabled, and was unable to work. The waiver of premium kicked in after his disability and kept the policy paid until he died. The death benefit was paid to my sister. This was at least 30 years after the policy was issued. Capital Bankers Life fulfilled their promise to pay!
Lesson # 2
In our business we bring checks to our policyholders in times of need, when others bring bills to pay. This statement is true no matter what Voluntary Benefit coverage we sell, whether it’s life insurance, disability, critical illness, accident, or hospital indemnity. Someone sends a bill that needs to be paid and our insureds can use our benefit payments to help pay those bills.
Over my 40 years, I have seen or heard first-hand from our brokers, enrollment partners, enrollers and our customer service and claims teams about the people who have our coverage and trigger a claim payment. We hear from people who would have lost their house if not for the life insurance purchased at work from our company. We hear sad stories of funeral homes that will not bury someone without verification that they have life insurance coverage inforce with us. Or a client who can’t pay their mortgage because a critical illness has drained their savings, who can use the proceeds from our Lump Sum Critical Illness plan to pay.
Lesson #3
Always listen to all of your customers and adapt and innovate. In my 27 years at Trustmark, I am very proud of the fact that we are known for three things, innovative products, top-notch service and long and deep relationships. Because of that, we are always digging into what our customers need and want. We have the most innovative hybrid life insurance with long-term care plan in the industry. We proved that last year by writing over $100 Million in sales in the State of Washington alone because of their WE Care LTC Tax plan.
I was blessed to be part of the team that rolled out one of the first lump sum cancer plans way back in 1995. That product has evolved to a full-blown Critical Illness plan. We heard from our clients that medical advances had changed the way critical illnesses were treated and that they also wanted help preventing illnesses from ever happening, so we introduced our Critical Health Events plan. That policy eliminated some of the insurance jargon that prevented the insurance industry from paying claims due to new medical advances and techniques. The dirty little secret is that the industry has an average critical illness claim denial rate of 33%. At Trustmark we cut that to 7-9% with Critical HealthEvents. Our innovation and modern era CI contract language changes cut declines by 2/3rds.
We also heard from our clients that they wanted more options alongside our industry leading Hybrid Universal Life with LTC contract. We are close to releasing a new life and care plan that will be fully guaranteed coverage with informal family care as one of many new options. This product as all of our others was built from customer requests and research.
Lesson #4
Be responsive, and do what you say you will do when you say you will do it. This lesson has been ingrained in me my whole career and its part of a golden rule in life I believe in strongly. I have been blessed by having long and deep client relationships, some for 30 plus years. I know I must earn the business each and every day, but I hope that after all the years of doing what we said we would do, that our clients know we have their backs and we always do the right thing.
As I move into retirement, I am most proud of the men and women of Trustmark and our brokers, enrollment organizations and enrollers that helped fulfill those “promises to pay”.
We’ve paid billions in claims helping everyday American families pay those bills that keep coming when unforeseen events occur.
I am asked all the time what I will miss after I retire. I will miss the people of Trustmark and this amazing and crazy insurance industry.
Lesson #1
In the insurance industry we sell “Promises to pay”, we do not sell widgets or something you can touch or feel. When I first heard this term way back in 1982, I did not have a concept of what this meant. My background was that my father owned a corrugated box factory I worked at all through high school and into college. We made something tangible, corrugated boxes that I could touch. I now know and understand what this phrase meant because policies we sold at my original insurance company, Capital Bakers Life, are still paying out benefits today.
In fact, my brother-in-law passed away two years ago. I had convinced my sister and brother-in-law long ago they should make sure they had life insurance to protect their growing family. We sold them a Capital Bankers Life policy with Waiver of premium on it. My brother-in-law eventually developed diabetes, became disabled, and was unable to work. The waiver of premium kicked in after his disability and kept the policy paid until he died. The death benefit was paid to my sister. This was at least 30 years after the policy was issued. Capital Bankers Life fulfilled their promise to pay!
Lesson # 2
In our business we bring checks to our policyholders in times of need, when others bring bills to pay. This statement is true no matter what Voluntary Benefit coverage we sell, whether it’s life insurance, disability, critical illness, accident, or hospital indemnity. Someone sends a bill that needs to be paid and our insureds can use our benefit payments to help pay those bills.
Over my 40 years, I have seen or heard first-hand from our brokers, enrollment partners, enrollers and our customer service and claims teams about the people who have our coverage and trigger a claim payment. We hear from people who would have lost their house if not for the life insurance purchased at work from our company. We hear sad stories of funeral homes that will not bury someone without verification that they have life insurance coverage inforce with us. Or a client who can’t pay their mortgage because a critical illness has drained their savings, who can use the proceeds from our Lump Sum Critical Illness plan to pay.
Lesson #3
Always listen to all of your customers and adapt and innovate. In my 27 years at Trustmark, I am very proud of the fact that we are known for three things, innovative products, top-notch service and long and deep relationships. Because of that, we are always digging into what our customers need and want. We have the most innovative hybrid life insurance with long-term care plan in the industry. We proved that last year by writing over $100 Million in sales in the State of Washington alone because of their WE Care LTC Tax plan.
I was blessed to be part of the team that rolled out one of the first lump sum cancer plans way back in 1995. That product has evolved to a full-blown Critical Illness plan. We heard from our clients that medical advances had changed the way critical illnesses were treated and that they also wanted help preventing illnesses from ever happening, so we introduced our Critical Health Events plan. That policy eliminated some of the insurance jargon that prevented the insurance industry from paying claims due to new medical advances and techniques. The dirty little secret is that the industry has an average critical illness claim denial rate of 33%. At Trustmark we cut that to 7-9% with Critical HealthEvents. Our innovation and modern era CI contract language changes cut declines by 2/3rds.
We also heard from our clients that they wanted more options alongside our industry leading Hybrid Universal Life with LTC contract. We are close to releasing a new life and care plan that will be fully guaranteed coverage with informal family care as one of many new options. This product as all of our others was built from customer requests and research.
Lesson #4
Be responsive, and do what you say you will do when you say you will do it. This lesson has been ingrained in me my whole career and its part of a golden rule in life I believe in strongly. I have been blessed by having long and deep client relationships, some for 30 plus years. I know I must earn the business each and every day, but I hope that after all the years of doing what we said we would do, that our clients know we have their backs and we always do the right thing.
As I move into retirement, I am most proud of the men and women of Trustmark and our brokers, enrollment organizations and enrollers that helped fulfill those “promises to pay”.
We’ve paid billions in claims helping everyday American families pay those bills that keep coming when unforeseen events occur.
I am asked all the time what I will miss after I retire. I will miss the people of Trustmark and this amazing and crazy insurance industry.
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Written by Dan Johnson
Trustmark Voluntry Benefits
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