It recently became obvious to me that my office was overdue for a thorough spring cleaning. After digging through mountains of ancient receipts and a potpourri of long-forgotten sticky note reminders (anyone else have trouble reading their own handwriting?), I started organizing several shelves of old issues of the magazine dating back more than a decade.
It was fascinating to see such a visual representation of the many shifts and trends that have shaped our industry during that time. As you all know, fear of the unknown and uncertainty about the future have been present in the industry for a long time, and this was reflected in much of our industry coverage.
Here's a sampling of a few headlines from what was unarguably a scary time for many brokers and advisors:
Pretty grim, huh? Now, to be fair, there was still plenty of hope, even during the darkest years. Other covers from the same timeframe featured defiant and optimistic messages, including one of my favorites: “Not afraid.”
Still, my little trip down memory lane provided an interesting perspective on where things stand now and how drastically the mindset of many in the industry has changed.
I can't tell you how many times consultants and other benefits professionals have recently told me “there's never been a better time in this industry,” or “my job is finally fun again.”
As Suzannah Gill puts it in this month's Face of Change, “I was talking to [a broker] the other day and she said, 'I get to be the hero.'” And as Gill notes, health care reform and the many changes it brought to the industry have been largely responsible for pushing innovations like self-funding to the forefront.
Billy Potter, our 2018 Broker of the Year, puts it another way: “There is a wedge between people who are progressively changing for the better, actively not going with the flow, and those who have decided to keep doing things the way they have been doing them for a long time.”
Being a hero? Progress and change? Sounds pretty good, wouldn't you say?
Yes, plenty of challenges remain and the future is still far from certain. Health care reform, the shadow of single-payer and plenty of other issues aren't going to just disappear. But for the first time in a long time, brokers and their clients are taking back control. And they're having a really good time doing it.
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Paul Wilson
Paul Wilson is the editor-in-chief of BenefitsPRO Magazine and BenefitsPRO.com. He has covered the insurance industry for more than a decade, including stints at Retirement Advisor Magazine and ProducersWeb.
