News

Wedding insurance and HR services for small companies

By DAVID GURLIACCI, Fairfield County Business Journal. Sept. 6, 2004 edition.

About four years ago, managers at Greenwich Workshop Inc. of Seymour decided they should no longer be self-insured, so calls went out to various employee benefits companies in the area.

After a strong sales presentation from F.W. Serra Inc. in Shelton, Greenwich Workshop chose it and has been pleased they did, said Melissa Gamm, controller and benefits manager for the 35-employee company.

"They're wonderful," she said. "They're very responsive, and they've provided not only help with our insurance problems, they have a great HR bench, which is great for someone like me who needs someone to bounce HR questions off."

Providing great service is the key reason F.W. Serra has grown about 30 percent annually in recent years, said Fred Serra, president and owner.

In the 12-month period ended in July, growth clocked in at a rate of 37.5 percent, he said. Serra declined specifics about company revenues, but said they are between $1 million and $2 million.

The health benefits business, a large part of F.W. Serra's revenues, is growing, but even growth of 25 percent in 2003 would be a very fast rate, according to those in the industry. Susan Rash, a vice president of BB&T Benefit Consultants of Richmond, Va., and the legislative chairman for the National Association of Health Underwriters, said her company's annual growth of 15 percent to 20 percent was considered strong for the industry.

Serra's 21 employees service companies in the range of 10 to 250 employees. Most of its customers are in Connecticut, although a small number are in Massachusetts and New York state.

Strong customer service and providing a wide portfolio of services are the two biggest reasons Serra thinks his company has grown so well.

The company provides customers two types of services - helping companies pick health insurance, dental and vision care and life insurance policies and disability insurance; and general human resources services.

Human resource services include conducting classes for managers in such areas as sexual harassment prevention and workplace-violence prevention, Serra said. For downsized employees, his company provides outplacement counseling.

The company can design and implement a complete human resources program for a client, including payroll management, executive searches, designing compensation and benefits packages and even labor negotiations. F.W. Serra either does the work itself or outsources services to those with expertise.

"Primarily, our goal is to provide support to human resources divisions," Serra said. "When people need specialty information, they can call us and we're a support service to them."
For small companies, F.W. Serra can send in staff to work on site for a day or two per week, Serra said. "For small companies that can't afford (to hire) a human resources professional, our solution is very cost-effective."

Weekly reports

Health insurance doesn't differ very much from carrier to carrier, Serra said, so he has tried to differentiate his company as a provider of great service. His company, he said, is more flexible than large companies in the field and provides more human resource services than most companies its size or smaller.

"Each customer gets a benefits consultant and customer service support, so there's always someone there to talk to," he said. "You're getting fast, accurate responses to your questions."

"We make it clear to our clients that you not only get expert advice on the employee benefits side, we do an analysis of all the (insurance) companies on the market," Serra said. "When they come to us, they get all the backup support, which includes our human resources hotline. When they have a problem and don't know how to handle it, they can call and get sound HR advice."

Serra hired a software company to design a client management system that allows him to monitor how clients' calls for advice are handled. "I go through these reports on a weekly basis," he said. "They serve two purposes. One is to see what types of questions we're getting. The other is quality control. I want to see the kind of service my staff is providing and see if my staff is getting overtaxed so customer service doesn't decline."

Out on his own

After working in the insurance business for about a dozen years, Serra decided to start his own company in 1997. "I saw an emerging market for benefits in human resources, more than just regular health insurance, which everyone did," Serra said.

"I wanted to develop a program that I'd been thinking about for a while, and figured that on my own I could do my own thing and could make the decisions and make it grow the way I wanted."

His reputation in the industry and long hours recruiting clients helped get his company started. Since then, most of the company's growth has come from word-of-mouth referrals, he said.

"We can work on a much lower margin because we look to retain customers," Serra said. About 75 percent of new customers are referred to the company by other customers or are hired because a human resources professional has switched jobs to a new company, he said.

"Our retention level is 98 percent. You can't do that unless you've got a good customer-support service team and you're giving good customer service."

The company won a Connecticut Quality Improvement award last year for a package of services combining both insurance benefits and human resources management for clients.

"We were able to save money for our clients and reduce their cost by providing a number of services," Serra said. "Basically, we don't need to charge what other human resources consultants are charging. It's almost like a volume discount."

Serra expects to expand the company geographically into Massachusetts and New York state, establishing offices in both. "We're looking to acquire two new benefit agencies by the first quarter of next year," he said.