Enjoy the “benefits” of living with an insurance broker | Insurance business America
How a manager found his true passion
Advantages
By Emily Douglas
Sam Odishoo (pictured) started his career in sales and marketing and never imagined his future would lie in benefits and customer relations. Now, as SVP of employee benefits at USI Insurance Services, he has never looked back.
However, Odishoo told IB that after leaving school, he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do. After graduating Summa Cum Laude from DePaul University, he initially wanted to go into advertising and pursue his creative passions. But the sales soon became more popular with the young graduate.
“I started at a Fortune 500 insurance carrier,” Odishoo said. “Here I learned a lot about individual products – it was nice to get an overall overview of how the company works from the carrier side. I spent two and a half years there and was fortunate enough to be one of their top producers in the Chicago metropolitan area as a rookie producer two years in a row. Ultimately, I wanted to study the industry and really understand how the broker landscape relates to the employer group landscape and the carrier landscape.”
Odishoo adopted this jack-of-all-trades approach and quickly moved into the brokerage side of the business. However, he called his move to USI the most important catalyst in his career.
“I have worked with several small, family-run insurance consulting companies and learned a lot [about] different areas of the brokerage side of the house – whether carrier relations, account management, producer management, a little bit of everything. However, I realized that what I really wanted to do and what I was most passionate about was working directly with clients. [I wanted to] Help be the ultimate advocate for them and their employees.”
What Odishoo particularly liked about USI was its unrest-driven approach. Over the years he developed a keen interest in healthcare and industry trends and received both CEBS and PHR awards. And this landscape scared him.
“It became clear to me that this was going to be a very sensitive and problematic issue for employers,” he told IB. “Whether they are mid-market employers or large corporate employers, healthcare inflation and the perverse financial incentives created in our industry are starting to really weigh on employer customers – and impact their employees .
“I wanted to be part of an active change agent who advocates for my employer clients, their employees and their families. And so the move to USI was perfect for me.”
Unaffordable costs
A passion for disruption is something that could define success in today’s rapidly changing benefits marketplace – especially with rising costs and employees already struggling with a cost of living crisis.
“Insurance used to be a given,” Odishoo told IB. “[Employers] threw it on the street and gave employees the freedom to see any doctor and provider they wanted without guidance. But with healthcare trends increasing at such an alarming rate year after year, these costs are becoming prohibitive for the average employer. This lack of sustainability is passed on to the employees.
“Of course there’s this dynamic where health insurance is important – it’s mandated for appropriate large employers, but the affordability aspect becomes an issue for so many groups. Employers want to offer great benefits, they want their employees to take advantage of those benefits, but if they do that, it becomes even more prohibitive for them to offer a great benefits program.”
And the data serves to support Odishoo’s concerns. According to research from WTW, employers believe cost will be the biggest challenge to benefit budgets in the coming years, with 36% expressing concerns about the economic environment.
So what should be done? Odishoo believes that employers are the ones who take the time to educate their employees on the ways to maximize their current programs.
“Employees need to have a say in how they use the health benefits they offer. A big part of this is education, which is directly linked to technology. Employers who use a multimedia communications approach to educate their employees about the benefits offered and help them find solutions to improve access to that care at a lower price each year – they are the ones moving forward.”
“I am and always will be an ardent supporter of the insurance industry. I think there are many improvements that can be made to our industry as a whole financially, administratively and generally – but the insurance business has changed my life in a very positive way. I firmly believe that if you work hard, treat people right and act from an honest perspective, there are no limits.”
Treat people with kindness
This belief in treating people with kindness not only stems from Odishoo’s professional life, he is also passionate about helping the community as a whole. Odishoo’s family lives near a North Chicago neighborhood and runs a mentoring group for underprivileged young men called Brothers United – and, through Mosaic House Ministries, helps run a community center called The Mosaic Hub.
“I like to try to focus on other people. My nights and weekends spent as a mentor and counselor make me feel like I am achieving my true purpose. What I can do in my professional life through USI and the insurance business is give me the opportunity to better serve my community. And that’s what it’s all about for me.”
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2024-05-31 14:47:46
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