Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an interview with Tom Shanahan and Ted Ryan, of NRCA and Vault Strategies. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast here.

Heidi Ellsworth:
[inaudible 00:00:03] We pre-record them and we send them out to the world through our podcast channels. But today we are doing something a little bit different. I'm pretty excited about it. My name is Heidi Ellsworth and I'm a RCS, owner and partner. And we today are with Ted Ryan and Tom Shanahan, and I'm going to let them introduce themselves, but they are here today to kind of, take over a little bit this Roofing Road Trip and give us some information, asking questions to each other, giving answers about the new NRCA health insurance program. This is revolutionary for our industry and it is so important. So I'm very happy that you're all listening today. And I want to, again, introduce Ted Ryan. Good morning.

Ted Ryan:
Good morning, Heidi. How are you?

Heidi Ellsworth:
I am very good. Thank you for being here today and Tom Shanahan with NRCA. Thank you so much for putting all this together.

Tom Shanahan:
Heidi, happy to do so. Thanks for the help.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That well, and Tom, you're going to kind of sit in my chair today. So you're taking over the questions, on this Roofing Road Trip. That's why this is so special, a live presentation, and also a guest interviewer. I have to tell you I'm very humbled because Tom has done a lot in the industry. He gives this so much and I just feel just honored that you're here today, Tom. So let's get started with you talking about the health care program. Maybe you can start us off, talk a little bit about how it came into be, and then start with your questions for Ted who is the expert.

Tom Shanahan:
Yes. Thanks so much, Heidi. So yeah, again, for those of you that don't know me, Tom Shanahan, I work with NRCA, I've been there 31 years, and I've been as their risk manager. So I deal with the health, safety and insurance related issues that face the roofing industry. And with that have NRCA in my role, for NRCA and for representing our insurance board of governors, have been looking at and offering health-related programs, over all those years. And it's taken on many different forms over the years and some have worked well and some haven't and throughout all of that, we've learned a whole lot about, well, not only navigating the laws and regulations that have to do with having a national program in particular, but also about understanding and appreciating, some of the nuances in terms of health insurance.

Tom Shanahan:
And that's one of the things that has me so excited about in particular. And I know our insurance board of governors feels the same way about both health strategies and how they're offering their services and products, now in particular to the roofing industry. So with that, I'll just start down here and just introduce Ted. Again, Ted if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and then I'll jump in with some questions.

Ted Ryan:
Sure. Thanks Tom. My name is Ted Ryan and I'm the executive vice president for business development for Vault Strategies. And I am the program manager for the NRCA health insurance program.

Tom Shanahan:
Terrific. And like I was saying Ted, I wanted to set this up a little bit uniquely because as we've been, over the last three or four months in full gear with the health insurance program and talking to contractors about it and getting out there and promoting the program, marketing the program, what I've noticed is that there is understandably kind of a lack of understanding about the different health insurance products and offerings that are available to roofing contractors and it's to no fault of their own let's face it. Everybody kind of hates insurance setup.

Tom Shanahan:
I hate to say that, but especially since it's part of my livelihood, but I get it every time I have to go shop for NRCA health insurance or the business insurance and all the work and effort that goes into that, you kind of think of it as having gone to the dentist once or twice a year. And that's not exactly the pleasant experience, but you've got to do it and you glad you did it when it's done and all that kind of stuff. So with that though, I thought maybe first we could start with, because I don't think there's a really good understanding between Vault Health Strategies, who it is as an organization and how it is unique in terms of its relationship to the other like we said, the Blue Cross Blue Shield and at that all those kinds of things.

Ted Ryan:
Sure. Vault Strategies is a health insurance company. Just like if you will, a Blue Cross Blue Shield, as well as a Cigna, United, except for we focus in the self-funding space that most of your members are probably very familiar with, Blue Cross Blue Shield or United or a Cigna or an Aetna. And they're used to essentially, writing a check every month, once they've decided, which of those health plans that they offer are the plan for their organization.

Ted Ryan:
So typically they would simply do their health insurance through one of those larger companies where we're a little different is we are yes, an insurance company, but we focus on self-funding and the difference between a fully insured product where you write, one check a month for all your employees that covers their claims, all of their healthcare, with us in the self-funding environment, some of the risk is taken on by the employers.

Ted Ryan:
So when you're dealing with a fully insured Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna 100% of the risk is with those insurance companies. And that's why their premiums are more expensive when you're in the self-funding environment. The employer is taking on a portion of the risk. It is still capped by an insurance policy, but the employer is taking on a portion of the risk. And if the employer has a healthy population, then we're going to end up reducing their premiums that they're paying and thus the cost of their healthcare.

Tom Shanahan:
So just for a second, just in terms of terminology, we're using the word self-funded and what comes to mind is the word that comes up a lot is self-insured or self-insurance. And I'm wondering if you could share with us the difference, if any, between those terms?

Ted Ryan:
There really is not much of a difference. Those terms are used to describe essentially the same thing when you're self... Again, when you're self-funding, is there still insurance involved and the insurance and the self-funding world is meant to cap the overall risk exposure of the employer. So in self-funding products, the employer is actually assuming part of the risk of their plan in essence, because they are paying out of their cashflow on a monthly basis, whereas in a fully insured product, the employer is not taking any of the risks 100% of the risk lies with the insurer.

Ted Ryan:
So, as an example, if your premium payments are $10,000 a month to cover all of your claims, all of your administrative costs, so on and so forth, and you're writing that check to a Blue Cross Blue Shield, for instance, you will never see that money again, whether you as an employer and as your employees, whether they ever use the benefit or not, that money is gone, and it's out the door in a self-funding product, you're only paying as you go, in a large group scenario.

Ted Ryan:
So in a large group scenario, most companies over a 100 employees, if they're in good general health, they should be looking at their self-funding options because you're going to pay for what you use under those plan designs. There's still insurance there that is involved that will cap you out of pocket, expenses on any given month with respect to a specific employee and their costs, or overall an entire plan year. But by moving into the self-funding space, you're actually paying for what you use.

Ted Ryan:
Now, when you... There are two different types of self-funding products, generally, there are essentially, the larger plans for groups that are 100 or more, with those plans that are a 100 and more, there is a stop loss policy in place that caps the monthly exposure per employee, as well as the aggregate exposure of the plan over a period of time with a smaller group, basically under a 100, you have what are called level funded plans. They are also a self-funded product.

Ted Ryan:
Those plans will look and feel a lot more like what your members are probably used to buying from a Blue Cross Blue Shield. It is a set monthly payment based on what is expected as the total number of claims that, that group is going to have over a year. So if it's expected that they're going to have a $100,000 worth of claims, there is, essentially, they divide, they add 25% just to make sure that there's enough money there in case it's a tough year or a bad claims experience for the employer and that capture risk. And they divide that by 12. So if it was $120,000, for the years, your expected costs, it would be $10,000 a month, for that employer now, because it's priced at 25% over the expected claims cost.

Ted Ryan:
If you don't use or you have a better year than you expect, right? And you don't use the portion of that $120,000 that is collected for your claims, right? And let's say you only use your claims under that scenario was essentially $80,000 and you only used $40,000 of that claims fund. You would get that $40,000 back at the end of your insurance run out period. So it's a way to hang on to your money, and to pay as you go, if you will. And you're assuming some of the risks when you do that, that's, what's the big difference between a self-funding product versus a fully-funded or fully-insured product, the employers taking on a portion of the risk and is paying out of their cashflow.

Tom Shanahan:
So just breaking that down just a little bit, just because there's a lot of terms there and a lot of... And I think a lot of people are very familiar with these concepts, but what I'm going to do is break it down just a little bit. And that is when you're talking about, the amount of money. So like, we call that the premium that an organization is paying, let's say in a level funded program that you just talked about. So for the smaller contractor, which would probably be pretty much the case for most of our members, not all of them, but most of them would be in that lower tier.

Tom Shanahan:
So they would say, whatever, like just using your example, let's just say, for example, it is $10,000 a month that they're paying and that would be their premium for the year. And then as you do you look back on the year and kind of say, "Hey, they only used X amount, they'll get so much money back." So is there a portion of that $120,000 that you talked about that is in the sentence that it goes towards. So there's always a percentage or so that goes towards the expenses of the program that bald has or could they get their whole $120,000 back?

Ted Ryan:
Right. So breaking it down like that. And that's a great question. It's a great way to look at it. So if you look at an employer, let's just say, it's an employer that is going to be spending $120,000 a year, in total expenses for their health plan for coverage of that, $120,000, a certain amount of that $120,000 is allocated for the cost of running the plan. And so those costs are the administrative costs of running the plan. So of that $10,000 a month in that scenario, about X percentage of that is let's say 30% of that is going to be used for the administrative expenses. It is expected that the remaining 70% of that, $10,000 or in this case, $7,000 would be allocated to the claims fund. These are for employees that go see the doctor, and then the insurance has to pay out the fees that are associated with the care that has been provided.

Ted Ryan:
So that's how that works. So let's say that you, as a group are going to spend $120,000 a year for your health insurance, roughly $10,000 a month. And that $7,000 of that money is allocated per month for claims. So if you take seven times 12, that's $84,000, $84,000 is what is expected that your group will spend on claims over the course of the year. Now in the event that you only spend $50,000 of that, that means $34,000 is still sitting in your claims bond. That's your money as an employer, that's money that you paid the insurance company for health coverage that was not used for claims now under a self-funded plan, like with Vault the employer, where after a nine month run-out period, because you have to make sure that all the claims are paid and some claims come late and months later.

Ted Ryan:
But once that run out period is done that $34,000 is the employer's money that goes back to the employer, either in the form of a check, they can reallocate it towards the cost of their ensuing years coverage. There's a number of things that they can do with that. But I think the key difference is versus a fully insured carrier. You would write your premium check and you would never see it again. So let's look at this in terms of all things being equal. All right, let's say that Vault health insurance on the level funded small group plan, which is most of your members, let's say that we are exactly the same cost at a very similar plan structure as a Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Ted Ryan:
Why would you choose us over them? You would choose us because two things. Number one, you have an opportunity to get your money back. If you don't use the claims and you have a good claims year. Number two, you're not going to pay any more than you paid Blue Cross Blue Shield, right? Number three, you actually own your claims data. So if you ever tried to get information from one of those larger companies, they won't give it to you. How can you make informed choices as a consumer of healthcare when no one is telling you what you're paying for? You need to understand what your health experience is so you can understand what benefits to offer.

Tom Shanahan:
Excellent. So, again, there's always so much information here that we're sharing which is great. One of those people that I say, "Ted's forgotten more about insurance" and I'll ever know, it like oracle comes with, so let's break it down a little bit. And that is, as you were talking about, so just again, just to break it down. So for example, if in our example, a minute ago, you talk about the $84,000, that was set aside the 70%, right, the $7,000. So just theoretically, I know this wouldn't happen, but just say, theoretically, you had a company that used none of that. Nobody went to the doctor, everybody was healthy. It just was a great year. So theoretically they could get their $84,000 back.

Ted Ryan:
Yes.

Tom Shanahan:
Okay. So that's about... So I just wanted to underscore that the difference between the typical health insurance, that almost all of us buy where we sync our, we call it some costs, right? The $10,000 a month premium is something you spend it, it's gone and you're living in this world where you think, Oh my gosh, that's great. I got a good deal this year. But I'm still sending out $10,000 now with Vault, if you qualify.

Tom Shanahan:
So we'll get there in a second for a self-funded program, then the difference is, and why somebody should be considering looking at those is because there is the opportunity for having the exact same coverage and at the same premium or possibly less, or possibly more than you'd want. But still the thing is you have to consider, even though the premium is more, is that if you understand your claims experience, you would be getting some of that back and therefore year over year, if you balance those two things out after that nine month period, you could still be spending quite a bit less than you would even know up front the premium was lower.

Ted Ryan:
That's absolutely correct. And so, for a lot of people moving from what they're familiar with to a program that looks and feels a lot like what they're used to, but they know is different. They don't recognize the name, Vault Health. These are big decisions for companies. But what you described is actually, very accurate. It is still insurance. These are all ACA compliant plans. We have to comply with that. And in the case of small level funded products, we also have to comply with state rules as well. So there's a number of things, but I want everybody to understand on the call that, while you may not be familiar with Vault Strategies or the Vault health plan, we are an insurance company and we are regulated by the same departments of insurance that regulate all of the other names that you're all very familiar with.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So I want to jump in here just real quick, because being a small business owner myself, one of the questions that is in my mind right now, as I'm listening to this, which is really fascinating, but one of the questions is in my mind is what if we spend more, what if we spend more than the $84,000, what happens then?

Tom Shanahan:
Great question.

Ted Ryan:
You're still protected because that is, there's an element within the product. So all products are, when I say an insurance product, what makes up an insurance product? Well, it's the administration, right? It's your pharmacy benefits. It's your major medical benefits, your primary care provider, and covering their expenses. It's your, hospital and covering the hospital. So all of those elements go into a insurance plan. And the insurance part of the insurance plan is called Stop-loss insurance.

Ted Ryan:
Stop-loss insurance is exactly what it sounds like, stop the loss. It is essentially it governs your exposure and it caps your risk as an employer. So typically when an insurance company is rating a group or a rate. They'll look at the experience of the group. If they have data, if they don't have data, they'll look at things like your age, your gender, your zip code, right. Things like those things that we're all familiar with. And then what they will do is they'll say, what does this group, what do we expect this group based on that information to spend next year? And they'll put a number on it, and then they'll add 25% to that number.

Ted Ryan:
And that's where they set your rate app so that it is capped so that this is what we really expect you to spend next year. It's a $100,000, but we're going to plan for $125 just in case. And if you don't hit that then great, you have a chance of getting money back. But in your instance, Heidi, if you spend more than that and more than we projected, don't worry about it. There's insurance for that. And you paid for that[crosstalk 00:21:48] do not spend you're guaranteed not to spend any more than what they tell you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I think that's so important on a small business, because you want to be able to plan monthly how much you're spending. And then, do live a healthy life, because I know when I was working at Carlyle, the good employers do a lot to keep everyone healthy, all of the benefits of education and all of that. So it really incentivizes the company to take care of safety, health, helping to make good decisions. So it seems to be quite an incentive to get that money back.

Ted Ryan:
Yes. And I want to go back to something that Tom said earlier, this is a strategy, okay, I'm going to Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, going to those large companies. You should absolutely shop your insurance year over year. And you should look at those companies and the options that they offer, some groups are just unhealthy groups and they're not candidates for self-funding.

Ted Ryan:
Self-funding whether you're a large group or small group is for the group that knows they have a generally speaking good health experience, and they don't want to participate in the mass pools with those other large insurance companies who are simply taking all the bad risks and pulling it with the good risk. Right. It's fair to say that if you are a healthy group, and you have, another unhealthy group that you're in the same bucket with that other group, in order to remain competitive, the insurance company is going to put rates out to that other group, knowing they have a healthy group that helps supplement the cost of that unhealthy group.

Ted Ryan:
This is a way for your healthy group members to look at their own insurance. And if they know, they're a healthy group, generally speaking, they could save anywhere between 15 and 30%. This is a long-term strategy. It's not just a short term one year strategy like Tom alluded to earlier, if you stay in your self-funding program and space, you will over time, not just save over one year period, but you will over a lifetime using the strategy. We'll say tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars over a timeframe.

Tom Shanahan:
And let me just underscore that again, because in your example, Heidi, of the small business owner who had, let's say the bad year and also kind of tying in and [inaudible 00:24:29] is not here a little bit is the idea of a strategy makes them expensive, which is why I, as a risk manager, I'm so excited about this offering because you know what we don't want to do, basically the way we buy insurance and I'm doing it as well. Because that's basically what's been offered to us, is you basically are shopping price. You're looking at product, but you're... And in you're kind of weighing benefits of the program against that price. And what can my staff tolerate in terms of their deductibles and all those kinds of things, right? So you're weighing all of those different things, but it boils down to it's pretty much a price decision.

Tom Shanahan:
But in the Vault approach here, again, even if you don't initially qualify the reason to be really considering if you're in that frame, and we'll talk about that in a minute, is that because even if you have that bad year that you were talking about, let's say you went over 125%, you were at 150. Okay. So then what happens next year is your rates will go up, right? Because at some point you got to take care of that extra amount.

Tom Shanahan:
And that's how the insurance industry does it well in the typical market, when you're going in there, that's why you shop because you've got these rates. But if you know that, for example, the way that the data has run this year, or the experience that you're having over time, but we are one or two year thing while continuing to invest this way, then allows you to start participating because you can start getting money back.

Tom Shanahan:
It's offsetting the upfront costs, you get it back later. And so that's where this idea of a strategy is so important and it's in your name. And so it took me a while to kind of figure that out as well. But the idea that you really want to make sure that you're having a much longer view about your health insurance and as we do about its safety and all those kinds of, I don't know where to look at it as an immediate thing. We want to look at it as a long-term thing. So anything, Ted that I miss characterize anything in there, or was it?

Ted Ryan:
No, I think that was very, very well said. It is a long-term strategy. So typically a group, is going to have a bad year, every one to five years. But as Heidi, you asked the question, what happens in that year? You have insurance to take care of that. Now, if it's a whole bunch of little things that are, one type of event, your rates probably won't be affected very much the next year. But if it's an ailment, of course, the insurance company will have to price that in. But it's still as a long-term strategy. It is the best strategy out there.

Ted Ryan:
And if you look at the large insurance carriers, meaning the Blue Cross Blue Shields of the world, most folks are experiencing a seven to 10% rate increase year over year. That is compounding, with our programs, generally speaking, we're looking at anywhere between two and 5% increases, so it's lower. It is a long-term strategy. And I think that's the key Tom, that is absolutely the key.

Tom Shanahan:
Awesome. Okay. So now we've been talking about a level funded product for lack of a better word. And the reason for that is because you were saying that's generally the bucket, if you will, for the product offering for the companies that have a 100 or less. And I know you've talked before about that, depending on the group, it could even be dropped as low as 50. Yeah. I mean, in terms of the self, and maybe you have to correct on this, but in a self-funded program, which is for the larger contractor, so just let's say, right, I'm just keeping examples straight over a 100 employees. So how would the self-funded program then different?

Ted Ryan:
All right. Let's go back just a second and clarify, so that in a self-funded program, an employer is taking on a portion of the risk, whereas in a fully-funded insurance program, the employer doesn't take any risk. All of the risk lies with the insurance company, because all of the risk lies with the insurance company. That's why you pay more in premiums to the insurance company. And so in a self-funded plan, the employers taking on a portion of the risk. Now there are many types of self-funded plans, okay? But two basic categories are as follows.

Ted Ryan:
The small group plans, which are groups generally under a 100 people. The product is designed in a manner that they described as being level funded, the employers, especially those smaller employers, like you alluded to earlier, want to know what they're budgeting every month, they're smaller companies, their cashflow goes up and down. It has ebbs and flows. They need to know what their healthcare costs, which is often the second largest operating cost on their expense budget.

Ted Ryan:
They need to know what they're spending on healthcare. So the product is designed to take their total health costs for the year and divide it by 12 and every month they will fund 112th of their entire year's healthcare costs. So in the case, we used earlier $120,000 is the cost for the year they'll know, their budget is $10,000 a month. That's all they need to write a check for that will cover their benefits throughout the entire calendar year. At the end of the calendar year, if they haven't used all of their claims fund, they will get some money back. They'll get 100% of their unused claims dollars back. Now, if you look at the other self-funding products groups, over a 100, we categorize those as large groups.

Ted Ryan:
Those larger companies typically have more cashflow, there's more consistency with their cashflow, et cetera, et cetera. Those larger companies don't necessarily need the budget. They don't need that number every month of what we're going to spend. They can still budget for it internally that way we'll still tell them, Hey, as a company of 300 employees, you're expected to spend $100,000 a month. And they can budget for it internally, but the way a group like that's actually going to work.

Ted Ryan:
And what check they'll write at the end of every month is a little different. So a group of like say 300 employees that has a $100,000 cost of health insurance a month, they're going to spend a portion on administration costs that it's going to be a consistent number every month, but guess what? They may have zero claims in any given month. And if they do, then they don't have to write a check for claims, right? That's the single biggest difference between a level funded small group plan and what we call a traditional or partially self-funded plan for the large group in the small group space, they know exactly what to spend month over month, and it's capped, they will spend no more than that over the course of the year.

Ted Ryan:
If they spend less, they'll get money back in the large group space, they will get accounting every month of actually what they spent on claims or what is due on claims. And they will write a check for that amount. Some months, it may be $10,000, some months it may be $30,000. Okay. It fluctuates a little bit more and because in the group product an employer is literally paying for claims as they go, okay, because they're doing that. They don't get money back at the end of their plan years because they're only paying by the drink for what they use.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Ted Ryan:
So I think what's important is we're getting into some of the mechanics and the elements of self-funding. And I don't expect any of the audience to understand 100% of it, but these are elements and the ingredients that go into health plans and they go into the Blue Cross Blue Shield plans. They go into our health insurance plans.

Ted Ryan:
These are just the elements of a plan. How will you put those parts together for your plan audience, meaning your employers and their employees. It's a little different, that's all, but mechanically. It's all of the same parts. It's just that we take that motor apart. We put it back together again, and we build our own engine, that works for the small employer in the self-funded marketplace.

Tom Shanahan:
So in that again, just to kind of break it out a little bit, just to be hopefully very clear for the audience is that, so when you're in the fully funded product or that larger group, as you were talking about there, so they're paying as they go. So unlike the level funded group where it would be nine months after the year and looking back and you still get it back, but you just get it back later, they get it as they go, because based on their experience, is there a mechanism, you mentioned stop-loss coverage for the smaller group. Is there a stop-loss feature for the larger group as well?

Ted Ryan:
Yes, there is. So in any given insurance plan, you're going to have a pharmacy benefit and a pharmacy benefit manager. You're going to have a TPA, which is the Third-Party Administrator. That is a third party administrator that pays the bills essentially on your behalf. Then you're also going to have the carrier, the stop-loss insurance piece. That is the piece that is the insurance element of a health plan. And that is the piece that perhaps the risk for the employer. Okay. And so in all insurance plans, whether it's a level funded product, whether it's a fully funded product, like the Blue Cross Blue Shields, or whether it's a traditional self-funded product, which is just a fancy way for saying large group self-funded, they all have the same elements.

Tom Shanahan:
Yeah. So, each cost [crosstalk 00:35:22]

Ted Ryan:
And that's the other fourth major element. They have a network, right? So funded plans, we use Cigna as the network. So generally speaking in almost every state, Cigna is going to have the same coverage as Blue Cross Blue Shield or Aetna or United has. Now there's no one carrier or network that covers 100% of doctors in the United States, but we all know that Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana, Cigna, Aetna have virtually similar coverage across the country.

Tom Shanahan:
So in a minute, I just want to kind of go back to that just for a second. But then we're going to pivot to those organizations that are good candidates for the self-funding market. So for a moment though, I just want to highlight that very important point. So for example, if somebody would go with Vault Strategies for their health insurance, you mentioned the third-party administrators and the way you plug into other services, for example. So you're using, primarily you said the Cigna outlet.

Tom Shanahan:
So in other words, if currently I had this Cigna, if I have my insurance through Cigna, they have the stadium networks and the BPOs and all that stuff, all those networks and everything Vault would still, for example, then plug into and use for example, that network as well. So for me the employee, it could look exactly the same, if I had Cigna in my current employer, at where my employer rather, and that next year we went with Vault and Vault uses that Cigna PPO plan, would it look the same? Or could it look exactly the same? And I would really as an employee know no difference?

Ted Ryan:
Yeah, it would look virtually the same in that instance that you described. So it's possible that again, all of these elements that make up and comprise a health plan, the pharmacy benefit manager, the TPA, Third-Party Administrator, the network, whether it's Cigna contracted doctors or Blue Cross Blue Shield, contracted doctors, all of these elements exist in every insurance plan, whether they are a fully insured plan, fully funded plan or self-funded plan, they're all the same elements.

Ted Ryan:
But in your instance, if we had somebody that was using the Cigna, fully funded product today, and they wanted to look at a self-funded product. They would still have Cigna as their network. So none of the employees doctors would change. So the employees would still carry an insurance card that has Cigna logo on it. The 800 numbers would change. If they have a question about claims or coverage, it would ring to the TPA that we use. And their pharmacy benefits by and large would stay the same as well.

Tom Shanahan:
Terrific. So let's pivot if you don't mind, I'd like to go to who is that in terms of a roofing company, for example, roofing NRCA member, what would prompt them to consider, the self-funded, self-insurance market offerings that Vault has to offer?

Ted Ryan:
Yeah, so a couple of things there are three basic questions. I think every, employer should be asking sort of themselves. And that is who is reviewing their claims today, in their current plan, are they relying on Blue Cross Blue Shield or Aetna or Cigna to look at the claims that are being filed for their employees and audit those claims for accuracy? Did the physician office or did the facility actually bill them correctly for the services provided? Okay.

Ted Ryan:
And then the next question I would ask is, what is the value of the discount that is being provided by your current PPO? What does it benchmark to? Hospitals will charge sometimes 700% of Medicare. So Medicare is paying $100 for a procedure and the hospital is charging $700 and Blue Cross Blue Shield may get 200% off that bill charge, right? Those are all things that an employer should ask because that's, what's happening in their current predicament, in their current fully funded products. Nobody's kind of watching the henhouse for the employer. Okay. And the employers don't need to ask. So you asked me, why would somebody look at Vault? First of all, it's a long-term strategy. It's a way for the employer to get control over their data and their plans, so they can make smart decisions going forward.

Ted Ryan:
But it's also because we do all those things. We audit the bills. The TPA's that we use audit the bills for accuracy and make sure that in fact, the contracts and the discounts are being applied correctly, things like that, those are the people that are in place. When I say the TPA, they're a fiduciary for the plan. When you are a self-funded plan, the employer owns that plan, the people that they hired to run the plan Vault, the TPA, the pharmacy benefit managers, those folks are all fiduciaries in the operation of that plan, unlike the others.

Tom Shanahan:
So earlier, you had talked about a group that has a currently good experience versus a currently bad experience. And that self-funding may not be the right option for them at the moment. So I'm trying to understand, what is the tipping point? I mean, should everybody get a quote from Vault and just see how it kind of how it goes and then think about it, in the way that I was describing before, Hey, this is a long-term thing. And if it's higher, great, we're going to take that risk from the risk manager, because we know that if it's one-off.

Ted Ryan:
Sure the typical health care consumer or employer, NRCA member in this instance, will rely on their broker to go shop the market for them and the typical broker, unless instructed to do so will go to the major market, the typical broker or employer. We'll look at Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, and United health. And they'll put it on a spreadsheet and they'll bring it back to the employer and say, here you go, take your pick of the lowest cost plan. After you look at the plans and the benefits. And if assuming you're comparing an Apple or an Apple, an employer typically is going to do the same thing year over year. They're going to not like what they see, and they're going to pick the cheapest plan. That is not a strategy because all we're seeing is that in employer's premiums are going up, what's called trend in the industry is going up on an average of seven to 10% year over year with no solution in sight.

Ted Ryan:
All employers need to look at all of their options. And if you have a broker that is unfamiliar with self-funding products and all they know how to do is shop the larger insurance companies. We're happy to educate your broker. We know you have brokers and you have relationships with them in your local marketplaces, but brokers don't always know everything there is to know about self-funding. We're happy to work with your broker. We're happy to talk with them and let them know what we need in order to produce a viable and a bonafide quote for you to consider the NRCA health program as part of your healthcare evaluation every year. And like you said, Tom, not an employer that does not have a good experience, may not be a good candidate for self-funding that particular year, but they should be coming back year over year, because one of the years, they're going to be in a good spot to look at self-funding as an option.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Ted, one of the things too. I just think that is so important is to have someone like you and your team who you can bounce these things off. I know you and I have been talking about Roofer's Coffee Shop and different things, and I'm just been incredibly honest of this is the state we're in. We're very small. This is we're a little bit older. We also have some very young people. And so, you've been, I think, great in saying, okay, well, let me look at what you have. And then let's talk about that and see if this makes sense for you right now. That is something that is missing overall when I feel when you are dealing with health insurance and it's very confusing and needs someone like that to help.

Ted Ryan:
Yeah. And so part of our role with NRCA is, we're not here to sell anything, right? We're here to assist members in evaluating their current healthcare benefits. We have products and services that will be great, matches, great fits for a lot of the members. And we can help members save a lot of money. There are those members, quite frankly, that we would just won't be able to help, but those members will get the benefit of the advice, right?

Ted Ryan:
They'll get the benefit of understanding, Hey, you've looked at your self-funded option today. You're not really a good candidate today. Here's why. Right. And then they can at least check the box. They know they're going to come back next year, hopefully, and they're going to look, but also they can rest assured that 100% of their energy should be focused in the major market with their broker shopping for the best plan. Right.

Ted Ryan:
And I've even had instances where, we've offered a very competitive offer and an employer has chosen to stay with their existing carrier because that carrier, while they were going to go up 10% on the employer, they decided that they didn't want to lose that employer. And it actually had the benefit of improving that employers cost with their existing health plan. I don't want people to shop us that way, but the fact of the matter is it is a benefit, right? The more you shop and the more competitive folks are, and in sharing that information, you're naturally going to be the beneficiary of that. So keep in mind, in many instances, we've matched the rate that we put out, and I was still trying to make the argument with the employer that, Hey, all things are equal. But with us, you get a chance if you have a good year of getting the money back, right.

Ted Ryan:
That particular employer, had waited just a little too long. And it was an easier pathway for them to actually just renew with their existing carrier. And that's fine, that's their decision. They know what their resources are and all of that, but I'm certain that the next year, well, a lot for a little bit more time. And if we're assuming we're competitive, again, even not necessarily saving money, but matching an offer, there is a still a compelling reason why you would want to go with us over that other carrier.

Tom Shanahan:
So to be clear for most of contractors and most of the NRCA members, the gateway to the insurance markets are their brokers. And so just want to underscore that, brokers are, that's how this program works too. We work through your brokers, and they are made whole the same way. They're made whole in any other relationship with any other insurance company. So, that's not a... So just want to rest assure that somebody is not concerned that their broker, who they have a wonderful relationship would not be welcomed. That's the opposite of that. They were very welcome.

Tom Shanahan:
And in fact, like you were saying, Ted, I think one of the things we want to make sure though, is that you, as the NRCA member who brings purchasing this is pressing your broker, whomever he or she is to be asking about the self-funded world. And if they don't, or aren't familiar with it, to be honest with you about that, because at this program can help educate them on that as well. So that they're offering you our member, a product that really might be significantly better for you, than just being the typical fully funded world that we've been talking about.

Ted Ryan:
Yeah. And as you know Tom, healthcare is changing, all the time and there's a lot to keep up with. So if your broker is not familiar with self-funding options, we work with a lot of brokers who will say that they're calling us and say, "listen, I really don't know much about self-funding options. You're going to have to educate me a little bit about your product so I can educate my client." We're happy to do that.

Ted Ryan:
We are an insurance company and we welcome brokers. Nobody has a better relationship with their client than they. They are also more familiar intimately often with the business itself and the needs of the client, the personalities, all of those things. And so we see great value in working with the existing brokers, trying to come up with a solution that best fits that employer.

Tom Shanahan:
Awesome. Well, that's great. I feel like we're kind of at a point maybe to kind of summarize, what we've been talking about here, Heidi.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes.

Tom Shanahan:
And maybe I could ask you if you don't mind me putting you on the spot for a second and just ask you, for example, as a small business owner yourself, and a huge supporter of NRCA and a member of what have you learned about self insurance through this process?

Heidi Ellsworth:
That is a great question, because I've learned a lot, and I'm just going to be very upfront. I'm not a fan of insurance. Never have been, probably never will be sorry, Ted, it's just one of those things you have to do in the world, and I dread it every year. And so in being able to visit with Ted about it and kind of really looking at as Roofers Coffee Shop has grown, how can we start bringing on, looking at different types of insurance?

Heidi Ellsworth:
And it really has helped because when I first heard self-funding, I was like, absolutely no way that will break us. We can't do it. Right. And it's like, no, that's not what it means. That's not what it's about. And so to really be able to hear the differences even today, between fully funded, level funded and self-funded, that starts to make sense to me, I'm really starting to kind of understand how that works.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And I would encourage on the contractors to find out more about it. And to even, like I said, be honest about what's going on because through, looking at our core group of people who were looking for insurance, we probably may not be a good fit, right. We're definitely not a fit for self-funded because we're too small, level funded has opportunity in the future. And so we need to... But we may need to do some things in our business to be able to get there and to be able to work with Ted on that.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And so Ted is like comparing right now and looking and say, okay, felt fully funded level funded. What should you be doing? I think that's all you can do as a business owner to really be able to understand. And I think the other thing that is really important to me is understanding what the costs are. I can remember. I mean, for how many years did I just go in? You need an X-ray great. Just go do it well, do I really need it? And how much does it cost? We don't ask those questions. And so I think what NRCA is doing is really making a big difference in opening to us to ask more questions and see what the opportunities are. And it's always, I mean, it's not the benefit of NRCA across the board.

Tom Shanahan:
Awesome. Well, thank you. What a great answer. I'd like to underscore just a couple of things here, and that is, like we mentioned, this program works through your brokers. If you don't have a broker, you can call us and we'll hook you up with Vault in that you can use one of their brokers. So there's no barrier to entry here, use the entry that you currently have, and if you don't have one, we'll help you. So don't worry about that. And the idea of just to underscore again what Heidi was saying is that, and Ted in particular will say, it's even in their name, Vault Strategies is that from my role as your risk manager, representing you from a NRCA standpoint in my department.

Tom Shanahan:
The idea that you consider this risk, that you have this exposure that you have, and you apply a strategy to it, that is more long-term and thinking is a really good business question to be asking and decision to be making and Vault can really... This program, like I said, at the very beginning of this, is very, very excited about offering this, because like I said, over the 37 years I've been in NRCA, this is the one program that I finally feel like we found a great fit. Ted, is there any parting thoughts that you'd like to share?

Ted Ryan:
No, I think you both summarized it brilliantly. I do think that, I want all of the members know that we're here to help. And we are, willing to work with your brokers we welcome that. We just want to put you on the best path forward. It is a longer-term strategy. There are some short term gains that can occur of course, if you're saving money right off the bank, but I can also tell you, and that's really going to be your entry point, right? You're not going to buy a Vault product unless it's competitive with what you're doing today. Understand that these are all plans that are ACA compliant. And also know that this is the only long-term strategy is to take control of your own data, so that you can be a smart healthcare consumer and your employees can be better consumers under your plan. Those are all long-term strategies that will help you defray the costs of health coverage, over the years to come.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it.

Tom Shanahan:
Heidi, I just to kind of address your and my too, annexed about buying insurance and going through that is I think one of the reasons we feel that way, and generally people feel that way is because you generally feel like you're at the mercy of the insurance companies.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes.

Tom Shanahan:
There's a lot of control and you're just like, okay, I have to do this versus like what Ted is saying here gives you a sense of control over these things and having, like you were saying, Heidi, a chance to really be considering whether or not getting that X-ray makes sense or not. So you really have a stake in this. So then your insurance becomes much more of a business tool. Then it becomes something that is just a vector that you have to deal with every year. So I think that's a great way of kind of answering our hanks [crosstalk 00:55:55]

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's what we need. We need as small business owners. And the thing that what I really see throughout the whole roofing industry is that's what we're made up of small, mid size and a few really big, roofing companies. So to be able to have all these different options, I think, and to have NRCA bring that to the market through Vault and Ted and Vault Strategies. Thank you very much for continually give back and to really make the professionalism and the opportunities in roofing, so much more than it's ever been before. And Tom, you've done that in risk and Ted, thank you for bringing that to our industry.

Ted Ryan:
You're welcome, Heidi. And if you need anything from us or you have any other topics that you'd like to cover, know that we are here for you and your members and your audience, and we want to be successful. And it requires obviously the members to help support us to do that. So we're here for you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I think that's a great idea. I think we'll maybe look at that Tom on doing other types of topics. I would love to hear more about preventative. I think preventative healthcare is so important and how is that going to work out? So maybe throughout the year, we can bring some of these topics forward, Ted and Tom, and really kind of talk a little bit more to help educate our industry.

Tom Shanahan:
Sounds great.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, thank you. And thank you everyone for listening today to our first live Roofing Road Trips, this was pretty fun. I really enjoyed it and this would even be split up into some to parters or possibly, some even small tidbits so that people microburst that, you can all learn, how you want to learn. And that's what this is all about on Roofers Coffee Shops.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So please listen to this on your favorite podcast channels, tell other people about it and definitely visit our Read, Listen, Watch section at Roofers Coffee Shop, where you can read it. You can listen to it, or you can watch it. And most of all, you can learn about how to improve your business, especially on the world of insurance. So thank you, Ted and Tom again, and thank you everybody for listening today. Have a wonderful day.

Tom Shanahan:
You as well.

Ted Ryan:
Thank you.

By Karen L. Edwards, RCS Editor.

This Coffee Conversation is one that you don’t want to miss because it shares important information that can change your business.

NRCA Vice President Tom Shanahan and Ted Ryan from Vault Health Strategies joined Heidi for a conversation about a topic that is on many of our minds – health care. Tom explained that he gets a lot of calls from members wondering whether NRCA has any health care options they can offer their employees.

“The challenge has been two-fold: First, over the years, the laws change,” said Tom. “Offering a national program has been tough because state laws vary to the point where certain states would no longer allow our program. Second, often the programs we would offer would be terrific, but would serve just one segment of our membership base. So, only a handful of members could benefit from it. We haven't had the opportunity, until now, to have a program that offers products and options to all members, wherever they are, in their need for providing some kind of benefit for employees.”

NRCA teamed up with Vault Health Strategies, a healthcare consultancy as well as an insurance company, to develop a program that meets each individual member company’s needs and helps each company gain control over its healthcare costs and employee benefits program. “We quickly realized there was going to be no one solution that met every member's needs,” explained Ted. “The needs of the membership vary. The membership is diverse, so the product mix for members also needs to be diverse and reflect their needs. Our overall goal with the program is to meet each member where he or she is today and to find solutions for the future.”

Ted explained how larger insurance companies, with the names we recognize, have no incentive to change what they're doing. “Executives at these large companies are pulling in bonuses of $270 million a year. Well, ask yourself where that comes from, and that comes from folks who are buying their products. That gives you an idea of the type of margins they have in their products.”

The NRCA solution changes that model and brings the benefit back to members. “Our solution is offering a self-funding solution where it makes sense,” said Ted. “This is a solution where we remove those margins because we're not paying the stockholders and we're not paying the CEOs extravagant bonuses. We can literally customize programs and take those extra costs out but still deliver the same benefits members are used to and your employees desire.”

Tom shared that though this is an NRCA member program, you don’t have to be a member to get a quote. “We really want to give you the chance to use our program and at the very least to compare and contrast. We work with your broker or your agent.” If you decide you want to move forward with the program, he said you can discuss membership at that time.

Learn more about this new program by watching the full Coffee Conversation.

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an interview with Tom Shanahan, NRCA Vice President, and Ted Ryan with Vault Strategies about a new health care plan for roofing contractors. You can read the interview below or listen to the conversation here.

Heidi Ellsworth: Good morning and welcome to Coffee Conversations from RoofersCoffeeShop. I am Heidi Ellsworth, and I'm a partner with RoofersCoffeeShop. Today we are going to be breaking some news, a really great initiative coming from the NRCA. We have Tom Shanahan, who is a VP with NRCA with risk, right Tom?

Tom Shanahan: That's right.

Heidi Ellsworth: Risk, health. You've done everything I think. You're across the board. We also have Ted Ryan who is with Vault Strategies. These two gentlemen are going to help us today to understand what the NRCA is doing. For years and years, I've been hearing about, "Let's figure out how we can do healthcare." I know many of you out there are involved with captives, but you all struggle with healthcare. I know as a small business owner, we struggle with healthcare, so NRCA has stepped up and they are going to help us which is just amazing. We're going to start the Coffee Conversations a little bit different today. We're going to start it out with a presentation. Because I don't know about all of you, but when it comes to insurance, I need as much information as I can get. We're going to hear about the program what's going on, and then we're going to open it up to live, as always, Q&A so that you can ask your questions and you can find out how this can help your business and really what it's going to do for the industry overall. Let's get started. Tom, Ted, I'm turning it over to you, maybe you can introduce yourselves a little bit better than I did, and then we can go into the presentation.

Tom Shanahan: Sure. Thanks, Heidi. It's great to be here with you and with everybody. Really appreciate the opportunity to have a chance to share, really what's exciting news for our industry. For those of you that saw the picture that Heidi used of me, all I can say, it's been a rough year. I am excited about it because I've been at NRCA for 30 years. I've been responsible the whole time for the risk management area. The quasi safety director for the industry and the insurance guy. We have had so many different programs, health insurance-related programs over the years. The reason for that is, I'm getting calls, my department is getting calls, every week, and sometimes every day, from members requesting, "Hey, do you guys have any kind of health insurance for us to offer?" Over the years, because we get that request so often, have offered, and looked at, and found different programs over the years. The challenge has been, is that over the years, the laws change. Offering a national program is tough because state laws are different state by state. There's just all these hurdles, and often the programs that we would get would be terrific, but they would tend to serve just one slice of our membership base. We haven't had the opportunity, until now, to have a program that really offers products to wherever you are in your need for providing some kind of benefit for your workers. I just wrote an article for a professional roofing magazine. One of the things that I found in my research for that article on this topic was the idea that Generation X, Millennials, Y in terms of retention and even attracting workers, they're looking for health-related benefits. That's key to us in our industry, we're competing for really a finite group of people that will work in our industry. I was just talking to a contractor the other day, who was telling me that, "I thought with the pandemic it'd be so easy for us to hire and find workers, but the fact of the matter is it isn't. The reason for that is because we're an essential business." The roofing industry is still working, which is a blessing in and of itself. Anyway, so with all of that and knowing that, having this chance to really create a comprehensive healthcare program that really meets each individual member's needs is one of our goals. Then the other idea was to help them gain control over their healthcare costs and their employee benefit program. In some cases, for example, an employer, a contractor, may want to offer one level of coverage for maybe the office, or maybe his senior group of people that work with him all year long, and then have another level of coverage for the seasonal workers, and maybe another level of coverage for those who are really part time. Well, that's what we can offer here is that there's those different layers of offering, and that is what I think is so great. We partnered with a company called Vault Health Strategies. Vault has been doing this for quite a while, they've been working with associations for quite a while. We've had our insurance board of governors, which is responsible for... they're my bosses at NRCA. Through the insurance board of governors, which is made up of six roofing contractors who each serve a six-year staggered term, and through that effort they, as I find things they go through them. They act as a, not only a sounding board, but like a judge and jury of the various different products. They're very experienced in all of this stuff and have really worked hard over the years to help me and help NRCA find a product to do that. I can tell you that, not only they wholeheartedly recommended this to our executive committee, but then once we were able to, and Ted did a fabulous job explaining all of this, because insurance is never easy. It's a lot of things that we need to know and not necessarily we want to know, but it's so important to our businesses. With that, I want to introduce Ted Ryan and have him give you a little bit of what he does with Vault and start sharing about our program here and what it offers. We like to say, we want it to meet members where they are, and I learned that from Ted. I really like that framing, because the idea is, wherever you are in your health insurance quest, you don't have to worry that you have to offer this total bells and whistles thing. You can offer that if you like, you can just get down to the bell if you want as well. With that, Ted, maybe you could jump in and talk about yourself a little bit and Vault and then share with us our program.

Ted Ryan: Thank you, Tom. I appreciate it, and thank you, Heidi, for inviting me today. I'm very happy to be speaking on behalf of Vault and to your membership. My name is Ted Ryan, I'm the executive vice president for business development with Vault Strategies. Vault is both a healthcare consultancy as well as an insurance company. Our healthcare consultancy is based out of Bloomington, Illinois, so just down the street from the NRCA by Illinois standards. Also our insurance company is domiciled out of the State of North Carolina and regulated by the Department of Insurance in the State of North Carolina. In our engagement with the NRCA we began talking to NRCA about 18 months ago. As Tom mentioned, we worked with the insurance board over that period of time to answer all of their questions and to also understand where they had been with this topic in the past, and understand that they've spoken to quite a few people before they settled on Vault. We did get a chance to look at the membership and understand the membership and what makes up the membership. We understand that there are five-man groups, there are 10-man groups, there are 100-man groups and so on and so forth all the way up to really large companies and manufacturers. We quickly realized that there was going to be no one solution that met each and every member's needs. The needs of the membership varied. The membership is diverse, and that the product mix for those members also needed to be diverse and reflect the needs that we're solving for. Whether you're a small company, whether you're a company that is more seasonal than other companies because of where you're located in the United States, or whether you're a very large company that may even have four or five different medical plans operating at the same time, we are a company that has experience and the diversity of a product set to meet each member right where they are. That's where that came from. Our overall goal with the program is to meet each member where you are today and to solve for the future. Currently, the options available to most companies, most companies are familiar with our options that have to do with the players and the business that you all know, like a Blue Cross Blue Shield, a United, a Cigna, or an Aetna. Those are all very well recognized names in the industry. There are also a lot of companies that do not even use those companies, larger companies that use self-funded solutions. There are literally hundreds of other insurance companies out there that offer solutions for healthcare that are at a cost point that are affordable. I just wanted to mention that because we're all familiar with the brands, but many of the large companies actually put together their own insurance programs. I say that because the overall objective here, we've all heard the expression in the past that there is strength in numbers. The overall objective is to meet each member of course where they are today and to solve their issues and helping curb the costs of their own healthcare today. But the ultimate goal is to rally the membership under one roof so that we can go to a carrier and negotiate one contract for the membership. Much like the way a union might approach benefits for a larger company, we're looking to pool all of the members eventually under one roof for the purposes of bartering with the carriers and getting a preferred rate. That's a strategy that'll take anywhere from 18 months to three months to achieve that strategy. But in the meantime, we need to meet each member where they are today. That's just a broad stroke of the overall program. I'm going to get into the presentation now. Heidi, if you'd be kind enough maybe to flip to the next slide we'll start there.

Heidi Ellsworth: There you go.

Ted Ryan: Again, just really quickly recapping. Why did the NRCA launch the healthcare initiative? Tom alluded to this earlier. The number one, by far, outside of cashflow and the cost of supplies in one's business, the cost and quality of employee benefits is always the number one reported concern for employees. If you're an independent roofing contracting company and you're trying to solve for that, that's what we're here to do and here to help, to expand your choices and to help curb the cost of healthcare. Healthcare costs, whether you know it or not, are rising at a rate of 10 to 25% per year in almost every single state. There is no end in sight with this. The reason why there's no end in sight is because there's really been very little innovation in the industry. The larger companies who have a large percent of market share have no incentive to change what they're doing. If you follow the news, you can see that these executives at these large companies like UnitedHealth are pulling in bonuses of $270 million a year. Well, ask yourself where that comes from, that comes from folks that are buying their product. That gives you an idea of the type of margin that they have in their product. Now, our solution is a self-funding solution. This is a solution where we take those margins out because we're not paying the stockholders and we're not paying the CEOs those types of benefits. We can literally customize around programs that take those costs out, but still deliver the same benefit that you are used to, and that your employees desire. Just want to make a point of that. Employers, obviously, are having difficulty affording healthcare. If we can maybe go to the next slide, Heidi. Why did the NRCA launch the healthcare initiative? Tom, again, alluded to that. Essentially, this is a problem that is rampant across the board. It's something that you all have in common besides being obviously in the industry and being NRCA members. The one thing that every business in the United States has in common is that they're trying to curb the cost of their healthcare while maintaining a benefit level or improving a benefit level to attract quality employees and keep the quality employees that they have. This is an absolute critical part of planning for your company. Moving to the next slide. Why did the NRCA launch the healthcare initiative? Again, the cost of quality of employee benefits is paramount. In terms of the response, our goal obviously is to create a healthcare program that addresses each and every member's needs to help control their overall healthcare costs and to universally improve the industry and certain other aspects of healthcare that are [inaudible 00:15:15] pervasive in this industry. Specifically, opioid and substance abuse which is pretty rampant in the roofing and contracting industry. We're going to put together some special program around these types of things that will help you help your employees. The next slide. Again, Vault Strategies is a healthcare consultancy and insurance company with an expertise in developing cutting-edge solutions for associations. Whether you're a small business or a large business, we have a solution for you. I think, as Tom alluded earlier, we'll get into some discussions around the types of companies and types of solutions we have, but typically everybody thinks of healthcare as just major medical. If I need to go to the primary care physician, if I need to go to the hospital, that I have coverage. There are some companies that have a large independent workforce that is part-time, or that has a seasonal workforce. Those folks still have needs but the company can't afford to put them on the major medical plan. We have a whole series of different types of products that would help an employer offer some benefit to those employees based on those employees' needs, based on affordability, all of those things. That's an example of looking at the problem that we're solving for that particular employee and providing a solution that meets that specific employer and employee's need. Those solutions exist. I just want to make sure that we are really stressing the point that there's not an NRCA member that we can't have a conversation with and that we can't develop a solution for. Next slide, please. What does the program offer to you the employer? Well, once again, we are both a consultancy and an insurance company. I'm going to go off the slide a little bit and just let you know that there are many products, without getting into all of the products, that... Really the starting place in all of this is about 60 to 70% of you that are offering benefits today, or that would be offering benefits for the first time, are going to be looking at renewing your benefit or signing up for benefits between now and January 1st. That is true in the industry, about 60 to 70% of companies renew their healthcare benefits between now and the end of the year. The timing on all of this is great. You're all going to be looking at your benefits and renewing your benefits. Now is the time to see what the NRCA program has to offer you. All we would ask for is the opportunity to speak to you, to schedule some time with a Vault consultant and let us speak to you about what you're currently doing. Let us reach into our bag of solutions to see what we can offer by way of a competitive offer, and to see if we can meet your needs and/or improve your benefits. Again, the goal of that is to serve as many members as possible so that at some point we could put you all together and negotiate with a carrier on the collective [inaudible 00:19:04]. Next slide please. The time, obviously, to do this is now as I just alluded to. Heidi, we can go to the next slide.

Heidi Ellsworth: There you go.

Ted Ryan: How do you get involved? Of course, any program that an association such as the NRCA has, whether it's their safety program, whether it's their health benefits program, all these programs depend on the membership support. Membership inquiry is what I'm talking about. Ultimately, we have to earn your business at the end of the day, nobody is going to leave their current provider to join the NRCA program if it's not one that serves their needs, and is not an improved situation in terms of the cost of the benefit that's being offered. We know we have to be competitive, we'll be competitive on many, perhaps not all. But the goal is to be competitive on as many as possible. We can't get there if we don't get up to the plate. What we're asking for by way of member support is just the opportunity to speak with you, to learn a little bit about you, to learn a little bit about what you're currently doing so that we can put forward a solution from the program that hopefully at the end of the day will help earn your business and help us achieve the overall objective of pooling all the members together to negotiate a discounted rate for you all. That's really it on this slide, Heidi, and I think that's probably going to bring us pretty close to the end here. Again, how do you get involved? There are several ways to get involved and we can move to the next slide, Heidi, and I'll explain that you can get in touch with either myself, Ted Ryan. My email address is Ted@AllThingsVault.com, and my telephone number is there as well, (214) 334-1396. Or you can call Rich Trewyn, who's one of the directors at the NRCA. Rich's email is rtrewyn, T-R-E-W-Y-N,@nrca.net, and his number is (847) 493-7575. Lastly, if you haven't checked out our new website yet, I would just encourage everybody to go to www.nrcahealth.com. Once again, that's www.nrcahealth.com. We're here and we're happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Heidi Ellsworth: Okay. Ted and Tom, I'm going to come to you because I have a question for you. Before we go to the next thing, I just want to encourage everybody, this is the time, as you know in the past, use your sidebar to fill out the questions. Just write your questions in, raise your hand, however you want to do that. Megan is in the background and she'll be chatting with you and she will be bringing you on as a live panelist. Now, if you're on the West Coast and you just don't feel like getting on video, you can do it by audio, or we'll ask the question for you, so don't be shy. But before we start taking some questions, I do have a question, Tom. I would love you to talk just a little bit more about how this relates with NRCA membership. Because I know we have a wide range. I wish I could say every single person out there watching right now are NRCA members, but let's talk about that. How does this program work? How does membership work? Just so that people understand.

Tom Shanahan: Thanks Heidi. It is an NRCA member program, however, you do not have to be a member to get a quote. It's really important. Like Ted was saying, we really want to get to the chance to use our program at the very least to compare and contrast. We work with your broker. Ted mentioned that, and I just want to underline that, that... if you don't have one, well then, Vault can do that for you as well. But, importantly, this is a program that works with your broker or your agent, just like every other program. Then after you go through the process and see, and think, and feel, "Wow, this is a really great quote that I just got from Vault, I'd really like to do that," and you're not a member, then we'll talk to you about membership as well. In all likelihood it'll pay for itself anyway. That's the beautiful thing about this program. Ted really was right. The idea is, as we get more lives in the program, of course then it becomes more robust and your ability at just offering a better group program increases.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. I think that's so important too, because when I think about... Well two weeks from now we have Trent Cotney and Alison LaValley on here about the legal seminar. I'm not just sitting here making a pitch for NRCA membership, but I do want to say, when you look at these kind of programs, it's so worth just at least finding out what the quotes are because sometimes the membership pays for itself. I don't want people to be put off just because they're not members of NRCA right now. Tom, talk a little bit too about just, I know we went through it in the slides, but talk just a little bit more about what you're seeing. You have been so influential with NRCA, within the industry, with FEI, everything. What are you seeing? What are contractors saying? What do they need from this?

Tom Shanahan: I think the biggest thing that they're needing is flexibility. The challenge that all, and I buy the insurance I know for NRCA. I know what it's like to be out there in the marketplace getting quotes, debating what's going on. So often you just feel like you just want to blow your head off because it's so frustrating. You're offering something and it seems like somebody's always not happy with something or whatever. What happens over time is you develop an appetite for a certain type of product. That's what we hear so often is, "Can you do X, or can you do Y?" That to me is what's so impressive and valuable about this offering is that we can do the whole alphabet.That is, to me as somebody who is a purchaser of insurance, gives me a lot of satisfaction that we can offer, through this program, not only just... Ted was talking about the medical side of the equation. We can offer, we can offer major medical, we can offer just prescription care if that's all you need. That's something that's really important to appreciate. Also, I think folks are pretty familiar with the Aflac type, those additional benefits. Even those products are available through Vault as well. It really is this multivariate approach here. I really want to stress that, regardless if you just want to offer... for some reason, somebody will say, "All we want to offer is dental care." Well, guess what, you can get a quote for dental through us as well, or vision, or whatever it is. All of those products are available here. That's, to me, what I hear so often from everybody is yeah, but. "Yeah, you got that, but can I?" This is the answer to the, yeah, but.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah, and I think that's so important because, I loved your comment about the Millennials and the Gen Z coming in, because I've done a lot of work in that area myself and I have a couple of my own. Healthcare it's on all of those Deloitte surveys and everything that's out there globally. Healthcare is one of the top ones, especially for Gen Z, and I thought that's really interesting. I like this idea of flexibility so that maybe if they can't get dental with their current program, but that's something they could start putting their toes in and figuring out, that's going to really be a huge recruitment issue.

Tom Shanahan: It really will be. Yeah, Ted. Go ahead.

Ted Ryan: One of the things I was just going to mention, and this is backing up a little bit, is that, under this program, these are all self-funded solutions. When members are buying typically from a Blue Cross Blue Shield, a United, a Cigna, or an Aetna, those are very large carriers. I alluded to earlier about some of the CEO bonuses involved with that. All of those programs though, if you ever try to get information on your health plan that you purchased from one of those companies to see how you as a group are performing, the answer is you don't get information from them when you make that request or when your broker makes that request. Those companies guard that information. The information that they're guarding about your employee healthcare claims history is they guard it because that is the key to controlling costs. If you were to know what that information contained, not from a employee patient privacy standpoint, but if you just knew generally what the claims information indicated and how your employee healthcare plan is working, you could make informed choices and more informed choices going forward about whether or not you need that program. For instance, you may have a Blue Cross Blue Shield that has a wellness aspect to the program, and you might have 100 employees. But 100 employees, none of them use the telehealth function or none of them use a particular wellness benefit under the plan. Well, you're paying for that benefit. Why would you want to pay for that if no employees are using it? Those are the types of things that we can get into a position and with each of the memberships under our plans, because we actually share that data with you. There's a fundamental difference between the large carriers and the self-funded carriers, which we are, is that we work with you to offer, yes, a great benefit, but we work with you actively to control your costs. Employees are not using a benefit under your plan, we're informing you of that. Maybe that's a call to action for an education with your employees, or maybe that's simply eliminating that benefit in the following year so that you're not paying for something that no one's using. Those are the freedoms that we get when you move into the self-funded environment.

Tom Shanahan: I like that too, that flexibility. I mean, again, I'm going to go, you said that, Tom, before, that flexibility, Ted, is just amazing. I want to bring... we have a couple people with some questions. Megan, if you want to bring Rod on. We have Rod Petrick. Rod, I'm so excited that you're here this morning. She'll be bringing him on video here in just two seconds, but-

Megan: Rod, you are unmuted if you want to unmute yourself and I can also get video if you would like.

Rod Petrick: All right, I'm unmuted.

Heidi Ellsworth: Okay.

Tom Shanahan: There we go [crosstalk 00:31:25]-

Rod Petrick: [crosstalk 00:31:25]. There we go.

Heidi Ellsworth: Hello, good morning. Welcome.

Tom Shanahan: Hey Rod.

Rod Petrick: How are you guys-

Heidi Ellsworth: You have some questions and comments?

Rod Petrick: More of comments. Tom had alluded early on that he has a group called [inaudible 00:31:40] that he's got to work under. I've been on the [inaudible 00:31:43] committee for some time and this insurance thing has been just something that's been banded around for years. I'm surprised Tom's got any hair left on his head because, Nelson [inaudible 00:31:55] as chair of that is just, we've been pushing for this healthcare. We've gotten so far along. Typical of what Ted said is, when contractors are trying to get their data from their current agent, they run into a wall and we just couldn't get things put together. Now with this relationship with Vault, contractors are able to use their existing broker. They don't have one, we have availability to get you one. It's opened this program up where people are going to be... it's going to be a lot easier for people to move forward to be able to get a quote. As I said a little bit earlier, the heavy lift on this. I know early on [inaudible 00:32:40] guys just said, "Are we ever going to get there?" Because Tom, this probably goes back 20 years we've been fighting to try to get a health plan. But it's interesting in my position at NRCA as chairman, we just had a meeting in Ohio and one of the questions are, how do we get into your health plan? It was another association. Now we have to sit down with Tom and [inaudible 00:33:03] and [inaudible 00:33:03] and come up with solutions because now the affiliates, they know what's out there and their members are asking because they want in. Because for the bigger contractors or contractors like myself who are a signatory, the health plan is already in our... like for me it's in my collective bargaining agreement. But for the smaller contractors that... First of all, buying insurance sometimes can be intimidating. They look at it, the quotes come in and... we're roofing contractors, we're not attorneys, we're not insurance people. Trying to get a grasp of what's out there. I mean, there's times I look at some of the stuff that comes in to me and I'm like, "Okay, who do I call now so that I can get this... get it out of attorney language, get it into roofer language?" Now we have an opportunity for the smaller NRCA members that could be a five-man crew and an owner, ten men, up to contractors that could be 100 or 200, we have flexibility. I think this is going to be a big deal for NRCA and the roofing industry. It's going to have contractors be able to have an ease into a healthcare initiative for their employees. My hat's off to Tom, I mean, this has been probably most of his career trying to get this thing resolved, and we finally got a relationship with Vault. Whoever hooked us up with them, I owe you a thanks.

Heidi Ellsworth: Hey, Tom and Ted, before you respond to that, Rod I know... I think everybody does know you, but can you just give an introduction about your company, about being the chairman of the board for NRCA, and maybe just real quick what's happening right there.

Rod Petrick: All right. My name is Rod Petrick, I am the president of Ridgeworth Roofing Company in Frankfort, Illinois, which is a suburb right out of the city. I've been working in this company, I started with my dad right out of high school. I've already had my 45th anniversary here. Sometimes it seems like it's 44 years too long, but I love it. My son is like, he says, "I don't know if we'll ever get him out of here because he loves what he does." I've actually been president of both the local and the regional associations. Then, it seems like I was late in life getting involved at NRCA. I remember walking into my first board member orientation and having and Bruce McCrory look at me and say, "Aren't you old for this?"

Heidi Ellsworth: [inaudible 00:35:45].

Rod Petrick: I've enjoyed it. The industry has been very good to me. I've met many lifelong friends and I've had an opportunity to work with people like Tom and with staff at NRCA, CRC, and MRCA. It's been a long career and I've enjoyed it, and I don't plan on leaving it quite yet. Although my son would probably like to show me the door a little bit faster as he's a graduate from Tom's FBI program. I think they actually teach a course on how to push the man out the door.

Tom Shanahan: [inaudible 00:36:18].

Rod Petrick: Yeah. In NRCA, my chairmanship started on June 1st, so I am the COVID president. I've been on two different trips, we've been to Ohio twice. I don't think I've been to Ohio twice in my life. Within the last two months I've been there twice meeting with two different manufacturers, and we actually met with MRCA the other day just to let them know where we're at. It's difficult I think. Calls like this, people are suffering from Zoom fatigue and now content and presentation are going to be very important because myself, and I'm sure everybody on this call, you all know I got another call to get on. But we're out there and until things improve and a vaccine gets out there, this has become the new way of communication and life in business. If anybody's got questions for [inaudible 00:37:25] NRCA thing, I'm willing to take those, or if you contact NRCA they'll get you my contact information. I'm sure Tom has all my numbers that he can give it to you.

Tom Shanahan: [inaudible 00:37:36].

Heidi Ellsworth: Well, Tom, and... I mean, I think what Rod said is just, we need this as an industry. One of the things I wanted to mention was, this is not just for roofing contractors either, it's for any member of NRCA. RoofersCoffeeShop is a member so now we're... actually, I've been talking with Ted and so this is really opening that data from the roofing industry overall.

Tom Shanahan: Right. I'm so glad Rod mentioned that and the idea that it is... I talked earlier about, for a roofing contractor member and whatever size they are, our old programs tend to be just for one group. But this is literally not only for all the groups of contractors, but for all of our members. If you're a supplier, if you're a manufacturer, if you're an affiliate, all of that, whatever. If you're an NRCA member, the program is open to you. It really is worth, and Ted mentioned that. In fact, he mentioned if you're... I think he's talked about five employees and so on. But, I got a question from an affiliate the other day that just has one. I said, "Gosh, Ted, is there any?" Because a group is two or more. It's a group program. I said, "Hey, [inaudible 00:38:58] can do for this one guy?" He said, "Sure, we got something. Don't worry about it, we'll look at him." It actually is for one or more, so that's awesome.

Ted Ryan: Yeah. I mean it really is. I mean, obviously you have some members that are all the way down to one. But you have some members that are 3,000 employees and they have an established relationship with a broker that they've been working with for 10 years and they like the plan that they're on. They feel as though they have done their due diligence and that they are at a cost point that is satisfactory to them. There are still ways to improve plans like that. There are still programs within the program offering that can enhance the value of that plan without adding any real cost. When I mention something like that, I'm talking about, for larger groups we have a second opinion program or really the catastrophic type diagnoses that can cost the healthcare benefit plan quite a bit of money. It's a program that overlays on top of an existing plan that offers a second opinion to make sure the underlying diagnosis is correct to begin with. Assuming it is, or assuming it isn't, there's a pathway to make sure that the best diagnosis and the treatment plan associated with that can be directed. Of course, it's up to the member to take that if they want it or not. But all those things are cost containment type strategies. Even if you have an existing healthcare plan that you're happy with, you might want to give us a call. Let's talk about how you can enhance the existing plan you're at at no cost to you.

Heidi Ellsworth: That is cool. We have another question coming in. Rod, you are more than welcome to stay, although I know you had some appointments. Please stay if you want, if you want [crosstalk 00:40:58]-

Rod Petrick: I'm going to stay.

Heidi Ellsworth: Okay, good. Because the next question goes right to what you just said, Ted. Megan, do you want to bring Wendy on? She had a question about some alternative medical and some different ways of looking at things.

Megan: Wendy, you are good to come on.

Wendy Marvin: Good morning.

Heidi Ellsworth: Good morning, Wendy Marvin out of Vancouver, Washington, introduce-

Wendy Marvin: Pacific Northwest. You're not getting a camera on me this morning for sure. I come from a really unique background with this stuff. I worked for Kaiser for 20 years and actually used to sell large group and small group benefits. This is big. I don't know if people in general really understand the offering we're talking about. My company represents a 50 and smaller group and we've uniquely had health insurance benefits for about three years. But two things struck me. One, I wanted to ask about alternative benefits because the mention of someone at this magnitude of healthcare, not just catastrophic is huge in that, finding alternatives to offer to your employees that help them stay healthy, not just give them medical benefits, is a big deal. But then, also talking about alternative care and then the other, keeping employees right now is just huge for all of us. With my plan we've had for four years now I think, we have zero utilization. The demographic of the guys that I have tend not to go to the doctor. They don't trust our healthcare system, they're typically from other countries. Finding a provider that actually can help us navigate those waters is huge. Throwing out a couple of questions to you guys there, I guess.

Heidi Ellsworth: Wendy, you had mentioned specifically acupuncture and chiropractic services, right?

Wendy Marvin: Yeah. Health services that keep you away from the doctor, that are generally ignored at large by a lot of carriers.

Ted Ryan: There are wellness programs within the major medical plans. If you're talking about specifically a wellness program with chiropractic in it, some of our programs do include that. But if you're talking about peeling that out and offering more of a limited benefit package with specific benefits and putting pricing around something like that, that is not something we currently have within the NRCA offering today. But depending on the demand, it's something that we are capable of looking at and capable of putting together if the demand is there. You're familiar with Kaiser, and we do compete with Kaiser out on the West Coast. There's a healthcare system there called Dignity Health System. We developed a direct-to-employer healthcare plan with Dignity as the provider that competes directly against Kaiser. One of the things we didn't talk about, Tom, and I'll touch upon it briefly here, because this question, I think, from Wendy is really about innovation. Vault is an innovator in this space. We have many direct contracts with hospital systems throughout the United States. If you happen to have a company that is regionally based, and we have a regional-based provider in your space, we have the ability to go directly to those hospital providers and their physician networks and make that your network under your plan. What that means is that, not only are you keeping local dollars local, but it means that we have negotiating power at that regional level with that provider that is likely going to be less costly than participating in a large network that you're never going to use. If you're based and your entire business is based out of, say, Seattle, Washington, and all 70 employees are within 25 miles of Seattle Washington, and we have a healthcare system in Seattle, Washington, then that is going to be a better solution than doing this huge broad network where you're paying for all kinds of things and subordinating all of the costs associated with that when you're never going to use those facilities. You could still design your healthcare plan in a manner so that if you had to use a provider outside of your geography, you would not get penalized for it. You could still have coverage, but you could really reduce your costs by taking more of a regional specific approach to your healthcare plan. I mention this only in that this is an example of how flexible and some of the things that we can do meeting each NRCA member where they are. If you're in Chicago it may be a little bit different. If you're somewhere down in the Southeast, it may be something different. We literally look at each and every opportunity as its own standalone opportunity.

Wendy Marvin: That's a huge thing for us, Ted, because you guys mentioned brokers. As an employer of 50 and under, our brokers don't have a lot of time or interest in us. They offer you, "Here's your two plans, go have fun and, and have a good day."

Ted Ryan: You got it, Wendy. One of the things you see with brokers... to be quite honest and fair to brokers, brokers have had very few options until maybe the last 10 years or so in this space. I say this space, I mean the mid-market space, employers between five and 500 employees. Self-funding solutions weren't really available to that block of business. Now they are. Like everything, over time, things get fine-tuned and it becomes available to the masses. That's what's happening in the insurance business. Unfortunately, a lot of brokers have done what's easy and that is, every year their client comes to them and says, "Jeez, my healthcare costs are rising. What can I do?" Well, the brokers traditional reaction to that is to go to Blue Cross Blue Shield, to go to United, to go to Cigna, to go to Aetna, obtain four quotes on the same or similar plan design that the employee has had for the last 10 years and they solicit a bid. Well, if you didn't need a broker to buy insurance you could do that. Spreadsheeting the major carriers year over year and choosing between a 5% increase or a 15% increase over your incumbent is not a healthcare strategy. That's not a strategy. A strategy is getting into your health plan, understanding what you like and what you don't like, and looking for alternatives that get you off of the fully-funded plans if you are suitable for self-funding. Generally speaking, roofers groups are suitable for self-funding. The reason being is, they're largely male-dominated organization, with no offense.

Heidi Ellsworth: I was going to say, "Oh, oh."

Ted Ryan: That is a group that does not have the cost of healthcare associated with it when you're talking about males between the ages of 20 and 55. The cost of healthcare for treating that population is less expensive. Self-funding solutions are, generally speaking, for healthy groups and because of that, the NRCA membership is a good fit for the self-funding type options. In the self-funding world, you can obtain basically the same benefit and you can have it, if you're a healthy group, at 15 to 30% savings across the board. I talked to an NRCA member over the last week that we spoke with a larger employer within your membership, roughly 1,000 employees. I can tell you, our preliminary numbers were that we could save them about $750,000 a year moving from the fully-funded environment that they're in today, with one of those major carriers I mentioned, and just going to a self-funded environment. They'd offer the exact same benefits, they'd have the exact same network, but they'd reduce their costs overnight by simply changing their structure. Now, I mention that because it will be relative across the board if you find yourself as a similar company, whether you're 20 employees or 100 employees, or 1,000 employees. If you're a decent, healthy group, you will see huge savings in the self-funding arena.

Wendy Marvin: Yeah, we were laughing, Ted, that that is a... I'm actually a female owner of a roofing company and so.... But to your point-

Ted Ryan: I know that, Wendy, and I think that's great.

Wendy Marvin: To your point, understanding age banding and risk association is a big deal when you're starting to talk about all this stuff. Yeah, if you're looking at a company that the demographic of most of the workers are age-banded under the age of 30, then yeah you do have a great risk class to be able to work with. Understand what you're saying, sorry we laughed there.

Ted Ryan: No, no. I knew I was walking into it by the way.

Heidi Ellsworth: I just want to-

Ted Ryan: I think it's good to have a good laugh this early in the morning, especially if you're on the West Coast it's really early in the morning.

Heidi Ellsworth: We have just a little bit of time left so I just want to make sure. I know that Lisa [inaudible 00:51:39] was speaking of women owners in Pacific Northwest we're just-

Wendy Marvin: Two of us.

Heidi Ellsworth: ... cornering it. Yeah. Lisa, I don't know if you want to come on or not. Megan's going to unmute you. I know you had a couple words or, I'm not 100% sure. I know I got you up at six this morning although you're probably up way before that. I just want to make sure that everyone knows out there we've had a lot of great questions. Wendy, thank you. You always have the best questions. I'm voting for the chiropractor too, just saying. Ted, when we talk about that plan, I want to make sure we are looking at that stuff.

Ted Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Wendy Marvin: Thank you guys.

Heidi Ellsworth: Thank you, Wendy. Thank you so much for coming on. This is the kind of information, what we're talking about right here and really accessing the groups. This is how we can do consulting or how Ted can, not me, let me tell you. Ted, just in this last... we have a little bit, about seven minutes left. How do people... I know they go to the website, nrcahealth.com. But can you give just a little bit of a picture of the journey, what will happen once they start doing the consultation?

Ted Ryan: Absolutely. It's really, really basic. If you're a smaller group anywhere between two and say 75 lives, we ask for a current census, we ask for a copy of your existing plan, we ask for a copy of your renewal if you have it. If you don't have this year's yet, supplying your last two years' renewals, even if they're from different carriers is great. Because what that does is it just shows us your trend over the last couple of years, which is an indicator of how your population is managing its health. We ask for a copy of your last invoice to your carrier. It's four basic pieces of information. It's your current census, it's your copy of your current plan design you're offering, it's a copy of your renewal, and it's a copy of your last month's invoice. With those four pieces of information, we are able to give you a quote. If that quote is competitive and we're finding that about 80% of the time we are right in the ballpark or better, then we move into the process of getting that rate secured. If you are a larger group, larger groups we would still require an updated census for starter point. We like to see 18 months of data, then we would go through the quoting process there as well. If data is not available to you through your insurance carrier or your broker, there are some other things that we can do but that's a little bit more entailed process. But we can go and launch which is a web-based secure HIPAA portal to do personal health questionnaires, and we can gather information that way. I think the critical thing in all of this is understanding that if you are doing what you're doing today and you're not getting different results, that's the definition of insanity. Everybody on this call and every member of the NRCA that is looking at their healthcare solutions should be accessing the NRCA program to see what it has to offer them. There's no arm-twisting here. At the end of the day, once we collect the information, we're going to provide a quote, and we're going to provide consultation. You can use your existing broker if you've got a good relationship with him or her. We encourage you to do that. We're happy to work with your existing brokers. If you want to solicit a quote and look at things behind the scenes, we're happy to do that as well, and then later get an introduction to your broker. You drive the boat, not us. We're here to serve you and all we would like is the opportunity to do just that.

Heidi Ellsworth: That's perfect. I want to wrap up here. Rod, I just want to say thank you for being on here. As chairman of the board of NRCA, just any words as a fellow roofing contractor and a longterm member of encouraging people to take chance to look at this and what they should... some thoughts?

Rod Petrick: I would encourage everybody to take a look. I mean, it's been a long time coming. It's been a unbelievable lift for Tom, his group, and even the [inaudible 00:56:35] committee. Now that we've got Vault on board, and you can see the flexibility you had mentioned. I didn't know they went down to one person, and that's fantastic because we all know there's that one and two-man operations that are out there. Take a [inaudible 00:56:50], give it a look. It's a great opportunity and it helps our industry, they have this opportunity out there. I thank Ted and I thank Tom for his diligence and not giving up.

Heidi Ellsworth: Exactly. I love what you said earlier too about the affiliates. The contractors who are out there who are maybe members of Western States or [inaudible 00:57:13] or Florida or Midwest, wherever you are, state, local, also mention this in your board meetings. Mention this in what you're doing, let's spread the word because the more involved the better it will be for everybody. Tom, we're going to have you wrap it up before I talk about next week. Any last words?

Tom Shanahan: Well, yeah. First, just to thank Ted for all his hard work on this and his team. It's been just a lot of fun putting this all together if not a lot of long days getting it to here. But we're here, it's launched, people are getting quotes. [inaudible 00:57:51] along Rod. Thanks so much for joining us [inaudible 00:57:54] we really appreciate that as well, and Heidi for having us. Thank you so much.

Heidi Ellsworth: Thank you so much. Rod, thank you for being here. Ted, so informative. We all appreciate so much. Tom, as always a delight to work with you and to work with NRCA. I want to thank everybody who was on this morning. We had just a great group of folks, large numbers. We are so happy to be able to bring this kind of conversation this Q&A to the industry. Watch for Coffee Conversations. As you all know, it's under the Read Listen Watch section of rooferscoffeeshop.com. You can find past Coffee Conversations recorded. This today has been recorded so we're going to be able to share this. If you want to take it to affiliates, or other companies, or to share this information, really easy to access. I'm highly excited. I'm feeling just a little bit very blessed in the fact that in two weeks we're going to have more NRCA awesome people on Coffee Conversations, and that will be Trent Cotney and Alison LaValley, both dear friends of mine. But they're going to be here talking about legal, which almost is as scary as insurance. They're going to be talking about what's happening right now on the legal plane with COVID, what's out there with legal resources from NRCA, and most of all, the awesome legal conferences coming up in October. That is all going to be virtual, and it's going to be able to help your business like no other. Join us in two weeks, same time, Thursdays, six o'clock in the morning on the Pacific. I thank you all for being here today. Have a wonderful day. Thank you all our panelists and thank you all who are watching. Have a great day.

Ted Ryan: Thank you.

Tom Shanahan: Thank you. all

The National Roofing Contractors Association has launched the NRCA Health Care Program, the first and only health care program tailored specifically to the roofing industry, in partnership with Vault Health Strategies, Bloomington, Ill.

The NRCA Health Care Program enables NRCA members of all categories and sizes to offer employer-sponsored health care options. The plan is flexible, based on each company’s needs and budget, and can be offered with or without employer contributions. An employer can make available to employees voluntary benefits, such as dental, vision, life, disability and accident insurance, and work with his or her current broker or use an NRCA Health Care Program broker. Coverage includes everything from full-service major medical to supplemental or prescription-only coverage. In addition, the NRCA Health Care Program offers a telehealth option.

As health care costs continue to rise and the industry struggles to recruit new workers, the new health care program is intended to help NRCA members offer company-sponsored health care plans that benefit roofing professionals and also can be used to bolster employee recruitment and retention.

“One of the biggest concerns NRCA members tell us they have is workforce issues—it’s really difficult to attract and retain good employees,” says Reid Ribble, NRCA’s CEO. “As an industry, we must take care of our employees. One important way we can do that is by offering quality benefits such as health insurance.”

To learn more about the NRCA Health Care Program, go to nrcahealth.com or contact Rich Trewyn, an NRCA director of enterprise risk management, at (800) 323-9545, ext. 7575, or rtrewyn@nrca.net.

Learn more about NRCA in their RCS directory.

About NRCA

Since 1886, the National Roofing Contractors Association has been the home for generations of entrepreneurial craftsmen and enterprises who shelter and protect America’s families and businesses and each other. Our vision is the recognition of our members as professionals and to unite the industry to that purpose. NRCA is one of the construction industry’s most respected trade associations and the voice of roofing professionals and leading authority in the roofing industry for information, education, technology and advocacy. It represents all segments of the roofing industry, including contractors; manufacturers; distributors; architects; consultants; engineers; building owners; and city, state and government agencies. For information about NRCA and its services and offerings, visit www.nrca.net.