Marketing Agency of the Month

When opportunity knocks, be ready to answer

A culture of continuous improvement keeps UNICO ready to respond to any needs

By Dennis H. Pillsbury

“When you’re in a state with only 1.7 million people, you have to be a generalist and opportunistic,” says Bob Reynoldson, CWCA, one of the major principals at UNICO Group, Lincoln, Nebraska. “We try to recognize the talents of our people and match them with opportunities. When you put those two things together, the results can be incredible.

“For example, about five years ago, we recognized a need and started a workers compensation program for rural telephone companies that we branded as UNITEL Insurance.” Bob goes on to explain that the opportunity came from a direct writer. The direct-writing company wrote rural telephone company business throughout the country and “one day, the company decided to exit the workers comp portion of the business,” Bob remembers. “The insurance company told its agents they were free to go find another market for the workers comp business. One of their agents came to us and asked us if we could create a workers comp program for the telephone companies.

“Today, we have developed companion products to market to the telephone companies,” Bob points out. These ancillary lines include cyber liability and D&O coverage. In addition, he points out, “We are able to write all lines of coverage for those rural telephone companies that don’t have a market. At the same time, we became a quasi-wholesaler in the arena by creating AgentFlexsm through which we offer services through the rural telephone company’s agent or directly to the customer.

“What makes us different from a wholesaler is the fact that the agent gets full commission on the business,” Bob explains. “We are able to participate in overrides, which have been good because of the efficiencies we have achieved in this market and our underwriting success. It’s a win-win where the agent gets full commission and the client gets world class service and expertise.”

The UNITEL program has a dedicated staff, headed up by a former direct writer employee, Joseph Weipert, CIC, ARM, AIC, who was responsible for marketing the program in five Midwestern states.

Comp experts

Of course, the fact that a direct writing agent approached UNICO Group to come up with a workers comp solution did not happen just because he liked their name. UNICO already had a reputation in the area for solving workers comp problems for its clients. “Back in the 1990s, we put together a workers comp program for hospitals in Nebraska,” Bob recalls. “They all were in the assigned risk pool at the time. We used a rent-a-captive coupled with strong risk management efforts to save the hospitals more than $2 million.”

The agency has a long history of service to the Lincoln area, going back to 1890, although it assumed its current appellation on October 1, 1988, when two of the premier agencies in Lincoln—Reynolds-Simmons-Nelson Insurance and Chambers Dobson Financial Services—merged to form UNICO Group. Today, the agency’s 62 people are responsible for $8.5 million in revenue, with 65% commercial, 20% personal and 15% employee benefits. It has four offices throughout Nebraska.

The merger was “done with some lofty and specific goals,” Bob points out. “We wanted to be creative people who solved problems and met needs and built on that reputation. We felt that merging the individuals and talents of both firms would create an entity that could build on and even exceed the past precedents established by the two agencies for excellent service and professionalism.”

He continues, “We intended UNICO to be the agency of choice by organizations that wanted the best risk management advice. In short, our goal was to establish relationships with clients that wanted a partner rather than just a vendor. We want to be their indispensable resource for risk management solutions. That has become our guiding principle. Usually, if we don’t write an account, it’s because they don’t want that kind of relationship.”

Building on that principle, the agency has reengineered itself to become recognized as a Certified WorkComp Advisor by the Institute of WorkComp Professionals, which administers the CWCA program. “We are the only agency in Nebraska that is a CWCA, and we have branded ourselves as specialists in the field.

“We feature our own comprehensive workers comp management system, UNICOMP, which helps all our clients gain control over their workers comp costs. In the last four years, for example, we helped our clients lower open claim reserves by more than $7 million,” Bob adds. “By constantly monitoring the accuracy of claims reserves and working with our company partners, we have achieved an average experience mod reduction of 19 points for our clients.

“UNICOMP is a powerful tool to show that we are different,” Bob says proudly.

“Our mission in comp is to have every insured understand that it is a risk financing instrument rather than a risk transfer mechanism,” Bob points out. “When they truly understand that, then they begin to understand that the costs are controllable.

“Of course, claims reduction or elimination is an important part of controlling costs, but equally important is how claims are handled when they do occur. We don’t have a traditional claims department; instead, we have a claims division that is headed up by a claims advocate. The advocate works with the injured worker, the insured and the insurance company with the ultimate goal being to get people back to work more quickly,” he explains.

Communication is key

“A lot of the effort is simply facilitating communication,” Bob continues. “We get information to the doctors concerning what the physical requirements are for the injured worker’s job. Oftentimes, a doctor won’t certify that an individual is ready to return to work until the person is completely recovered from the injury, just to be safe. However, if you provide the doctor with information about what is needed to do the job, the doctor is more willing to let a worker return to work earlier. And, we’ve found that if we aren’t there doing the communicating, it just doesn’t get done.

“We also are continuously educating our insureds about issues that can impact their workers comp costs, including building a safety culture, the importance of reporting an injury immediately, the obesity epidemic and the aging workforce, to name just a few. And, of course, we work with each of our clients to find ways to mitigate or eliminate the impact of these factors. Helping our clients incorporate wellness principles into their safety culture has been an important part of our efforts to reduce losses.

“Wellness has been part of our culture since the release of the 1993 Stanford study, one of the first studies that considered the impact of wellness on group health and workers compensation,” Bob says. “We started emphasizing wellness with our employee benefits clients soon after the release of that study and that quickly migrated into our workers compensation practice.”

Additional specialties

UNICO has received the endorsement of several state associations to be the agency of choice for its members. One of its long-standing relationships is with the Nebraska New Car and Truck Dealers Association where it has provided an endorsed workers compensation program for more than 20 years. The agency also has a partnership with the Nebraska Council of School Administrators, where the agency provides members of the NCSA with risk management solutions and insurance.

Additionally, the agency works with the Nebraska Trucking Association to provide workers comp solutions to its members. It offers a National Dental Association-endorsed dental insurance program. Its crop insurance program is endorsed by the Nebraska Independent Community Bankers.

“We firmly believe that cookie-cutter approaches don’t work,” Bob says. “We take a very long-term approach with our clients; our goal is to have a client for life. When we establish a relationship with a client, we expand that relationship to include the insurance company that best fits the needs of the clients. There is such a dramatic difference in the capabilities of the insurance company people that handle the clients. Each person offers unique talents and abilities. That’s especially true when dealing with monoline companies. Because of their focus, they often have experts available that will enhance our services to the client.”

An agency with a future

“The insurance companies we represent see us as an agency with a future,” Bob notes. “We have so many of the right pieces in place. We are an ESOP company, assuring perpetuation. The ESOP owns 40% of the agency. And, we have a great group of young producers. In the last five years, we’ve hired nine producers. Eight are still with us and seven are validated. They spent a lot of time getting to know us. We have a mentoring program where the expectation is that they never have to do it alone. We really help them along so they fit into our culture of cooperation, coordination and teamwork.

“We have a culture based on teamwork and team selling. Our people understand that by working collectively, we can all enjoy a lot of success.”

Bob concludes: “We understand that we always have to continuously improve. We don’t have it perfect and never will, but we will always be striving to reach perfection. We always want to be humble and listen to what our customers and our insurance companies want and need. A lot of our time has been spent listening. That might be the ultimate secret of our success. It allows us to provide the solutions that our customers and companies need, not the solutions that we think they need.”

UNICO exemplifies the focus on uber-service that has characterized the best members of the independent agency system. The success of these agencies is based on their contribution to their clients’ and insurance companies’ success—the classic win-win scenario. And the fact that internally, this agency lives up to its informal motto of Profunmon, a word coined by agency President J. Scott Nelson, CPCU, CWCA. “We behave professionally, have fun and try to make some money,” Scott explains.

We are proud to recognize UNICO Group as the Rough Notes Marketing Agency of the Month.