83. “I Don’t Know” Won’t Cut It in a Department of Labor Audit w/ Patrick Williams

Speaker A: There's a lot. You know, there's a lot of people that are using the fiduciary word as a marketing term, but really has very little as far as backing it up.

Speaker B: Can't operate your business. You can't take commission, you can't take bonuses. I mean, you can and you can disclose it, but ultimately it's inherent, inherently a conflict of interest. Like, it's prohibited transactions all over the place.

Speaker A: If you're managing a retirement plan, if you're managing a health plan, there's certain responsibilities that come with that, and part of that is being able to document your process.

Speaker B: RFP processes have been designed to protect incumbents and to deliver the exact same BS essentially every single year. The system has been working the way it's been working for as long as it's been working, because somebody's making a lot of money, and it's generally not in the best interest of client sponsors. The business of benefits is your. No bs, no sales guide to real solutions, no gimmicks, just the truth about how to take control, transform your benefits, and care for your most valuable asset, your people. If you're tired of the same old sales pitch and you're ready to rethink your benefits, this podcast is for you. The truth is out there. Are you ready to hear it? Welcome to this week's episode of the Business of Benefits podcast. I'm your host, Chelsea Reikus, and I have Patrick Williams here with me today, co founder of Fiduciary in a Box. How are you, Patrick?

Speaker A: I'm doing great. How are you doing, Chelsea? It's good to see you again.

Speaker B: Good to see you, too. Are those your pups? Are they saying hi to. We used to have, um. My dog's name is Copious. We used to have Copious on our website as our chief complaint officer. Anyways, we've gotten a little too big where that's not as cute as it used to be. But nonetheless, thank you so much for being here. Um, you and I always have some fantastic conversations, and you've definitely been a trusted resource for me the last few years in the industry. Um, so I'm very honored and excited to have you on the show today.

Speaker A: Well, thank you.

Speaker B: I've been getting a lot of inquiries, um, around fiduciary process, and people keep reaching out to me, saying, like, hey, can. Can you send me that episode you did on fiduciary duty? And can you send me this episode you did on Erisa? Lawsuits? But as you and I both know, the lawsuit landscape is changing. Really, really quickly. So I think it's always good to have these conversations, like maybe even quarterly, if not biannually. So that's what we're going to do today. We're going to reset on what it means to be a fiduciary. The different tenants of fiduciary duty, settler versus non settler. We'll talk a little bit about some lawsuits, um, and then I really want to get into what you're seeing at real leverage in the compliance space. So does that all sound good to you?

Speaker A: Sounds great.

Speaker B: All right, so can you update our listeners? And remember, the business benefit listeners tend to be plan sponsors, ah, mid to large market plan sponsors. So for them specifically, not brokers, not vendors, what does it mean to be a fiduciary and what are those core tenants?

Speaker A: Yeah, great question. So, you know, the core tenants, um, really focus on an individual that's a fiduciary is putting the interests of the plan participants first. M. And so under erisa, that means that you're acting solely in their interest, uh, with decision making and, and paying only reasonable expenses. And I know we're going to get into this conversation around reasonable expenses, but following the plan document, you know, where appropriate, and, and documenting your decisions. You know, the key word here is kind of prudence from the standpoint of erisa, you know, doesn't require plan sponsors to master perfection. Prudence basically says that, hey, do you have a prudent process? And they're not measuring what the outcome is. They want to go about and look at what you implemented as far as a process and what you documented along the way, uh, in making these decisions. And so for, uh, fiduciary, it's really your first foot forward is acting in the best interest of the participants and then following up with process.

Speaker B: Can you explain settler versus non settler function?

Speaker A: Yeah. So cellular functions are functions that are, um, basically, uh, business decisions that an organization will make. And this is kind of ties into what we were talking about before we launched, which is, you know, plan design is, you know, a settler function. Um, non settler functions or fiduciary functions are really dealing with how the employer acts with regards to ERISA and the liability and um, basically decisions about operating and administering, uh, an existing plan. So, uh, the settler function, plan design doesn't carry the fiduciary liability. What carries the fiduciary liability is the fiduciary functions. Kind of some examples from a seller function standpoint, you know, establishing a new health plan or retirement plan, you know, deciding whether to offer health insurance or 401k, selecting the type of plan, PPO, high deductible, whatever, these are all um, non fiduciary type of decisions. Uh, but when the decisions start to involve, um, things as far as establishing a committee, um, holding committee meetings, managing conflicts of interest, you know, vendor oversight, those are all fiduciary functions that employers have to be aware of and

Speaker B: bring

Speaker A: um into their process.

Speaker B: Mhm. No, that makes perfect sense. What do you see as like the biggest hurdle for plan sponsors in understanding that the same prudence that they bring on 401k is now and has always been required on health plans? However, we all know with the caa, that's really what shone the light and got everybody thinking about this. But what do you see as the biggest hurdle for plan sponsors in actually implementing this and implementing it?

Speaker A: Well, yeah, well I think that the first thing I see is that, uh, uh, employers, you know, when CA got passed, um, you know, and we were having early conversations with employers about fiduciary and box as a solution, we quickly realized that we had to have a conversation that, you know, discussed retirement where we'd say, hey, in your retirement plan, do you have a committee? Yes. Do you get together and perform meetings? Yes. Do you have people that document those meetings? Yes. And all of that work. And basically what we had to explain is under caa you now have to do the same thing with your health plan. So you have to have, you know, you need, you should put together a committee, you should be documenting those minutes, you should be reviewing those vendor relationships, you should be reviewing the contracts, the fees arrangement and get an understanding of what makes up your overall health plan and really get your arms around what the, you know, true costs are and the relationships of all those vendors associated with your plan. So it's been a process as far as getting employers to move along and obviously a lot of the, uh, um, advancement that we've seen, you know, people that are in Fortune 500 companies, they're doing this. But now we've got that push down that's taking place and we're starting to see a lot of organizations in that 500 to 5,000, uh, size group starting to implement these types of, uh, committees and structures and really starting to dive into, uh, looking at all of their relationships and really starting to get an arm around how their plans run and what are the costs associated with them and what they can do from a proactive standpoint once they start getting data to make changes, uh, that have positive impacts not only to their participants, but also to the cost of the plan. You know, it's not always about finding out what's so expensive and then carving it out. Maybe there's some other elements. So for organizations, you know, it's really important to kind of look at this on a broad scope and then narrow in where they can, uh, have an impact with, uh, whether it's a point solution or making a plan, design change or whatever.

Speaker B: Yeah. And sometimes it's not even. And I think you kind of alluded to this, but in my experience, it's not necessarily about adding or removing a lot of the times too. It's simply just strengthening contract terms of existing vendors. We've seen immense success in that. I wanted to share, uh, a quick story. So back in 2016, 2017, I joined Donovan's company, J. Donovan Financial, at the time as a partner. And I remember at the time he had been doing, um, his registered investment advisory, so, and a ton of retirement planning and things like that. And he was gradually transitioning over to employee benefits because he was asked by one of his clients to take a look, uh, that he had on retirement, like, take a look at the health plan. Came in 12% undercurrent, beat out a large publicly traded brokerage, and was like, what the hell is happening on this side of the industry? So that's really like the founding story of how Ethos got into health and welfare exclusively was just seeing the lack of fiduciary process. Right. And I remember when I joined, we had on our website, um, it was like fiduciary, um, broker, something, something, something. And this was probably 2017. And we had met with a vendor at the time. Do you know Chris Yarn with Walk On Clinic? Okay, well, he's, he's a big personality in, in the industry, but at the time, like, we were nobody. And, um, he met with us and he was like, you have the word fiduciary on your website. And he was just so stoked about it. And he was like, that's the future, blah, blah, blah. And that's what Donovan had kept telling me. And he was the only other person at that point. And I had taken dozens and dozens of vendor meetings and whatnot that, like, understood that early on that fiduciary on this side of the business was going to be such a thing. Um, which brings me to my next point of. And I was going to ask you this later, but let's just get into it because it's going to be a controversial topic. Everybody and their mom thinks that they're a fiduciary these days. And like, we literally went from companies having. Absolutely. And by companies, I mean mostly like brokerages and vendors and whatnot, having no idea about any of this to now. Everybody is. One has one. I, uh, like whatever it is from the marketing. Right. But like walking the walk is different than talking the talk when it comes to fiduciary duty. So, like, what are you seeing in the market and what should look out for?

Speaker A: Well, you know, there's, there's a lot, you know, there's a lot of people that are using the fiduciary word as a marketing term, but really has very little as far as backing it up. And we've seen that, um, continue to kind of grow and catch momentum. What I see in the marketplace that's happening is there's some, there's some people, some organizations like yours and others that are on, um, that come from the consulting side that really are embracing the, uh, fiduciary, uh, language, the process. I mean, they're immersing themselves and you're not, you know, you're not one of these overnight sensations on LinkedIn. I mean, it's amazing. I can't even go on LinkedIn anymore because everybody's bragging about what they just recently did, you know, and that's, that's never been my position. My position's always been head down, do the work and, and just get it done.

Speaker B: Yeah. How much work are you really doing if you have a few time to make three posts a day?

Speaker A: Right, right. So some of the things that we're seeing is we're starting to see organizations like accounting, uh, and audit firms that are really starting to dive into this because they have relationships with the. Particularly on the retirement plan side, where a lot of accounting firms have TPAs that manage retirement plans. But now they're seeing whether it's through HIPAA violations or just, uh, seeing the need from providing a service to introducing, uh, a service as far as consulting, uh, with their clients on fiduciary. So it's always, you know, I gave a talk last week in Minneapolis and I told the, the people that attended it was consultants and TPAs. I said, one or all of you are going to step up and start doing this work, but the customer is counting on one of you to do something because the TPA has the next closest relationship to the client, uh, with the consultant obviously being in front of them. So the consultant can decide to jump in or the TPA can decide to jump in, but somebody's got to take the, take the reins and really run with this thing because it's, it's getting to a point where customers are getting the knowledge and knowing that they're supposed to be doing this and they're looking for consultants like you to really lead them down the path. And if you don't do it, you're going to lose the business.

Speaker B: Yeah. And here's what I find to be the most fascinating piece of this conversation is this obviously isn't new, right? Like we've been talking about this and developing our internal framework and our internal process for well over a decade now, right? So like our process is tried and true. We've obviously learned and made a lot of mistakes early on that we now don't do and whatever. But there's a bunch of people that are, that are all of a sudden doing this and just knowing our learning curve, right? And the amount of like work and time and effort that put in to truly build like a framework and a process, um, as opposed to just like marketing language on website or LinkedIn. It's um, your business model needs to reflect a fiduciary standard of care. You can't have a fiduciary advising process for your clients while at the same time having inherent conflicts of interest and um, in your business model, right? Like taking line, I saw this two weeks ago. Taking lines of credit from carriers. Uh, like obviously per script fill fees that shouldn't be baked in mistaking per member per month, uh, per member per month fee was, was what was really in the contract but in your disclosure putting per employee per month. So like little things like that, like you can't operate your business, you can't take commission, you can't take bonuses. I mean you can and you can disclose it, but ultimately it's inherent, inherently a conflict of interest. Like it's prohibited transactions all over the place. So I think like the irony is like, this isn't new. A lot of people have. Brokers specifically haven't embraced it. And I think it's because they have to, you know, show their business model that may or may not be aligned with the best interests of those that they claim to serve. So my hope is that in this push for plan sponsors really wanting advisors to like help them understand this and lift the load a little bit, is that it will force them to do better business. And I'm not saying that brokers are bad or anything like that. Like, I know that they're all very good people, but the system has been working the way it's been working for as long as it's been working because somebody's making a lot of money and it's generally not in the best interest of plan sponsors.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think, you know, the one thing we're kind of leaving out is the plan sponsor on this equation. And, and I kind of look at it from the standpoint that are plan sponsors asking the right questions? And uh, I remember being in the consulting business and, um, walking in to an employer and basically saying, hey, give me your plan outline for managing your healthcare costs over the next three years. And it typically would be like with the cfo and they'd look at me like, what are you talking about?

Speaker B: What?

Speaker A: And you know, you know, this is, this is kind of what I, you know, built my business around. But I think that, you know, when we look at plan sponsors, they need to ask deeper questions in order to get to the right person that, uh, they need to work with. I mean, it's just a situation where, you know, if we could do a better job at educating plan sponsors and literally giving them the questions that they should ask, I think that that's going to help in, in providing, uh, better out comes. Because right now they're not asking the right questions. I mean, someone's saying they're a fiduciary and they're just like, check.

Speaker B: Yeah, right. Versus actually looking at the language in the contract. And then if they are a fiduciary, and really that should be like tpa, a repricer, a pbm. Um, when you're looking at these relationships, like, do they also have the insurance to back up those claims? Um, exactly. There's a lot of other things that go into just putting something on paper. The interesting RFP question though, because I could not agree more, I think that is like the fundamental problem is RFP processes have been designed to protect incumbents and to deliver the exact same BS essentially every single year. And it really favors large publicly traded brokerages for their market leverage, which means a completely different thing than plan sponsors actually want it to mean. But I digress. So we've been sending out sample RFP questions to groups that we know are in RFP and reaching out to them proactively and just saying, hey, here's an additional five questions for you to consider for your rfp. And every single time they've taken them and they've added them and it's been exactly what we're talking about. Are you willing to give us a contract ahead of time? What is your, uh, capacity for fiduciary status? Do you work with vendors? What is Your that are only fiduciaries. What is your procurement process? Will you put fees at risk? What is a true multi year strategy look like? What does data analytics look like? Asking questions that yield better outcomes? Right. The most recent one that we just actually won was this gentleman put together the RFP after listening to our podcast with Mark M. Cuban. And it was all, everything was about fiduciary, standard, uh, of care, fiduciary advising, all of it. They did look at our contract, they looked at our contract prior to engaging with us. They checked out all of our insurances including fiduciary insurance. It was so incredible. So I think you're right that we have to educate and we have to offer this material up front. Um, otherwise they don't know.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think one of the things too, uh, from a position with a plan sponsor that I would introduce in my conversations today if I was in the consulting role is one that you know, uh, Mr. Plan sponsor, you putting together a committee, whether it's for your retirement plan or your health and welfare plan, one of the insurances that you acquire is going to be fiduciary liability coverage. But did you know that the advisor that you're working with from a consulting standpoint on your health and welfare, um, they don't have fiduciary liability insurance. They have um, a total, total separate type of coverage that doesn't even protect them in the event of an ERISA claim. And that's a really big deal. So you have someone that's brokering insurance that isn't protected under ERISA claim and that's a problem.

Speaker B: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So what, what do you see as like the aha moment in your um, experiences for like plan sponsors, like really understanding this?

Speaker A: I think the aha uh moment is for comes in a couple different ways. One, um, a lot of the organizations that um, utilize our platform, uh, the first thing they say is wow, this is in depth. The second thing is they say we thought we were organized, but what we're finding is that we have more gaps than we thought. And you know, when you think about fiduciary in a box, our whole idea is helping you document your process and identifying the gaps and closing those gaps so they, they don't turn into a hair on fire situation in the event of a dol audit. So the, you know, the biggest things that we get, uh, as far as feedback from employers is this is in depth. We're glad we did it. And um, you know, we thought we were organized and we weren't quite as organized as we thought because this information lives everywhere. Everybody up until the point they get to fiduciary in a box.

Speaker B: Well, never mind. I had a conversation with, ah, prospective human resources, um, today and we were talking about fiduciary, uh, obligations and process and due diligence. And she's like, I'm the only person in my organization that knows why we made the decisions we made at renewal last year. And it isn't documented anywhere. And if I were to leave today and they had, you know, and this is a fairly sized organization, like 10,000 plus employees, if I were to leave today, tomorrow, literally nobody would know why any decisions were made for the last five years.

Speaker A: Yeah, I agree, I agree. I mean, I think fiduciary in a box allows you to kind of move those decisions that have been in the head, uh, for the longest time and move them up into the platform, uh, with the ability to able to recite that story down the road if someone comes to challenge it. And that's the issue is that you have situations where, uh, individuals move from one organization to another. There's an exchange of different consultants and the plan sponsor sitting there holding the basket going, how do I put this together while fiduciary in a box weaves that story for you?

Speaker B: What I like the most about fiduciary in a box in your software is that it doesn't matter if you are a brand new, like you're brand new on the plan sponsor or the vendor side to understanding fiduciary due diligence and process and responsibility or even with ethos, right? Because we're a customer. Even with ethos, we've been talking about fiduciary responsibility. We've been operating under our own fiduciary framework for over a decade and we still found value in organizing our process. Right. And documenting our process. We were talking about this earlier and I'll throw it in here now. It's like if you don't have a software or if you don't have a process, like this is a very easy way to get that process right and to at least check the box. Check the box that like, okay, if we have an audit, like we have our contracts loaded, we've, you know, we've shown process, good job. But then the difference is, and where you can really like exercise the most out of this is what is actionable from everything that we've uncovered in these contracts and everything we've uncovered in the data and the trends. Like, what can we do now to actually impact cost and health. And I think that's where it takes a strategic advisor, um, whether it's the broker that's managing your health plans, whether it's somebody you hire as a consultant. But that's where like the real magic is. But if you don't have, you know, like your ABCs, you're never going to get there. So I think it's like, it's awesome to be able to have both.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean you have to build the foundation for the plan sponsor. They have to know what they have first before they can have any sight line down the road. And you as the consultant in helping them build out that uh, platform for them, really gives you the tools to be able to say, okay, here's where we're at right now. Now we want to move down this path. You know, you can create the vision for them in moving down that path and taking corrective, uh, steps, uh, to help meet that goal down the road. I mean, your, your organization is with the material that you've built just outside of uh, fiduciary in a box with how you go about scoring and KPIs. I mean those are, those are areas within the plan, strategy solution within fiduciary in a box. But, you know, taking that and really applying that and having some accountability, I mean, you guys are really putting yourself out there from the standpoint of accountability with the client and it's just great work to see.

Speaker B: Thank you. I really appreciate that. So kind of fun. But what do you think would make compliance more engaging and more fun and like really transition us from just this check the box mentality to like, let's actually do something impactful and meaningful with all the crap that we're uncovering in these audits.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. And we try and make it fun because we built in, you know, gaming into the system a little bit as far as completing different sections and percentage of completion. Um, and we've got some new materials. I'm not going to leak it right now, but we've got some materials that are going to come out that are going to really help you from a consulting standpoint and working with that client and really building out the uh, success of getting towards that end goal of uh, completing the fiduciary process, which of course you start over the next year anyhow. But um, I think that you know, by, you know, from a gaming standpoint, that's important. But at the same time, what, uh, and what we're. I guess I'll leak it a Little bit. What we've, what we've completed that we're going to be launching is this quarterly fiduciary assessment. And what it does is it takes a look at all the documents in the system, what you've done and what's still outstanding. And it actually will review the documents from the standpoint of making sure it's the right document so that if it's the summary plan description or the svc, that it's in the right place. From that standpoint it'll also look at governance, you know, and look at the charter and uh, committee members and compile all that information. Basically what it does is it'll grade the uh, your, your client as to where they're at and then it'll put together a 30, 60, 90 day calendar of completion so you can share that with your client and actually delegate in some cases because some of the material they might have that you're going to need, but really move them towards uh, completing this fiduciary process and getting that a, that everybody, you know, aspires for from a scoring standpoint. So we're really excited about that. Um, because we believe that you know, consultants, as they continue to interface with their clients and creating that awareness, the clients going to start moving down that path of uh, really completing the process with you in hand.

Speaker B: I love that. That's really neat. It's going to be a lot of fun. If you could ban one phrase from our industry, what would it be?

Speaker A: Well, it's kind of a tie. Uh, it's a tie between I don't know. And we've always done that this way.

Speaker B: I don't know isn't. You don't know the answer. But you're saying when the plan sponsor says I don't know.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, if I ask you, how did you go about making the decision to work with A uh, specific PBM? I don't know. You know.

Speaker B: No. Yeah, we have 120 page questionnaire that goes up. Somebody on my team better know. Yeah, but no, it's actually Dr.

Speaker A: I mean that's just a non defensible. I just see a uh, you know, a potential situation where you know, that organization is being investigated by the Department of Labor and your response is I don't know. And you're the plan sponsor, uh, and the fiduciary. That's not a good answer. That's not a way to start off a meeting.

Speaker B: No. Uh, do you have any crazy stories of like conflicts of interest or plan sponsors that have been doing things the same Way forever. Or like any. Any wild stories to share there?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I've run into a couple of situations now where, um, plan sponsors. I don't know what the deal is, and this really speaks to our. What's happening in our marketplace. Again, the transient nature of people. But, uh, we have a client now that we're working with that hasn't filed a 5500 in seven years.

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, those penalties are steep.

Speaker A: Yeah, they're really steep.

Speaker B: That sucks.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that's like the second. That's like the second client that I'm aware of that is in that position. Um, we've got another one that hadn't filed one in five. We had a situation. You know, we've had situations. I had a situation where I did a demo for a customer and. And it was a rather large customer, about 3,000 lives. And they just decided, you know, at this time, you know, we're going to put this on the table and we're not going to move forward. And. And, you know, I, um, said, okay, and I'll follow up with you. Well, I didn't need to. Six months later, they called and they said, we just got a let from the DOL for an audit. Is there any way that you can help us get this information loaded into the system? And we said, yes, we can. And so we got the information loaded into the system, and they populated as best as possible. And then we basically, um, turned on the ability for the auditor to come in and look at the system, evaluate the docs. Yeah. And so up until this point, I haven't heard of any fine associated with that particular client yet. So. Cross your fingers.

Speaker B: Yeah, I know. It's definitely one of those things where it's like. A lot of people think it's just like hearsay or a story about somebody else. Right. But it's.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think what's really concerning to me is that people, whether they know it or not, I mean, um, there's. If you're managing a retirement plan, if you're managing a health plan, there's certain responsibilities that come with that. And part of that is being able to document your process. I mean, that should be really clear to everybody. Hey, you need. Whether you're using a yellow pad, you know, or a checklist, I don't care. Uh, but you need to be able to document your process. And in the event of an audit, you got to be able to count on that as your defense. And my only question is, is, you know, are you going to put all of your weight on a checklist or, or a notepad or some notes that you put in the system even.

Speaker B: Right. Like oh, our broker told us this was the best option. Like that's, you can't uh, delegate that. You really can't, you can't. So a couple tangible like takeaways for listeners and then we'll get close to wrapping up the combo. But if you don't have something like fiduciary in a box or, and, or an advisor with this really solid framework and hopefully it's both, um, for advising on, on all of the things that you're about to uncover with your fiduciary in a box process, um, here's some things you can do for in terms of like documenting your process. So having a solid RFP that actually includes some of those earlier questions asking to see contracts ahead of time so you don't get to a finalist situation and both of them are actually full of bs, right. And then now you've made the worst decision that you could have possibly made. So look for, look at contracts first before you even engage. Um, ask for conflicts of interest, ask for how they're paid, what's the compensation structure up front and ask their take on fiduciary status, governance committee governance, as well as how they're going to just ensure compliance across the board and there and their process for how they're bringing you vendors. Right. So if you're going to have your consultant go out and do a TPA RFP for you, what is their due diligence process like? Because ultimately it's your due diligence process at the end of the day. So, and then, so that's number one would be like having more solid questions like you mentioned earlier Patrick. Number two would be having a scorecard not, not for, for specifically for selection. So if you're in the RFP process like going, having a scorecard that you can use for every single finalist meeting that you have that it's consistent and then you can save those right from there when you go through uh, kickoffs for open enrollment and logistics and contributions, plan design, all the, all the decisions that have to be made. Having a fiduciary summary. So we include this in our post enrollment materials. Um, it's literally typed out. These are the exact decisions that were made. These are all the markets that, that we went to. This is why this company chose to do xyz and we take all of the information from the entire renewal process um, and have this summary created that we then send to the plan sponsor to sign off on that goes in fiduciary in a box. And then when you have your vendors, then you have vendor monitoring on at least a monthly or if not quarterly basis where you're sending a scorecard to the plan sponsor, to the account management team. Everybody's ranking. These vendors, do they have performance guarantees that they're holding up? How are their service level arrangements? Like, are they responding on time? What's their data access? Like, are they meeting their fiduciary capacity that they told us they would? Um, and then you're having those fiduciary committee meetings. So those are some easy, like, takeaways now that you can try to implement into your process. If you don't have anything like this.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. I mean, I've known about your, um, scoring and what you're doing as far as your KPIs with the vendors. And I just wish that everybody that practiced in this space kind of held it in the same vein as you do. And just, I'm, you know, I'm admired by what you guys have done and taken this and, and I want you to keep on pushing the envelope. I want you to know that when I'm out there speaking, um, I get questions about organizations that are using our platform. You're the first one that I go to, and a lot of they've heard about you already. But, you know, if you want to model somebody, go look at what Ethos Benefits is doing.

Speaker B: That's awesome. Thank you so much. Well, your platform makes it a heck of a lot easier than it used to be for us, I'll tell you that much. Uh, organizing all of that stuff, it was, you know, it was like a little spider web. And now it's all beautiful and pretty and easy. So thank you for that. What would be your takeaway? The last thing that you would say to plan sponsors listening to our episode

Speaker A: today, you know, I think that, uh, you know, take the time to kind of digest what's been said, take a look at, you know, what your current situation is. Have you established the committee? Uh, what have you done? If you haven't done anything, you're just operating on a renewal basis. That's not the right path to take. I mean, this is got to be actively managed. It's not just getting together for a pre renewal meeting and then a renewal meeting and then, um, enrollment. It's so much more than that. And employers need, um, to get a little more active and just kind of lean into this. And if they're not working with the right person or if they have questions, give Chelsea a call.

Speaker B: Thanks. And, hey, you know, also, the. We didn't talk about this a lot, but the materials in Fiduciary in a Box, like the takeaway materials, they've just been getting better and better and better. And oftentimes that will be materials, uh, that I send out to prospects that reach out or they listen to, um, podcasts like this. So if you're listening and you want to see a sample of different materials that you could get your hands on, if you were to utilize something like Fiduciary in a Box, give me a shout, and I will provide that for you as well. But, Patrick, thank you so much for being here today. Um, where can our listeners find you?

Speaker A: Well, we're on the web, uh, www.uhfiduciaryinabox.com and you can click in to the web there and schedule a demo if you want to, or you can pick up the phone and just give us a call. We'd love to hear from you.

Speaker B: Awesome. Thank you so much for being here today. And to our listeners, don't forget to, like, share, subscribe, and we'll see you time on the business of benefits.

Speaker A: Thanks, Chelsea.