Insurance From the Principal
Giving Business Owners an Edge
By Jill Brimeyer

When CEOs and HR professionals lie awake at night, often the inner dialogue goes something like this: In today’s employment market, how can we recruit and retain the key personnel we need to be competitive? And with ramping health care costs and an unpredictable market, how can we continue to look after the security of employees and their families without compromising the bottom line?

The answers are complex. So complex, in fact, that more and more business owners are turning to companies such as the Principal Financial Group® (The Principal®) to serve as a one-stop shop for everything from 401(k) plans to executive benefits and exit planning strategies.

“Most business owners don’t have time to think about or worry about these things, because they’re so busy running the business,” says Larry Reelitz, Regional Managing Director of the Midwest Region Business Center of Principal Financial Group. “All of these issues for a business owner are very complex, and it’s impossible for one person to know everything about all of them.”

The Principal Financial Group has been dedicated to the small and medium business (SMB) market—typically 500 employees or fewer—for decades, and is also a long-time leader in employee benefits. The Midwest Region Business Center, which has been operating in the Des Moines area for 60 years, caters to Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. The Midwest Region Business Center ranks in the top 50 insurance and financial services firms in the United States designated as a National Masters financial services firm by GAMA International (mostly recently awarded in 2005).

The Team Advisor Approach
There’s no scarcity of offerings available in the insurance and financial arena geared to the SMB market—especially in the Des Moines area. But what has been missing, says Reelitz, was the combination of a high level of expertise in all specific areas and consistent customer relationship management.

So the Midwest Region Business Center embarked on a business model that’s
discussed in the industry, but seldom implemented: the team specialist approach. Three years ago the Midwest Region Business Center formalized a working model, in which seven “key producers” (featured on the front cover) from the Midwest Region Business Center were identified to
collaborate by drawing on one another’s specialized knowledge.

“Each of [the seven key producers] developed their own business models and decided that they wanted to specialize in the business market,” explains Reelitz. “They saw that the best way they could serve business owners from a broad perspective was to have relationships with other producers who specialize in a wide variety of specific areas, and bring them in when it was appropriate.”

These financial professionals maintain their own client base, but meet with each other at monthly board meetings and often pull each other onto client teams as circumstances dictate. “It’s like a group consulting concept, where one is the relationship manager, and depending on the specific need to the client they’ll bring in someone with specific expertise in an area,” says Reelitz. “If the person that’s qualified on wealth management has a client with a 401(k) plan issue, then they would bring in the 401(k) plan specialist to work with their team.”

Expertise, With A Difference
The group pools its approximately 120 years of combined experience in financial services to work with business clients in three main areas:

• Business planning: group benefits, key person, exit strategies, and retention and rewards for key employees,
• Executive personal strategy: retirement, wealth and risk management strategies, estate planning, and tax liability strategies, and
• Employee personal strategy: retirement planning, risk analysis, investment strategies, financial literacy, and asset allocation modeling.

Again, these are all factors that can be handled by any good business specialist. But the major differentiator for the Midwest Region Business Center of the Principal Financial Group, says Reelitz, is in the process that is used as much as it is the depth of expertise that is available.

“Most of our clients find that the thing they appreciate most is that we don’t approach them with a solution looking for a problem” he says. “We help clients identify the problem by defining objectives and helping quantify where they are short or where they need a new strategy. And then we start to formulate the solution based on their particular situation.”

Another advantage for clients comes through the Preferred Product Network, Inc. (PPN), which gives Principal Life access to a full range of products from more than 200 different carriers. This allows our producers the independence and objectivity to make the best selection possible based on a client’s particular needs, and also offer their clients the choices they demand.

In the years that this team concept has been implemented, results have been extremely positive, says Reelitz. This group has worked together to help companies retain and reward key employees, create comprehensive employee benefit packages, reduce income tax liabilities, assess risk, and create business exit strategies. But they also offer another key ingredient that’s especially important in the market the group serves. “In the Midwest, its all about integrity and reputation,” he says.

“People say what they mean and they mean what they say, and that’s what we build our relationship on—trust, integrity, and doing the right thing for the client. It’s all about making recommendations that you would make for yourself in the same situation.”