In the Fall of 2009, Danny Mensh, the owner of Mensh Insurance and Co Founder of InsureSTAT was asked to meet with the Human Resources team at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center to review the all existing Disability Insurance programs for the residents and fellows.
These programs specifically included a group Long Term Disability plan paid for by the hospital as well as a small individual supplemental disability insurance policy designed to allow for a voluntary benefit increase and portability upon graduation.
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
After performing a detailed examination of all benefits, contract language, pricing and related features, Mensh was able to increase the overall resident protection by nearly 30% while saving the hospital six figures annually.
Additionally, the individual program to provide critical access to graduating residents and fellows for securing individually owned and portable specialty own occupation policy was enhanced.
The program was originally rolled out in April of 2010 and remains in place today with consistent support and annual participation throughout all departments. Certain areas such as Emergency Medicine, Anesthesiology, Radiology, and several Surgical specialties tend to take advantage of the available discounts and protection with the greatest frequency.
All resident and fellow physicians have access to guaranteed issue policies that don’t require the typical medical review and underwriting that often makes policy acquisition more difficult. Prior to graduation, a policy is available on a voluntary basis with a monthly benefit of $5000 if disabled.
This amount effectively insures the first $100,000 of earned annual income for the physician. After graduation, based on income and any new employer provided benefits, the policy can be increased to as high as $15,000 per month without medical review or to $17,000 from some carriers via medical records and an exam of some degree.
In the world of individual disability insurance, it is widely known that male and female rates vary as much as 40%. This is directly tied to statistical data to show that females tend to develop more chronic illness than males and, as such, file for more disability claims than male counterparts.
This is, of course, totally different than life insurance underwriting which uses mortality tables to base rate structures from where females tend to outlive males. With the special program available to Wake Forest medical residents and fellows, all females have access to the same rates as males under a unique “unisex” rate program associated with the guaranteed issue underwriting flexibility.
Now in partnership with the technology platform from InsureSTAT.com, Mensh Insurance brings the most competitive overall program designs and policy availability to Wake Forest Baptist Health and its resident/fellow population.
From an initial 2010 enrollment saw nearly 45 participants in the brand new guaranteed issue program, only 5 or 6 used the website to request proposals and ultimately secure coverage. Fast forward to 2017 and over 60 residents took advantage of the available discounted policies with over 40 website requests for customized individual proposals.
The significant increase in web-based benefit information has helped disseminate policy details to a time-challenged training physician population who is more and more squeezed for time and can’t attend traditional “lunch and learn” education meetings or department seminars on various topics.
By design a web-based education platform to include videos and customized plan information, InsureSTAT is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of the hospital’s Human Resources department by taking away all internal responsibility for the valuable program.
At the same time, InsureSTAT is giving the 28-40 year old use exactly what he/she now asks for…fast, accurate, reliable, flexible information.
Danny Mensh is the CEO of InsureSTAT, the leading online provider of Disability Insurance for Physicians, Nurses and Physician Assistants.
