It’s a commitment: A Q&A with Liz Frayer

Liz Frayer, RHU, CHCC, is a principal and employee benefits specialist with Intrepid, pairing state-of-the-art consulting with white-glove service to create a supreme employee benefit experience.

How did you get your start in the benefits industry/?

I graduated from the University of Georgia in 1995 with a major in Romance languages. I majored in French and minored in Italian. It was kind of unique, but when I was in school, I never seemed to meet anyone who was doing something for a living that they’d studied in college. They often just fell into things or their career ended up going in a different direction, so I gathered that you should study something you’re interested in.

When I graduated, we were getting ready for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, so I planned to major in languages and then work for the Olympics… which I did for a year. It was a really neat experience. Young people had elevated positions because nobody with experience was going to quit their job for a temporary position with the Olympics.

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I quickly found out that wasn’t a long-term plan. However, Randstad did staffing for the Olympics, so the lady who had interviewed me remembered me for a customer position that came up in an insurance agency.

It was the last thing I thought I’d end up doing at the time, as I was a bit of a free spirit. But I started there as a temp 25 years ago and I’m still in the same agency! Two years into the job, and after being hired full-time, my boss was let go on a Friday. She was the main woman I supported. So I came in the next Monday, probably 23 or 24 years old, and there were appointments on her calendar so I just started meeting with clients and prospects.

Fast forward to 2013, when my boss at the time, who was the owner of the agency, was getting pretty nervous about ACA. He came to me and wanted me to buy the agency, which again, was not really what I thought I would do. But I also couldn’t imagine working for somebody else or putting our employees at risk of being consolidated with another agency. So I bought the agency that year and then in 2019, I combined with a number of my friends and other agency owners. We’re now part of a bigger entity now called Patriot Growth Insurance Services.

So I went from temp to full-time employee to owner to co-owner. It’s been a really exciting ride. One of the great things about business is that things are always changing in my career, for me personally, legislatively, and for our clients as well. It’s always way more interesting than people give it credit for.

How has this journey shaped who you are, your perspectives on benefits and your role as an advisor?

When my boss wanted to sell the agency, he said, “It would be great if you bought this business, because I wouldn’t have the weight on me and the concerns of running this business.” In my mind, I was already running the business soup to nuts; I was doing everything and he was a great mentor but wasn’t very involved in the day-to-day. I didn’t really understand what he meant when said he’d have a huge weight off because in my mind I was doing 99% of the work and he was reaping a lot of the benefits.

After I bought the agency, I completely understood. If an employee is disgruntled or a client is mad, there’s only one throat to choke. It was really eye-opening for me and I experienced a lot of personal growth. I have the best team in the world and I work with wonderful clients, but there is a weight that you carry that I don’t think you can understand until you carry it. Probably not unlike being a parent or other big things in your life where you think you have an idea about something but it’s really different than you anticipated.

Can you tell me a little bit more about your company?

We have 19 people working in Atlanta, and we’re all women. In our industry, that’s pretty unique! I remember being 22 years old and going to industry meetings and being one of the only women there and one of the youngest people. And honestly, if I go today, it’s still the same thing—I just turned 48 and I’m still one of the youngest people, and there still aren’t very many women. We didn’t intentionally become an all-female team, but now we really like it. I try to give young women opportunities in our industry that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

In general, we hire people from the ground up, so everyone in our office came to us straight out of college; we have an Art History major, Communication majors, English majors. People with creative backgrounds who often saw themselves in a different field, but we develop those people internally. Everyone starts off in a client services position. If they can’t get that right, they’re probably not going to be successful in other positions in our office.

In our industry, the focus is often on prospective clients instead of our actual clients, but our priority is making sure our team understands how important it is to take care of our clients and get that service piece right—empathy, advocacy, knowledge. And then we grow our own people; there are people here who started straight out of school and who have now been here for 13 years, 15 years, 17 years and they’re on the same trajectory as me. This was their unexpected first job and they’re still here because they like our culture and the clients we work with and they feel like they have opportunities here.

My job is to keep health care costs down and to advocate for people to have access to quality affordable health care, but in my mind, my role is also to create opportunities for people who have put their stake in the ground here and have committed to growing our agency, our team and themselves.

And how about your family?

I got married in April of 2021, and we have three boys. My son is 15; he was an only child and now he has two brothers, one on either side of him. So he’s gone from an only child to full house–three teenage boys. Quite an adjustment! It makes it really fun because they’re all so unique. There are so many different styles and passions.

The majority of last school year they were all at home. My son is on the autism spectrum, so his brothers joining our household has been great for us on a number of levels. He went without seeing friends for almost a year, so it was great to have his brothers around.

What areas are you watching when it comes to innovation, cost and quality? Any predictions on what to watch over the next few years?

I’ve always been passionate about health care consumerism. Typically, the more money you spend, the higher quality item or service you receive. But health care has flipped that on its head. If you’ve spent a lot more money, it means you weren’t on the right path to care from the beginning or haven’t gone to the right place for care. It’s hard for many consumers to understand that. Normally, if you pay for the Ritz Carlton, you get the Ritz Carlton; if you pay for the Holiday Inn, you get the Holiday Inn.

Our industry is also terrible at naming things; we had this idea of health care consumerism but then we named the plan a high-deductible health plan. Who wants to sign up for that? In our office, we call it a consumer-driven health plan; we’ve been doing that for years and I know it’s really catching on now. We try to convey that this is really about giving you more control, not penalizing you. But when these plans came out, it was “Here’s a high deductible, so that’s going to make you a better consumer.” There weren’t a lot of tools to actually facilitate that, it was just the assumption that if you’re going to pay more for services, you’re going to pay more attention to the cost and maybe ask better questions. What we want to do for our clients and employees is to give them tools; there are now so many tools available. Now everyone carries a computer in their hand.

We often hear the term “functionally uninsured” to describe how HDHPs have, in some cases, made it almost impossible for people to use their insurance. What other new strategies and conversations are emerging that create more options and transparency?

Probably 80% of our 2-50 life groups are level-funded in some way. And for our mid-market employers, we use a captive benefits provider, so most of them are coming from fully insured and going into a partially self-funded environment. But it’s kind of like what I just said about the consumer: You can’t just put the employer into a self-funded environment without the tools to manage it. I’ll call someone who says, “We thought we were just going to save money by going self-funded, and now we have a play-by-play of how we’re spending money. But we’re not sure how to control it.”

I’m a big proponent of moving to a self-funded environment, but I tell employers, “Don’t go into this without planning to dedicate some time, attention and thought.” You have to be way more engaged than you do when shopping for a plan in the fully insured market once a year and just picking a carrier based on network. There are so many more tools you can take advantage of, but they do require your time and attention. I see a lot of advisors pushing self-funding without including strategies to manage the costs. You need to have a plan that will evolve over time and it requires working with employers who are creative and forward-thinking.

How are those conversations about change and innovation going right now with clients and prospects? Are you getting more buy-in?

In 2020, many employers were thinking, “Let’s just wait until this blows over. Why make a change?” Engagement with their employees was the focus because people were working from home. I think during that period, it was “batten down the hatches.” It was difficult because we want to make a difference for people, but when they don’t want to make a change for themselves, it’s really hard. But at the same time, we’re going through the exact same thing as our clients. We’re all working from home and shipping monitors to people’s houses so they could be set up quickly. So it was frustrating, but I understood it, because we were in the same position.

Clients call me because they need help managing their employees’ benefits. And we do light HR, so people are asking us HR questions: “When should we go back to the office?” It’s humbling because you’re glad you’ve built that relationship; that they want to know what you’re doing with your employees. It’s not your expertise as much as they respect you as a leader and they want to know what you’re doing to keep people safe.

On a day-to-day basis, I’d say it’s the 80/20 rule. One hundred percent of clients want to complain about health care costs, but 20% of them might be willing to do what it takes to invest the time and make changes to really make an impact. I have a handful of clients who are the ones I can call and say, “Hey, I heard this great presentation or I had this new idea. You would be my first choice to do it! How do you feel about that?” And several of them are like, “Let’s do it!”

I try to be very transparent and set the expectations as much as possible. But sometimes I need someone who is willing to go out on a limb, so I’m lucky to have those resources. And that gives us the confidence to really push with clients to make a change that we think makes sense for them.

What are the unique challenges or opportunities in working with these types of employers in your part of the country?

Sometimes I talk to my peers and they’ll say, “I’m getting a plane to go meet with this client.” I feel so fortunate to work in the growing center of Atlanta. I don’t really feel the need to go and meet with a company headquartered in Houston because I feel like there’s so much opportunity here. I’m the biggest Atlanta fan that you could possibly find. We say, “Atlanta influences everything” and I really believe that to be true. We have so much opportunity here and we’re such a growing and diverse community.

We talk a lot about how the health care system is broken or rigged. How do you stay motivated and positive and not become overwhelmed or discouraged?

Well, I consider myself a champion. I do sometimes feel like I’m stuck on a hamster wheel, but I have to be optimistic. We have wins every week—a negotiated renewal, a smarter solution, helping someone obtain a life-changing medication. That keeps us going. I’m so passionate when I’m talking to an employer and they choose us. There are so many options for them, so I don’t take that lightly. It’s not a sale for me, it’s a commitment.

Recently, an employee in one of our groups called me and he said, “I just found out that I have Parkinson’s disease. Other than my wife, you’re the only person who knows.” I’ve never met this person; he’s never met me. He’s in a vulnerable place. When you get a call like that, it’s not a time to rest. Those are the things that energize me.I want to set an example for the people I work with of what it’s like to be someone’s champion and help them with what they’re going through.

One of my oldest friends was recently diagnosed with colorectal cancer. One of the reasons he called me first is because I insure their employer. When many people share with friends, “Hey, I’ve been diagnosed with X,” the friends don’t really know what to do. “I’m so sorry. Let me know if I can do anything to help.” But in our positions, we get to help. I can’t do anything about the medical diagnosis, but I can make sure they know their employer planned for this. We put in disability insurance; we put in life insurance. It’s a good feeling to know that you can help in some aspect of people’s journey when they’re in a vulnerable place.

The pandemic was the most recent example of disruption in our industry, but there have been many other examples. Can you talk about the effects of change and disruption?

We deal with a lot of compliance in our office; it’s a strength of ours to help clients navigate compliance issues and do the paperwork. There’s always something changing, whether it’s an executive order or a pandemic. I think about the recent COBRA nightmare, with things that were retroactive 30 days before it was implemented, and an employer has to be saying, “I’m just passionate about my business” and here they are totally diverted and facing huge penalties if they don’t do all of these monotonous tasks that employees generally don’t care about or understand. In general, you just have to be someone who’s OK with change in order to succeed in this business.

That’s why when I talk about having younger people come into the business. With the ACA, there were some people who were thinking, “I’ve been doing this for 40 years; I don’t want to relearn everything.” You have to be somebody who loves to learn, pays attention to details and can communicate well. You have to love to learn. This industry has a lot of experience, which is helpful, but if you’re a young person today, you can learn these things as they’re coming out and have a great opportunity next to someone who’s been doing it for decades.

What advice do you give to people in your office who are new to the industry?

My father was in sales. He told me early on to return everybody’s phone call. So when someone calls me, I generally return their call. I might do it after hours and say, “I’m not interested” but I think responsiveness is important. The expectation these days is often to respond quicker and be sharper. There have been so many examples of people I was kind to, even if I didn’t end up doing business with them, coming back to me later in ways that were helpful to me and my agency. Just be thoughtful and considerate. When I came into the working world, I was shocked that all I was doing was returning people’s calls and listening and being nice to people and it somehow catapulted me to a rock star in my agency. If you show up on time, you return people’s calls, you try to solve your own problems and think creatively, I think you’ll be super successful.

I hear more and more about the importance of hiring from outside the industry. What’s the value of doing that?

People are trainable, but you can’t change the core of who they are. What I’m looking for is not someone who knows about insurance. I’m looking for someone who’s coachable, has a good work ethic, who’s fun to be around for our team, and who likes to learn. When I get a resume, I’m looking to see if they had a job when they were in high school and college; are there things they’re passionate about that are different from what we already have here? That’s what I’m interested in. Most of the people we hire are still on their parents’ health plan; they’ve never carried their own health insurance or made their own enrollment elections. And that’s OK with me; I want to be the one who explains to them what that experience should be like and then have them translate that to other people’s experiences.

Finish this sentence: The key to success in this industry going forward is…

Finding people who will help you stay energized and accountable.

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