|
Coming back
In seconds, life as he knew it ended for agent and outdoorsman Jack McMahan. How did he pick up the pieces and build something new?
By Elisabeth Boone, CPCU
Try to imagine that the unimaginable happened and you found yourself in a wheelchair. Your life as it had been—that colorful tapestry of love, ambition, mistakes, successes, pain, and discovery—now sounds like a story that was written about someone else, someone you don’t even know. The past is who you were before. Who are you now… who will you be?
Those were the existential questions that confronted veteran agent, agency executive, and customer relationship management consultant Jack McMahan on what began as an ordinary day in the summer of 2004.
“I’ve always been passionate about the outdoors and quite athletic,” McMahan says. “I was a hunter, fly fisherman, mountain climber, cyclist, and more. If I couldn’t be outside or pursuing an athletic endeavor on a daily basis, I began to get claustrophobic.
“On a routine road-bike training run, I flipped over my handlebars and landed on my head,” he says. “I suffered a severe spinal cord injury—a C3-4 central cord compression—that left me paralyzed from the neck down.”
Today McMahan is chief executive officer of PLICO Financial, Inc., an independent agency that is owned by Physicians Liability Insurance Company of Oklahoma, a physician-owned medical professional liability insurer based in Oklahoma City that distributes its products through independent agents. McMahan joined PLICO in October 2009 and finds it a comfortable setting whose people provide vital support as he tackles the dual challenges of building an independent agency team and creating a work environment that accommodates his needs.
A different path
McMahan’s road to PLICO—and back to a productive, enriching life—began when he awoke in a hospital after the accident and found himself immobilized with a forest of plastic tubes running to and from his body. Those tubes, and the nutrition, hydration, and medications they delivered, were the sole connection between McMahan and a life he barely recognized as his.
After three months in a rehabilitation hospital, McMahan returned home driving a powered wheelchair with his lips. Gradually he regained limited functionality in his legs, trunk, arms, and hands. In daily physical therapy sessions, he fought doggedly for every small gain and learned to measure his progress in inches instead of miles.
“My accident was the ‘perfect storm,’ “ he says. “I had deeply invested, emotionally and financially, in Baetis, the customer relationship management firm I established in 1998. (See September 2001 issue, page 98.) That crashed when the two airplanes hit the Twin Towers on 9/11. Because I was self-employed at the time of the accident, I didn’t have disability insurance and was in the last month of my medical insurance plan.
“The challenge for me when I left the hospital was facing the financial, physical, and emotional realities of my situation,” McMahan says. “How can I keep my house? What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Who am I without the use of my arms and legs? What kind of husband and father can I be? How can I work?”
Coming to grips with these profound and irreversible changes in every area of one’s life is a frustrating and often overwhelming exercise, McMahan remarks. “For every person like me who returns to work, or even that you see in public, there are huge numbers who don’t or can’t make it out of their own home,” he says. “The physical, emotional, and financial challenges make the struggle an intense uphill battle all day, every day.”
Coming back
So how did McMahan come back?
“First, it takes an amazing support team,” McMahan declares. “I’ve had great doctors and powerful, inspirational therapists every step of the way. Most important of all, I have a terrific family and a wonderful wife who holds my hand and serves as my hands 24 hours a day.”
Second, McMahan believes passionately in the power of choice. “Life demands that we make choices, moment by moment, day by day,” he says. “To live fully as a disabled person means overcoming obstacles that others simply take for granted.”
These obstacles, he explains, are both physical and emotional. When he joined PLICO, the people at his new workplace “reached out to me gently and quietly. They began by modifying my office space; hanging an ‘Occupied’ sign on the men’s room, which enables my caregiver to help me in privacy; installing an electronic switch in the freight elevator that allows me to access my floor in our building.
“Almost every employer is required to comply with the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, but not every employer does so with humanity,” McMahan observes. “The PLICO executives and my coworkers went beyond accommodating my personal needs to extend affection and friendship.”
A perfect fit
At PLICO, McMahan has found a team of colleagues whose goals and values are an ideal fit with his own. He thrives on the opportunity to use his skills and experience to build PLICO Financial into a strong marketing entity that is focused on meeting the unique needs of physicians.
“My passion is niche marketing,” McMahan says. “I have a lot of experience using data to mine business intelligence—behaviors and preferences—to help initiate the formation of powerful, trust-based relationships. I’m also passionate about the concept of relationship management and trust-based selling. The fact that PLICO is entrenched in the health care niche was extremely attractive to me. I was also intrigued by the fact that the company is so deeply committed to delivering unique policyholder services and was seeking a way to use that knowledge to drive new client growth.”
Although PLICO Financial is a subsidiary of Physicians Liability Insurance Company, McMahan says, “It is for the most part a typical independent agency. Along with independent agencies throughout the state, we distribute PLICO’s medical professional liability insurance to Oklahoma physicians. Beyond that one line of insurance, however, we are truly independent in every sense of the word.”
The goal of PLICO Financial, McMahan explains, “is to help Oklahoma physicians, their practices, and their staffs secure a better financial future. We do that by providing a broad range of insurance coverages—property, casualty, health, life, disability, long term care, and so on—and we also deliver retirement and estate planning and wealth management solutions. Additionally, we offer non-insurance products such as test reporting services and electronic physician credentialing.”
To help physicians boost their bottom line, PLICO Financial provides services to improve staff morale and reduce turnover, achieve efficiencies in practice management, and create positive patient experiences.
Partnering with agents
PLICO Financial is one of several independent agencies in Oklahoma that together generate approximately 50% of PLICO’s premium. “In turn, we work closely with a number of select agencies throughout the state to create a partner network,” McMahan says. “This network consists of agencies that have the capability, commitment, and character that we deem essential to help us grow. These agencies are willing to commit a volume of business to us in exchange for marketing assistance, training, and other cooperative benefits.”
As an example of a valued partner agency, McMahan points to the Bramlett Agency, Inc. (the Rough Notes cover agency in September 2005). “They manage a great deal of our growth in the southern part of the state,” he says. “Jake Bramlett, the son of agency principal Bob Bramlett (incoming president of the Big I), is a former EMT and emergency room nurse. He clearly understands the unique needs of physicians. We’ve helped Jake develop a production plan for medical professional liability insurance in his territory. He then works to deliver his agency’s own suite of property/casualty and employee benefits products,” McMahan explains.
Including McMahan, PLICO Financial has seven full-time and two part-time employees. “We leverage efficiency with an aggressive pursuit of technology,” McMahan says. “For example, we use a customized version of salesforce.com to integrate sales and marketing ‘knowledge.’ This tool is extremely valuable in helping us better understand our clients so we can efficiently deliver client-focused ‘touches.’
“Equally important,” he continues, “this tool is completely portable. It’s linked to both laptops and iPhones. We leverage the effectiveness of our Web site by integrating CMS (content management software) for efficient inbound marketing. In essence, we create a seamless link from our Web site through CMS to our Sales-force application.
“Further, we work hard to build a robust database of current and prospective clients,” McMahan says. “To date we have over 12,000 names in our database with more than 26 data elements per name. Careful data management helps us better understand clients while delivering pinpointed marketing messages through e-newsletters and announcements via constantcontact.com.”
The wired (and wireless) office
As a master of sophisticated database management and relationship management applications, McMahan brought his considerable tech savvy to the task of creating an office environment that would accommodate his needs. In the process, he explored the intriguing array of assistive technologies that are designed to help people with disabilities work comfortably and productively.
“Like everyone else, I try to work a normal day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., doing the usual things that an insurance agency principal would do,” he says. “That includes using computers and telephones, meeting and entertaining clients, conducting staff workshops and training sessions, and doing extensive reading and writing.
“But imagine doing all those things without being able to use your legs or your hands,” McMahan says. “I do have very limited use of my legs, so I’m able to transfer from a powered wheelchair to a normal office chair when I’m in the office. When I’m traveling outside the office, I’m limited to using my powered wheelchair. I also have limited use of my hands. It’s difficult for me to hold a pen or pencil, but I can do it—although I hate the results! I can’t use my hands to type and find it very difficult to turn pages, pick up papers, reload a printer, pull books from the shelf, feed myself, and attend to other personal needs,” McMahan explains.
“To help me with these and other tasks, I have a caregiver/assistant working with me half of every workday,” he says. “For the remainder of the day, and at home, my wife serves as my hands.”
Also playing a key role as McMahan’s hands is the voice recognition software he uses in the office. “I use Dragon Naturally Speaking software almost exclusively, and it enables me to use a computer almost as easily as I could before the accident,” he explains. “Dragon is an amazing tool that is relatively easy to master and can save almost anyone, disabled or otherwise, significant amounts of time while converting speech to text with astounding accuracy.”
McMahan also checked out numerous cell phones to find the best fit for his needs. “At least for the time being, I’ve settled on an iPhone,” he says. “The larger touchscreen allows me to execute functions using a knuckle. A Dragon application lets me use voice recognition for both texting and e-mailing. Through an Exchange Server at work, I can access all of my Outlook files remotely.”
On the road again
To McMahan’s surprise and delight, he discovered after rehabilitation that he was able to drive. “In terms of freedom, mobility, and independence, being able to drive myself is huge,” he says. McMahan describes his specially equipped van with the pride and excitement of a teenage boy showing off his first car.
“My van has been extensively modified with assistance from the state,” he says. “The floor has been dropped about 10 inches to accommodate a folding ramp, which enables me to drive my chair into the van and lock it down. I have special seats in the front that swivel to facilitate transferring into the driver’s or passenger’s position. The steering wheel and front drive mechanism have been modified to eliminate any resistance in the steering wheel.
“Once my hands are locked in their position, I can’t move them, so the normal shift mechanism, electrical switches, buttons, and knobs have been replaced by either a touchscreen or a voice menu,” McMahan explains. “The touchscreen allows me to use my knuckles when I’m stationary to activate the switch to raise or lower windows, for example. I activate the voice menu with my elbow, then bump it a second time to execute commands for turn signals, wipers, horn, lights, and so on.
“I have enough strength in my left hand to firmly grasp a lever on the right side of the steering wheel, which is my accelerator or my brake. My right hand grasps a special control knob that allows me to turn the steering wheel.”
Thanks to this high-tech equipment, McMahan has been able to widen his world far beyond the confines of home, office, and wheel-chair. The freedom to drive is indescribably great, he says, but it’s no longer the simple routine it used to be.
“Trust me: even though I have all these modifications—or maybe because I have them—driving can be, well, exhilarating from time to time,” he says with a laugh.
Telling your story
“We all have a story inside us that needs to be unlocked,” McMahan says. “But sometimes being disabled means dealing with such fundamental challenges and obstacles that the energy and joy of our inner voice gets throttled by the frustrations of daily life. And gradually, if we are not careful, our disability becomes our story, which is not at all what we meant to say.
“My story is really about what it’s like to be disabled and what it means to enlist and accept the help I need to return to a productive life. There are countless others with the same story, but each of us tells it in a different voice, and each of us needs to be heard.”
For more information:
PLICO Financial, Inc.
Web site: www.plicofinancial.com |
