What the Health Just Happened?
Captives, Costs, and Kirke: The Insurance Revolution
(upbeat music) - Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week's episode of What The Health Just Happened. We talk about all things community, healthcare, business and life. The goods, the baths, the ups, the downs, the lifts, the rights and everything in between. We're lucky to bring on a variety of guests to bring their perspective on what they find to be healthy or not healthy. And again, all those topics. Today's guest, he flew in all the way from Denver, Colorado. He's not here for work. You're here for work. I'm here for work. Well, that's fine. - He's here just to see us. - That's right. He came all the way from Denver, just to see us here at 212 Benefits. An expert in all things employee benefits, captives, life in general, with a few decades. Is that fair? - Yeah, let's use few. - Let's see you decade. - Let's just end up with you. - I didn't want to age him. - Please don't. - Working in this industry that also happens to be the president of BevCap, healthcare captives, the leader in alternative risk solutions. I pulled that from the website. Welcome, John Kirk, we can clap if you want. It's a little weird in here. It's not the radio studio, but we still like to. - Well, thank you. - Thanks for this warm intro. This is awesome. - Yeah, the intro, we didn't butcher it that bad. I do love butchering the intro, but I think we got it. - Yeah, we haven't recorded it in months. I wrote something down. - You nailed the landing. - I have to say before we start. So you've heard this saying you're the smartest person in the room, you're probably in the wrong room. - Clearly. - Well, you are the smartest person in this room. Hopefully you're in the right room, but like this man's knowledge expertise is combined of everyone in our organization. Like you're one of the smartest people I ever met. - Thank you. I think we're going to end the show there. - And Ryan, is this the comedy part? - It's all comedy part. It's all comedy part. No, seriously though, like we appreciate you joining us. We've met through True Agency, True Network Advisors. I call it One True Agency. I think immediately hit it off. We went to dinner one night. I like you, whether you like us or not. We like you. - We have, we met, gosh, about three years ago, we had a couple really fun dinners in Nashville with Joey. I think that he was tasting bourbon that night. - Yeah, I may have had a couple of bourbon that night. - Yeah, so Joey Janssen and Trey are the background here. I was not there for that dinner, but I heard Joey had like one or seven, too many bourbon. - It's tasting. - That's all we were doing. - Some bourbon tastings. - Just a little bourbon. - Let's start, you want to start fun stuff? - Yeah, some fun stuff. - So, Denver, Colorado. - Yeah, home to the last 18 years, moved our kids and family out there. I'm from Iowa, the insurance capital of the world. - Is it me? - No, well, Hartford likes to say they're the insurance capital of the world, but Des Moines, Iowa is my hometown. Grew up there, big family. As I like to say, I didn't grow up with friends, I grew up with cousins. - I love that, then. - Yeah. - So, my grandfather on my dad's side was the insurance business, life insurance business. My father was in the life insurance business. My grandfather on my mother's father was the insurance business in Illinois. So, I just couldn't escape. - You had no choice. - I had no choice. It was just, basically, I was told to do this. - I feel like the majority of people in our industry stumble into it myself, and I did some days, I'm like, what am I doing here? Did you grow up saying, I'm going to work insurance? - Absolutely not. - You are one of few people that from, when you came out of the world-- - It's like a master plan. - It was designed. - It was a master plan. No, it's true. I grew up in it, both my parents own their own businesses, my dad owned an insurance agency, so we just all worked-- - In Des Moines? - In Iowa, yep. My mother owned a clothing insurance-- - Sunshine State, right? Oh, no, that's Florida. That's where we are now. - Yes, you're in the sunshine. There's no sunshine in Iowa for the months of November to May. I love Iowa, but it's-- - Do you know, have you ever heard of Upper Iowa University? - Yeah, that is in, I don't remember where it is. I went to a wrestling camp there. - Oh, yeah. - And there were at Iowa's, we had to run. I don't like hills. - That's a surprising place that Iowa, it has a ton of hills, it's quite hilly. - Yeah. - So there's the annual bike ride across Iowa that's happening right now, if you don't know about it, it's called Ragbri. - It's a-- - It's got a key ride in it. - It's a long, yeah, I think-- - I bet he's ridden it at least once or twice. - So it's called the Register Leold Paper in Des Moines, the Des Moines Register. Annual great bike ride across Iowa, so that's an acronym, Ragbri. And Ragbri, you start on one side of the state and you cycle through all these towns to the other side of the state and you dip your toe in the Mississippi River on the eastern side and dip your toe in the Missouri River on the west side. - How many miles? - Oh gosh, you have to look it up, but it's over about seven days and you cycle about 90 miles a day and you stop at all these towns. It's a huge thing and I've always wanted to do it. - I've heard of this before, but I-- - Oh, it's a cyclist, it's been around a long time, it's a really big thing and it's super, it's really cool because they, they channel you through all these small towns in Iowa and these are farm towns and these are small communities, but the communities open themselves up to all the cyclists and riders and it's a massive part of music. - No, you can sleep in their houses, it's that-- - Oh, that's sweet, yeah. - It's really cool, this thing's been going on for I think 50 plus years and it just get bigger and bigger every year. - I think it's like 30, 40,000 riders. - I ask random questions, how tall are you? - 6'2. - 6'2, so we got some vertically challenged people in here. I, that's me, Drew. - It's a blessing. - I think like the taller you are, the better you are running distance and cycling, so that's my excuse for not cycling 'cause I have these little midget legs and pedaling on that bike, it just doesn't work for me. - All shapes and sizes that wrap right. - Did you almost go to college in Iowa to wrestle or by making that? - No, that's not what's a camp thing. - I almost went to Appalachian State. - Let's not talk about wrestling. - That's a big eye with him. - It is. - Or to a huge eye with him. Especially the University of Iowa and Iowa State. - Yeah, they're a big deal. The hardest, still to this day though, the most physically demanding thing I ever did was that wrestling camp at that college. - Oh, it's serious stuff in Iowa. - Where's Drake University? - Des Moines, Iowa. - Oh, that's right, he's Ryder, Dye, Iowa. - Oh yeah, Ryder, exactly. We ride the bridge. - I didn't know that's where Drake was. - It's in Des Moines, my dad went there, it's, they have a insurance focused business school for all the insurance companies that are based in Des Moines. So, big actuarial science program at Drake and an insurance and risk management program. - What other insurance companies are based in Des Moines? - I know Prince Prince. - Prince Prince. - It's the big one and then there's a ton of property casually companies that over time have been acquired. I don't know all their names, but. - Everyone's acquired, yeah. There are a ton of property cashy and niche insurers in Des Moines. - What's the mascot? - The Bulldogs. - The Bulldogs, oh, I like that. So shout out to the Drake Bulldogs. - Oh yeah, 100%. - You ship that upset, chop that up and send it to a bus. - Known for basketball. - Really? - Missouri Valley, basketball. - Okay. - They make it to the turn away from time to time. - That doesn't make sense. So, very intelligent, I'm gonna compliment you a lot. Tall, good looking, very handsome. - We love making our guests. - And that's a wrap. So, when you're not geeking out in insurance, what do you do for fun? - Oh gosh, lately, we have three children. Our son's 24, our twin girls are 22. It has been about them these last three, four years of visiting and seeing them in all their places where they've gone to school and now where they're kind of taking flight. So, it's all about family for me, brotherly. My wife and I, we've been married 31 years, we've been together a lot longer than that. - We'll talk to that, we like to clap. - 31 years. - Thank you, shout out to Beth. - Beth, we love shout outs. - We, family's a huge thing for me personally. But now, my son's in Dallas, my daughter's in Dallas and our other daughter, Emily, is gonna move to Chicago to also be in the insurance industry. All three of my kids are in the insurance industry. - Don't do it, that's great. - So, somewhat of a master plan, it's a lot of fun. I'd love to play golf when I can. - Yeah, me too, but golf does not love me. - Well, do you ski, I feel like I remember we talking about skiing a lot. - We did, when we moved to Colorado 18 years ago, it's a very different place than it is now. So many people moved there. Post-COVID, just the mountain towns have exploded. We absolutely love it, but it is really much harder to get up to the mountains, specifically to ski for like a day. If you wanna go up for a day, good luck. It's really hard to drive from Denver to go to ski for four or five hours and then get in traffic and drive back. - So, like population demand, number of people that are out there. - All of it, all of it. And I like to say, post-COVID, the mountains are like, Fridays the new Saturday 'cause people can work anywhere and they just kinda go up there and work. - Rewind real quick, so you said Beth, going back to the first time we met. If you remember this, so Adrienne was with us. - Maybe once you remind me, but I forget it pretty easily. - You can retell the story 'cause I wasn't at the dinner for this part, but my mother-in-law and John's wife, Beth, work together at Tretiger, right? - Talk about a complete moment. - Yes, late 80s, early 90s. So at that moment, Adrienne and John just hit it off. - Completely. - Adrienne asked her mom, "Hey, do you remember some of your name, Beth?" I don't know if her last name was Kurt back then. - Yeah. - And they did. Some of them remember each other. - We lived in Richmond, Virginia, second job out of college. And my wife worked for Tretiger Industries in Richmond. And that's where she met Adrienne's mom. - I love the, like, how small the world is. - That was a small world. - And it's not, like, is it a small town where they lived, too, they were-- - Where Adrienne lived was a very small town, but I think Tretiger, the plant that they worked at, Tretiger was in Richmond. - Downtown Richmond, or, yeah, yeah. - And Tretiger was a plastic manufacturer, right? Plastics manufacturer? - Yeah, I mean, plastics and lining, they were publicly traded and Beth was in, investor relations, so she kind of put together the, and a report and did a ton of, like, boarded director stuff. - Do they still exist? - Good question. I don't know if they got acquired. - I don't know. - Who does their benefit? That's my next question. (laughing) Let's check in there 55 hundred. - That's how we originally met and they just kind of hit it off from there. - Isn't that funny? That's right. I think we're in Nashville and we have-- - That was a lot of Nashville, Tretiger. - That was pretty bourbon tasting. - So, let's go back to some personal fun stuff. You have the twin daughters, one's Dallas, other's going to Chicago. They're both in insurance, right? - Yeah, they just, he's got a son, in insurance, too, that's in Dallas. - Exactly. So Cameron works at Marsh MMA in Dallas as a aspiring broker, producer. He's in his studies, he just started his third year and Madeline just started her role at UNIM. - Never heard of him. (laughing) - In Dallas, he's late. - And Madeline, or Emily's going to start at Aeon in-- - Those are big audience. - Those are all big names. - They, you know, as I said, I'll help you in your career search, but I am a one trip pony. I know people in one lane. - We'll get to that lane here in a second. Trey, you got something? - Yeah, so are they all fresh out of college, the ones that are going, someone? - Yeah. - And the reason I ask is like, what is the day-to-day of someone's job role like that? - Just, is it, is it like paper push-in? Is it data entry? - Training. - I'm just training. Okay. - It's training, but right out of the gate, it's training, training, training, which is great. I think our industry needs to train this next generation versus how, and there are a few companies investing in that, and I think these larger companies do, versus it just being a happenstance where a young producer meets a senior producer and it just becomes kind of an apprentice thing where it's luck. I think we have to design the luck a lot. - That's how the industry, looking back, that's how it was started. That's, he asked me how I got into it. I fell into it. I met somebody, didn't like my job, came here. And now here I am. But I had no plan for it, I wasn't trained. There is no training. There was no training. - I wrote down a line here. I'm gonna start using that. You gotta design the luck. Because again, we use a term all the time. The majority of this industry, it's changing, was we say, old male, pale, and stale. I've only been it for four years. And again, this is coming from a couple. - Young. - Male. - Young. - Pale and still class. - But you're right, there is so much retirement happening. People selling their blocks of business where, we talk about it all the time. If you're coming out of college and looking for an industry to go into, it blows my mind that, what you can accomplish in this industry? So that's good job, dad, good job. - Hey, I, but think about it though, over your tenure in the industry, it has changed from, 'cause there's no barrier of entry to get in. You get an insurance license. - Very little. - Single. You get a phone book. You start calling people. You have friends that own businesses and you got an insurance agency. Fast forward to today, those independently owned insurance agencies don't exist like they did back then. They still exist, but not near what they were back then. You've got the Aons, NFPs, all of them. - Gallagher. - Gallagher. - Boston. - Digitals and they invest heavily in training, which didn't exist. - Patriot, Patriot, Patriot, Patriot, Patriot, sorry. But you've got all those that didn't exist years ago, that invest in training. So the model of the insurance consultant is not what it was 15 years ago. - For better, it's not good or bad. It's just different. - I think our industries are still woefully behind training, specifically at the agency level. And it's a massive opportunity for any agency who says that they can, can and want to invest in this generation. One of the senior producers I worked with at my old firm, IMA, she just said, you know, "This is an apprentice business that we're in." You just learn by doing, you learn by going to meetings, you learn by understanding renewals and understanding solving problems. That is hard to train for. And part of that, there's just time in the saddle, but I think there's a massive opportunity for any organization who says, "We're gonna lean into sales training, executive presence training, critical thinking." It's less about kind of knowing the bag of tricks. - You can learn the bag of tricks. - You can learn the bag of tricks, but if you don't know how people work and how you can listen and be empathetic and help solve a problem, I mean, that's the art, right, of being of service in this business, not only on the producer side, but also on the clients. - There's a, do you know Randy Schwartz? - Yeah. - Shout out Randy. He's got a personality assessment that he uses as part of his program. And one of the traits that they test for is empathy. And the higher you score on empathy, the more that translates to a successful producer. And I don't know the science behind it necessarily. So I haven't gone down that much of a rabbit hole, but to be empathetic is important when you're communicating with people. Gotta be sympathetic too, but to be empathetic, to be able to communicate is really important. - Well, I mean, the business of just a healthcare side of insurance, we're dealing with not a building or a car or, you know, a product that's gone awry. We're dealing with an individual and a human and is going through probably something really gnarly in their lives and maybe even life-threatening. And that EQ, as you're talking about, I think is essential in our business. - Couple of things. So there's a line Adam or where I heard it. Every person has a name, every name has a story, every story matters, right? So you nail that when you're in this industry, you're not selling widgets. You're not dealing with computers, you're dealing with human beings, who oftentimes are going through something pretty tough, right? Emotional intelligence, you talked about training woefully behind on training, sales training, executive training, emotional intelligence. How relevant is that? How important is that? Not only to this industry, but in life in general. I think that's one of the most underrated, under-appreciated things. Throw IQ out the window, even though John's got like a 3000 IQ, but he's also very emotionally intelligent. - My wife is a leadership and development coach and works with senior leaders and managers and CEOs. And this is one of the, you know, a huge part of the toolbox of leadership. And not just leadership per se, but just individuals who are connecting at a high level and advancing their organizations there of their own self. So it's fun to live with a personal coach at home. - Does she coach you up all the time? - I absolutely, yes, in a great way. We're always talking about our business and, you know, this is a big piece of it. This is, before I'm going to start transition into a Bevcast specifically, the captain world, we're going to really nerd out here. At least John is. I don't know anything about this stuff. Everyone talks about artificial intelligence, how it's going to impact every industry. You know, one thing that AI will never be able to replicate or recreate emotional intelligence. - 100%. - That's shit for me again. That's my opinion. Take it forward and so forth. - It's going to help us do tasks better. - Yep. - It's certainly not going to replace what we're doing right here. - Okay, so we got five minutes of the commercial break. You've been in this industry for just a couple of years, so a couple of decades. What are some things that you've seen change and evolve? That's like, that's great. Thank goodness that happened. That's a tough question. I think that in the applied benefits side of the world, I think that what I like right now is that it feels like we're evolving away from just insurance. I mean, when I started, it was about insurance, right? We were finding insurance companies to solve that problem. Either you're paying too much at one insurance company, so I'm going to go find a one that you paid less. And it was about insurance. It feels today where the advisors are leaning in to what you all do and what we do, it truly is about finding solutions in health and that insurance is a part of that instead of it being the lead. - Yep. - It's a good way to say it. - And that's where I'm enjoying a lot of this part of my my career is finding that the solutions of the health part versus the insurance part and kind of brain. - I'm fist bumping that. - How long have you been a bath cap? - In my fourth year, but there's a long story that me and bath cap, I met the original founders. Gosh, we think it goes back to 2009. - So when they started. - Just a couple of decades. - Yeah. So when they started, I got a juice to them and was on a really great team that helped them start and grow. - Oh, we're going to dive deep in a bath cap the second half. Okay, counter question, similar. What's one thing, a couple of things like, man, if this could change sooner than later in this industry, everybody would win. - Boom. The influence of large, I'm going to say this carefully, the influence of large entities that promote status quo. We've got to evolve and change and I don't think good enough of this is happening. - Way to toe that line, by the way. That large entities, I won't say names either, but again, you have these behemoths that are multi-billion dollar organizations that have a status quo that's a term thrown around often. I think the tide is turning, right? You have, I've got to give a shout-out to call of benefits, correct. You're talking about a cost that just goes up and up and up and up and up. That's good. So the behemoths liking the status quo, it's changing. Because of individuals like you and Joey Jansen will holler at him too. We got about two minutes of the commercial break. Any more shout-outs, hi, mom, I love you. - Now, going back to that comment, I think the undertow of that current, however, is the influence it policy making too. I was lucky enough to spend some time with CIB and learned a lot about what happens in Washington and the undertow, the influence of the entities there influencing status quo is, if not larger than the insurance industry. - I think that's unspoken more than the obvious is the policy behind it that drives the way that organizations respond to it. 'Cause the policy is there and you have to stay within the lanes of the policy, but the policy drives it all. - It is an industrial complex of what we're in, of healthcare, there's no doubt about it. And there's a lot of people that want to keep it the same. - Do you know, Chris Deacon, I follow, like she puts out some of the, I think greatest information content. - Talk to her, she's just fantastic. - I mean, another-- - That's the-- - She's in New Jersey. - Yes, she does the claims to call it. - She saw my policy, if you don't follow her on LinkedIn, I would. - She's something of somebody else, okay. - She's one of my favorite follows, just to read the information she's putting out, putting a spotlight on stuff that's not easy to talk about. - She was the New Jersey, maybe the controller, she worked under Chris Christie's administration. - John Kirk, president of BevCap Healthcare Captives, that's what the help just happened. All right, welcome back to the second half of what the help just happened. If you're just joining us here on the radio station, good news is you can catch the first half on your favorite podcast platform under what the help just happened. Welcome back, first half we got John Kirk, president of BevCap, correct? - What other cool titles do you go by? - Dad. - Oh. - Dad, amateur golfer, amateur dad, I've never turned pro there either, by the way. So, we talked about the home front, little bit of out of insurance stuff, the industry. We're gonna geek out in the second half. So, anyone who's not interested in this insurance, captive self-funding space, employee benefits, you should listen anyways, 'cause this is beneficial stuff. But before that, we're gonna play a game. Health, they're not healthy. - Okay. - You know how to play? - Well, you gave me the rules earlier. - It's just a speed round, I would just really enjoy this. I also, I like hats, we got these stupid hats made, I think they're awesome. And then we just pop up the healthy in case it's healthy questions. So, healthy or not healthy men's clothing stores? - Healthy, very healthy. - Oh, I love it. - Health, you're not healthy, red wine. - Oh, it's food, it's not wine, so very healthy. - We had some good wine in that healthy. - Healthy or not healthy. TCU and the National Championship against Georgia. - Very healthy participation getting there, not so healthy after the first, I think 60 seconds. - I think, that was-- - Did you go to that game? - Or did you go to the first game? - Our family went to the festival. We went to the, we went against Michigan, which was the most incredible college football game. Been to, that was so much fun, but yes. We did not go to Georgia. - Went to TCU, right? - Son and daughter went to TCU. - Okay, so I, my family lives in Arlington, in-laws, went to that campus, the purple frogs, or the horn frog frogs. Everything's purple, I love their, I love their, the colors, it's a beautiful campus too. So, anyone looking to go to a college? - Which statement? - I'd recommend UNF first. That's where I went, Drake second. - Drake second. - Drake second. - Don't sleep on schools in Iowa. - I'd put TCU up there too. Okay, last one here, healthy or not healthy, businesses transitioning to the captive slash self-funding world. - Of course it's healthy and it's a process. It's, it's an education, it's an education curve to be honest. That's, that's the business I'd like to tell all of our, our team is that we're in the education business of, of helping businesses understand that you can take a different form of control of your healthcare spend of employees, I mean, my gosh, I just, I saw the Milliman medical index. Yes, I geek out on things like that, came out and I think. - What, what term did you just say? - It's called the Milliman medical index, the MMI. - Drake, you know what that is? - Absolutely not, explain. - Did it, did it, finish your thought first off? - So every year. - Specifically. - The largest healthcare actuary, Milliman, shout out to them, good, really good people over there. Published an index about the fam, cost of a family of four for Healthcare United States. I think it approached, it, it breached $33,000 this year. And then you just use linear math on 100 employees, 200 employees, you know, we're spending 2 million, 2.4 million dollars for a couple hundred employees for an employee healthcare benefit. And. - Goodbye Evita. - Yeah, you know, Dave Chase and who your book is sitting right here. Has a great article that I, that I always show the title in a lot of presentation, it says, it was in CFO magazine, it says, you run a healthcare business, whether you like it or not, inside your company. Because of, outside of salaries, perhaps even, whatever you're else paying, it's usually benefits, it's gonna be your second or third largest expense. Usually we're seeing right now between 10 and $12,000 per employee per year on a, on a cost basis. Can be lower in some states, can be a lot higher in some states. But, you know, captives are a form of, of self-funding, a version, a portion of your stop-loss insurance, but I think it's, it's, it's a word that narrowly defines a function of self-funding. In our view, a captive is a program that allows a self-funded plan to take advantage of a lot of things in the market that just aren't readily available by a large insurance company. Let me, right off the bat, I'm, I jot notes down and I know it's a good conversation for me personally. Like I don't, if one person hears this and learns something, I'm happy, but I've got a ton of this and a lot of quotes here. So right now, the average cost per family in the US is $33,000 per year. Family of four. Okay, move four. Do you know what the medium household income is in the United States last I looked? Is it 60? It's between 66 and 72K a year. It's a 60K a year. An average, an average family household. That is 50%, 50% of what you're making annually. Like that's, I just don't, how can you sustain that and not have legitimate issues? Well, we are having legitimate issues. There are just, you can read, there's an interesting Gallup poll that came out and I can't remember the other co-sponsor of that poll that came out about the affordability and of health services in the US. Even with insurance, people are foregoing their, their health services because they just- Because the services themselves are so- Services themselves, they, they're deductibles. They, they're intimidated by it. They, it's real bad. Honey, let's lift up here. I want to go to the three points you mentioned. We did put out, it's funny you noticed that too, the Dave Chase book here. Are you certified the Health Rosetta program? I thought I saw that on LinkedIn or is that kind of- Years ago, I, yeah, I did it years ago with Dave and kind of sunset it as I really in this role of helping advisors like you versus being the advisor. So, sunset it and have deep respect for the health Rosetta community. They do create work. Great, we, we give this book out all the time. This one, uh, Marty McCarry's book, obviously, you know, Rest in Peace, Marshall Allen, those are the three books that we constantly give to people that are interested in like, read this in your perspective. There's one more I had add to that. Which one? An American sickness by Elizabeth Rosenthal. Oh, I had that on audio book. Ooh, it's heavy. That one's, that one's heavy. Yeah, that's- I don't think I've read that one. It's- It's called American sickness. Yeah. I'll send, I'll send you a link to the audio. It's, it's intense. A bunch of links too. It's about hospital bills and it's just- Back to, um, Bev Cap's- Gosh, I'm gonna ask the question. You said something about, um, captives serves as a program for you to participate in programs that you can't otherwise participate in. Pharmacy being one of them. Just pharmacy savings and be able to purchase medications differently. Have you seen the recent announcement from Optum related to Humira in 2025? No, but RX benefited this was yesterday. Oh yeah. RX benefits put something out that Optum RX has announced effective. January 1, 2025, they will be excluding Humira and all unbranded and branded biosimilars. And it will include the option to cover something that I can't say, um, instead of Humira. So that's a trend going across many insurance companies. Not covering in PBMs, not covering specifically Humira because of the cost of it. Yeah. On that note, have you ever heard, have you ever dug deep into, um, the patent, it's called patent thicketing? So Humira- Keep out on us, talk to me. So Humira- They're masters at patent thickening. Humira has had no less than, I think, 10 or so generic equivalents approved. But they continue to, they have more attorneys than any of us. So they continue to change the molecular structure of the drug, which enables them to extend the patent. I think that patent on Humira is, expires in 2034, which gives it a 30 plus year run of patent. I thought it just recently expired. That's why the biosimilars came out part of it. And then another patent continues to go. Okay. So we are always looking for sponsors for the show. Humira, you guys got deep pockets. You probably wouldn't want to sponsor this show. I'm just gonna throw that out there. Trey, you got something? Could like the public punish a company like that and buy these medications outside of the US, is that not even an option? Sure, it's an option. It's happening all the time. It's just hard to understand where you're going there. We buy, in our captives, we buy those drugs from Canada for 40% less costs. It's the same drug. Let's pivot back to that real quick, actually. So how do you define a captive in like 60 seconds? Go, it could be longer than that. And then the three things you'd mentioned in the commercial break, we'll call it. Sure. I'll define a captive. So a captive is a intentional and designed, intentional and designed risk pool, where members have decided to join, to advance kind of their own purchasing of a certain line of insurance. And it can be property and casualty, and it can be medical stop loss, which is that this is wherein. It can be auto liability. It can be your general liability. But it's really a, it's a risk pool that you have elected to join, that is trying to manage risk and cost on a proactive basis, versus being a reactive price of insurance. I guess that the best way to describe a captive is a collective or a pool, where member companies really wanna get in and create an outcome that has been different than their past. Right, so the law of large numbers, what are numbers, by the way? That was more like a mumble. A mumble, the law of large numbers, you're creating a pool, this is a really dumb down caveman version, right? That spreads risk across multiple companies that are bought in and wanting to save costs and make change. Transparency is a big part of it. I think alignment is a big part of it, Eric, that everyone who's in the cap says, "I wanna get into this pool that Eric's in and Joey's in "because I know they're doing some things "to manage risk and cost that the insurance company "or the industry isn't doing "and I wanna be in that pool "because it's gonna have a better outcome." And I also know that if I'm in that, everyone's aligned to those strategies and we should outperform the market. You're all on the same team. All on the same team. Yeah. And it's usually a winning team. So not the Jacksonville Jaguars. I'm kidding, I love you guys. I'm a big jack fan, I had to say something. I have a lifeline, Chicago Bear fan. So we've had unfortunate. Well, I was gonna say, we don't wanna go down that rabbit hole table. We're very optimistic. I would be excited to see it. How do you feel that you're gonna have a third quarterback to deal with named Jordan Love after dealing with Aaron Rodgers and Brefarff? So I think for your entire life. My entire life, I think the truly the Bears have had in my adult life, I'm not joking, 40 quarterbacks. And the Packers have had three. And they're all studs. I gotta rein us in 'cause if we go down this conversation, we won't talk about captains. And that's a captain, let's go back to the family. Yeah. (laughing) So you mentioned three key points, right? This is some heavy stuff here that I think is really relevant. Well, in the market that we're in, captains have typically have, and they've been around 60 plus years, right? For property and casualty. They're very mainstream in property casually. And I would say the last 15, 20 years has been in the healthcare medical stop us side. But what's always interesting to me is that we're constantly be called an alternative market. An alternative to the broad standard market. But yet in every captive that I know of and shout out to all my peers out there, 'cause I love the industry we're in. It's creating a lot of awareness. But we're considered an alternative. But if you look at what captives do. Captives help you self-fund your benefits. They help you can design your own benefits. You can control your plan document. You know your vendor partners and you know what you're paying for them with complete transparency. You get all of your information and claim data. You're in a risk pool that usually outperforms the market. And if it does, you get to win and get a share of those profits if they distribute it. And I always just go, why is that the alternative? (laughing) Why? It makes so little sense to a large insurer who doesn't give you data, makes you buy and benefits off the shelf. You really don't have any flexibility and you have to live within their structure. So I desire captives to hit the mainstream so that we're not considered the alternative. But it is what it is right now. Before the next two items too, so organizations, I would say it's predominantly 51 and plus, maybe even 100 plus. So it's not available to all organizations yet. Yet. Yeah, I agree with you, Eric. The market really is 50 employees on up on being insured. We sometimes find some captives that have 25 employees, depending on kind of how you can self-insure down to that level. I'd love to see our industry get down to that small group, mid-small group 20, 25 people. That's the heart of America, the heart of small business and helping those people find healthcare solutions, not insurance. But right now, the industry really 50 plus, yeah. So okay, so number two, you mentioned community. Yeah, I think an undervalued or understated part of the captive is you're part of something. You're part of an opportunity where your business, Eric, and Joey's business and my business were all in something that we have elected to be in that we're aligned. So we just had our member meeting last week in Dallas and our members got together and we had three members on stage and I was asking them to share their best practices, share what's working in their organization using a self-insured plan so that other participants in the captive can learn and do better. Again, why is that an alternative that-- That was not the norm, yeah. Why doesn't the broad industry do that? So we welcome the opportunity to enable plan sponsors to meet and connect and grow and learn from each other. Because if I meet anyone in this business who says they've got this all figured out, I'll probably walk out of that room. Yeah, you're a liar. Because we need each other. You have a client in Sarasota that is doing incredible things with-- We can give them a shot, all right? Yeah, debt whileers. Debt whileers is part of your captive. Sarasota Bradenton doing amazing things with their self-funded plan and how they have been intentional in the communication and the engagement with their employees and families. It's not rocket science. It's innovation, it's intention, it's strategy. And they shared it openly with everyone there. That's what I love too, is when you get those people in a room on stage talking and then afterwards, everyone's, what are you doing here? What are you doing there? This worked for us. This is not working for us. Yeah, and we live on feedback like that. Captains live on where should we get better? And what are our blind spots? Because there are blind spots everywhere. And within the captive itself for the members that participate in it, it's by and large the same, whether in Florida or Texas or South Carolina, the programs and the selves are the same. So when you put them all in the room together, they're all speaking the same language. They'll understand what they're doing. So what are you doing here to improve? What are you doing here to improve? It's not different because a lot of times in the insurance world, what works in Florida doesn't work in California or South Carolina or North Carolina or interstate. That's one of the unique things about captives is its ability to, for lack of better terms, go across state lines. Yeah. Would you agree? Oh 100%. I mean, everything we're doing, the captive really is a financial instrument where premiums go in on a shared basis and claims come out on a shared basis. So if we're able to mitigate a risk so that doesn't even become a claim through, let's say, a high-risk maternity program that one of our captives has, and we help a pregnant mother get to a healthy portion of their third trimester and they have a normal delivery and we don't have a NICU claim, then the captive doesn't have a half a million dollar NICU claim. So say, half a million or like a million or two, but. But to Joey's point, if we're sharing best practices with your company in Austin, Texas and your company in Sarasota and my company in Des Moines, Iowa, it all matters. Because if we can avoid a risk or pay for something less, everybody knows. I know what you're going to say. You know exactly what I'm going to say. I like to make ridiculous t-shirts and at this symposium we did last week, I want to make sure that all claims matter. Because that's what, when we were talking to Jeff, leading up to the show. - That's a good shirt, come on. - That's a really good shirt. - It doesn't matter if it's a $10 claim or a $10,000 claim, they all go into the same. - I'm making it when I'm sending you one, by the way. - I'll take that one. I would make another t-shirt or shout out to a guy named Uve Ryan Hart. He's the economist who died a couple of years ago. And if you Google him, he's been for 20 years saying about healthcare in the United States, it's not the cost of healthcare, it's the price of healthcare. And he has this article that says it's the prices stupid. - Man, I got all these quotation marks I've written down. Another shirt that I did make, I got to make more of these. Remember the old dare logo? - Oh, okay. - The drugs, it says dare. - I grew up in the 80s, I know what that looks like. - Underneath it says drugs are really expensive. So it has the dare logo and it says that. That's a good one too. Okay, sorry, third item. So we have community was number two and then what was the third item? - The third is really what we enjoy about captive members who's in life and in even what we do you can be an observer or participant. And we find that captive members that are attracted to models like this want to have, let's use a pilot metaphor, instrument control. They wanna be able to fly that a little bit. Not the whole thing, but we really try to promote this participant role. Because if you're gonna come into a captive insurance program for healthcare you're gonna depart a large kind of typical big market structure, right? A big insurance company. And you get to have a relationship with your claims administrator. You get to have a relationship with the pharmacy benefit manager. You get to have a relationship with the stop loss insurer. So it's an unbundled or deconstructed system. So you get to participate in those vendor partners and there's a ton of people trying to help there by the way. It isn't just, oh my gosh, I figured it out on your own. - Yeah, yep. - There's a bunch of support in captives. But captives allow you to be a participant. And I don't think the broad market, the large insurance industry allows you to be a participant the way you should be and the way you can be. So again, man, you've got some great lines here. We'll put these in the show notes. So observer versus participant. A lot of times people say. - There's no new material, Eric. Just new audiences. - That's correct. Nothing is original, that's my line. Everything, I came up with this idea. Now you didn't. - Nothing is as Ray Strickland would say, nothing is new, it's just new to you. - Oh, that's good too. Observer versus participant instead of reactive versus proactive. I've got to do one shameless plug here, right? So if you're based in Florida, you have over 50 employees, you're interested in the captive space, call us at 212 benefits. Mainly Joey Janssen. I just see. You can call me. I'll send him to Joey and everyone else on the team. We got a couple minutes here left. This is, we're talking about hours of conversations. You could talk about this forever, we're trying to cram it into about 24 minutes. Any big things, like I've got to mention this, this is something that should really be brought up. You're a business owner or a leadership at a business and you're struggling with like, my gosh, what do we do about employee healthcare? It's $33,000 for a family of four. Read the Price Waterhouse annual healthcare study that just came out last week. The component to growth rate in 2025 will be 8% on the low end. It's highest rate in 13 years. Nothing is changing in this industry unless you change it. The end consumer, right? The employees, the business leaders. The business leaders, we have to change it. The industry is not changing to help you. It is not. You have to change. It is with Bevcat. We can. And John Kerr. We can help you, but also you've got to think differently about solving this problem. And it's not easy, but there are solutions and there are ways to do it. There are ways to save millions on prescription drugs in the United States and outside the United States. There's ways to save millions on a surgery in the United States versus having to go to outside the United States. We can do this. We just have to think differently. And I'm very bullish about it. I love metaphors. It's like you can't turn a cruise ship around on a dime, right? You've got to take this big turn. I truly believe that more and more organizations, individuals are just looking at this. How can this sustain? And that cruise ship's kind of slowly turning around and it's not going to be on a dime, but... I believe in the power of ingenuity and innovation. But we just have to think differently about solving the problem. It's happening more today than it ever has before. These conversations help. Conversations like this, just in general across the industry. You have options out there. And getting out of the cycle of a nine months kind of stoplight to stoplight, as I always like to say, is hard. I understand people have been making decisions like this for years. They've been trusted large entities for years, but there are organizations that we've seen in CAPTIS. We've been in this business since 2008 on the property capacity side, 2012 on the benefit side. Amazing strides have been made in the last 12, 13, 14, 15 years and they will continue to be made. And this, I hate to say it, alternative market. - It shouldn't be. One more time here, John Kirk, president of BevCap, healthcare captives. I just call you BevCap, by the way. BevCap has held good as. Look again, if you happen to hear the last couple of minutes here and you have questions, like we'll put you in touch with them. We'll do our best to answer your questions too, but it's happening thanks to efforts, your efforts, the people you work with efforts, we'll get there. - We will and shout out to you guys. I mean, there are a lot of advisors who don't wanna learn and lean in to this part of the industry, which is yielding incredible value for businesses and their employees and families. John Kirk, thanks for joining us. That's what the health just happened. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)