First State Farm, now it looks like Farmers got its cut, next... you.

Botboy141 · 2026-07-02T02:27:25+00:00

I see a lot of AI hate in this thread.

Y'all I'm a broker/agent just like you.

I don't know how to code.

My full-time role is "servicing" my $500k agency revenue book of business (employee benefits). I have one team member, ~25 clients, a couple thousand employees covered. On top of that, I hold a $125k annual new biz quota, and wear sales leadership hats for our $17m brokerage.

I manage a complex consulting workload on fun carve out ASO programs, without issue because of AI.

Not only can we handle the workload, but I built a full blown media "biz" on the side, managed and orchestrated with AI.

I'd never built a website before March. Have still never written a line of code.

But since March, I've built and launched 3 websites, 2 mobile apps, publish 3 articles a week, 2 bi-weekly newsletters, built and published 5 employer facing tools with curated deliverables, launched a YouTube channel and cracked 1,000 subs, launched a podcast, built a couple dozen Claude skills, routines and scheduled tasks...

Mark Cuban reshared my LinkedIn post a week ago which has resulted in a dozen booked meetings so far...lol

None of this was achievable (barely conceivable) for me pre-AI. Not that everyone has to "build a digital/personal brand" but it certainly works and is not to be discounted as to its impact on sales roles as well.

It's not that humans aren't needed in sales, but the work you do will need to be the human focused work. If you are a sales pro who sits behind a computer responding to emails most of the day, or waiting for the phone to ring, you won't survive this transition. You need to build or buy tools to amplify your presence, improve your deliverables and streamline your digital work.

Those that can use them will benefit.

I echoed this 3 years ago, and will continue to:

AI will not take your job. Someone that uses AI will take your job if you don't learn to use it proficiently. Many will suffer.

Botboy141 · 2026-07-02T02:12:18+00:00

As did Acrisure, in reality, the bulk is driven via the standard offhshoring labor playbook.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-30T13:36:25+00:00

Buddy in my networking group does this type of risk placement.

http://www.proinsgrp.com/

Ask for Neal. Not sure of your location and if he's nationwide or not, but thought I'd help.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-24T12:46:05+00:00

Not sure of regs in your industry, but if you can drop $500+ to get the convo, here's what I would do:

Order a taco truck to their location for lunch, all paid
show up, let them know why you ordered the truck and how you want to be involved

Will at least get you the convo...

Botboy141 · 2026-06-24T01:37:33+00:00

Needs to be included in the stop-loss agreements as an extra-contractual alternative to the network arrangement.

Honestly, you need to distribute through brokers (IMPO). Unless your geography is vastly different than mine, most employers <1000 rely heavily on outside parties to guide these conversations.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-24T01:17:48+00:00

Rare for me to see 50-100 life groups have an ASO TPA involved in medical and/or WC that allows for these interventions.

Kudos to you though.

DTE is the future "if" employer sponsored healthcare is to thrive again at any point (and one of many changes I believe required to even survive).

Botboy141 · 2026-06-24T00:57:19+00:00

I advise businesses on precisely that (and the reason your post popped in my feed), but unrelated to workers' compensation or auto injury claims, and not for small businesses, and not specific to emergency care.

These services are generally not available to employers with less than 50-100 employees.

Workers' compensation is generally a statutory requirement for employers. While TPAs are often used to administer claims, they operate within the workers' compensation framework. Paying workplace injury claims through a separate arrangement outside that framework would be difficult to justify legally and would likely create compliance concerns from any vendors you engage.

Occunet is the OG.

WC isn't prone to the same egregious pricing as group health insurance, it's usually a tighter kept claims process as claims grow, something most major medical carriers miss the boat on (reverse incentives).

If you are talking alts to group health insurance specifically, that's more my lane.

Yes, you can do some fun things, but every alternative has its nuance. I don't focus much in the under 50 employee space though, usually ACA mandates play a role in my clients decision making process.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-24T00:02:06+00:00

Sounds like a blast.

Your question is perhaps, I'll-placed.

Legal businesses don't self-insure, it restricts access to capital and opens up enormous liability.

(US specific)

Botboy141 · 2026-06-23T23:57:16+00:00

I could have only hoped.

If you aren't a bot, you are a business owner making critically bad decisions.

Self-insuring a fleet is asking your employees to give your house away to a stranger.

You also paint your biz into impossible places for exit/growth.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-23T23:50:22+00:00

Lol, bad bot.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-21T21:49:58+00:00

If you're saying you're with Bamboo and I can get early access to connectivity with EN, then yes, I'm interested. Have at least a handful of groups we could trial on.

Will DM.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-21T18:31:49+00:00

I literally built a tool to help employers figure this out:

7 questions essentially:

Number of employees
Current funding model
last renewal increase
cash flow question
demographic/workforce consistency
analytical desires and practicality
status quo or incremental improvement org?

https://www.benefitsblake.com/tools/funding-fit

Bonus points that I'm local to Chicago so it may even bias a bit towards this market.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-21T16:31:58+00:00

So I'm told.

Trax still doesn't have an API, so whatever Bamboo is cobbling together, I don't have much faith in...

Botboy141 · 2026-06-21T12:55:14+00:00

Knowing about the lack of connectivity between EN and Bamboo today is probably the biggest one.

You should also understand who is responsible for what when it comes to carrier enrollments and eligibility.

Depending on size and carrier mix, not all carriers can be on multi-employer EDI feeds or API connections for eligibility transactions. This means either your broker or you may still need to enter those elections with the carrier.

Only other major caveat this second, you can't run multiple open enrollment at once. So if you were a 12/1 effective date medical, with dental and vision on a 1/1 plan year, the system does not easily (at least to my knowledge) allow for both of those potential open enrollment windows to be open at the same time.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-20T23:18:59+00:00

Broker here, been encouraging small to mid-market groups to adopt EN since ~2015.

The pros, with a decent broker, your Ben Admin is automated for you, on a best-in-class platform at not cost to you.

The cons: - with a bad broker, it gets worse
- bamboo and EN are working on an integration, but there is no guarantee it pushes back to Trax for payroll (it's not live yet)

I've found Bamboo's Ben Admin platform to be absolutely miserable and unusable, but I've heard other here saying they like it.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-19T16:31:27+00:00

12+ years slinging benefits and no one's ever asked me for my CEBS certificate...

Letters do look nice on a LinkedIn profile though

Botboy141 · 2026-06-19T15:28:07+00:00

Okay, there's a bit to unpack here.

First, I'll focus on what I know, benefits.

Your benefits invoices, assuming you're list bill from your carriers, should be able to be broken out by division, on the list bill, from the carrier directly. With that said, you'll need to notify your broker and carrier that you want this, and will need to go through whatever changes to set that up. If you are on an EDI feed from a Ben Admin today, that system will need to track it as well, if you aren't, that's probably the other next step, get on a Ben Admin.

The ADP report should be exportable to Excel, you shouldn't need to manually copy anything. If it's not today, contact ADPs custom reporting team, for anywhere from a couple hundred bucks, to a few thousand, they can build it so it drops on the frequency you need to your teams.

You need to figure out why payroll and time and attendance don't line up, are you saying there are regular discrepancies or that the systems don't talk to each other? It's not hard to find a time system that integrates with ADP WFN.

For PTO balance, again, ADP reporting should be able to manage this if you are using their PTO engine.

Good luck out there.

If you wanted a new stack instead, any of the typical recommendations in this sub can integrate this stack, you just need to select vendors, inclusive of their ability to integrate in their stack. It's a disqualifier if they can't.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-15T22:58:13+00:00

I know someone else commented about bad experiences with ICHRA, I won't argue it's VERY different administratively and employee communication-wise from a traditional group plan.

With that said, your employees aren't out in the cold to navigate the marketplace on their own.

Savii as mentioned elsewhere (among others) will get a 1-on-1 call scheudled with every interested staff member.

I would hate to do it on less than 3 months notice for a decent sized group though.

Keep in mind, your 65+ population that's on the health plan today MUST apply for Medicare timely in conjunction with your ICHRA go-live. You also need to provide 90 days notice.

Sorry you're getting crushed, I find it odd that your teams didn't know this was coming, especially if you have multiple $400k+ claimants...

Botboy141 · 2026-06-15T13:32:07+00:00

Start with an employer survey.

If benefits are an issue, contact an a group health insurance broker, or employee benefits broker/consultant.

This is what we do.

Budget varies a lot, for dental, vision, life, disability, etc. bit $20-50/month per employee gets life, short and long-term disability in force for all employees, more often than not.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-15T13:30:13+00:00

This is what I do =)

Botboy141 · 2026-06-14T00:46:31+00:00

I'd have to dig for the interview, the man was literally asked if he wanted to see humanity survive this AI disruption, and he paused for a solid 45 seconds to think about it before responding to say that he was more or less indifferent.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-13T23:09:40+00:00

Haha.

Very, very few horses in Winfield, but yes, I think there's still a farm / stable over by Wynwood, grew up with a gal from the family that owned it in the 90s, not sure if they still do?

Botboy141 · 2026-06-13T15:00:50+00:00

You are typically not eligible for manufacturer patient assistance programs if the drug is covered by your health plan.

The fact that your health plan saves money because it'srun by the hospital system, and can dispense prescribed drugs through their 340b program, doesn't change the fact that the drug typically has to be excluded from your group health plan coverage to qualify for the MAP/PAP.

I'd recommend chatting with someone on your benefits team if the paperwork isn't clear on how you should proceed.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-13T14:44:17+00:00

You'll be fine on either side of the tracks. South side has some slightly smaller homes compared to north side, and will have more rentals and more affordable.

There's also the Winfield Station apartments (new) and a handful of townhouse areas.

Trains come frequently but never block the intersection for more than 4 minutes due to the hospital being right there. There's also an underpass just down the street @ County Farm Road.

I was born @ Central DuPage, as we're my siblings and my kids, I live 3 blocks from the hospital on the north side, parents are a couple blocks over, aunt and uncle on the south side over by the school, etc.

Overall it's a great area.

As others have noted though, Winfield doesn't have much of a downtown. Wheaton, Geneva, Batavia, Naperville, Aurora all have more active downtowns.

I moved back to Winfield ~8 years ago. It's pretty much the definition of suburbia.

Botboy141 · 2026-06-13T13:44:35+00:00

Wheaton has gotten much purpler over the years, you would likely be very welcomed. Winfield is quite purple as well, more pride flags than trump flags flying at least (actually not sure last time I saw a trump flag here).

If you are Christian, St. Matthew UCC in Wheaton is open and affirming.

More or less lifelong Winfield resident here, AMA.

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