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July 12, 2011 at 08:00 PM
Anthony C. Stratidis is managing partner of MS Consulting Group, LLC, in Westbrook, Connecticut. At the AALTCI Summit in Las Vegas this pas
t April, he was named the number one producer in not one, but two categories: individual placed long-term care insurance and multi-life long term care insurance.
Before joining MS Consulting, Anthony was the senior vice president and one of the primary architects who developed a long-term care planning practice at Marsh and McLennan Companies. He also headed the LTC division of MassMutual Financial, managing product development, pricing and distribution relationships. Anthony is a qualifying member of MDRT, and holds his CLTC and LTCP designations.
Q: How many phone calls do you make a week to set appointments?
AS: It varies week to week. We have a unique practice. I started over 21 years ago as an Amex agent dialing for dollars every morning. Our practice focuses on consulting to health and benefit brokers and private wealth management consultants. We have a pretty good base of consultants we work with. I make 20-30 calls a week to maintain relationships. We have critical referral sources that provide us with opportunities in true group (health & benefit consultants), multi-life (200-300 life group) and private wealth management firms (clients with $20,000,000 of investable assets and above).
At any given time we have our bench team of referral sources in the waiting, so if activity flags we call upon them. It’s like baseball’s major league and minor league system.
Q: How old were you when you bought your own LTCI?
AS: (pause) Thirty-eight. The reason I had to think about that is that I’ve bought three different policies. Here’s why: I was, through the years, involved in product development for three different carriers, where I headed up sales divisions. So, as we enhanced those policies, I bought them. I bought my first policy at age 30 year and my current policy at age 38.
Q: What’s your LTC plan?
AS: It’s interesting. I’m not exactly sure what my care will look like in the future, but I know I’ll want to rely on a health care advocate to advise me and my family. One of the gaping holes in our industry is the health care advocacy service. Certainly the carriers do a good job with their plan of care, but at some point you’re on your own trying to figure out where to locate the best LTCI service providers.
My company has a strategic partnership with a concierge health care advocacy firm that helps develop in-depth plans of care, hire, background check, and monitor those resources. Some of the solutions are regional, faith-based and client-centric. We’re seeing a great deal of interest in the Ultra High Net Worth market, they’re looking for someone to manage the difficulties of long term caregiving. Their response often is, “I’m earning $3-$8 million a year, I love my parents, but I don’t have time to do it myself.” This area of our practice is being used by C-level executives, high net worth clients, and is now being expanded to worksite.
Through the past several years we identified this service as a critical missing link. Take, for example, the parent of an individual who was in his 80s. He had become depressed and disengaged from family and life in general. Instead of just taking the typical approach of medicating, they utilized his concierge health care advocate to look in-depth at his life, his history, background, faith and hobbies. Among their recommendations, they identified his love for fishing, something that the man had enjoyed in the past, but hadn’t done for years. They arranged to have him get out for a day of fishing. His family reported an amazing turnaround in his happiness, quality of life and reengagement. This program allows for families to be pre-emptive and proactive instead of reactive when it comes to challenges in aging.
Q: What LTCI policy do you sell the most these days and why?
AS: Y’know, that’s a great question. As a broker and consultant, we’re completely unbiased and product-neutral, and we provide full disclosure to our clients about our compensation. What is most important to us is to understanding their objectives, and providing them with the best options available to meet those objectives. The choice of carrier and policy comes down to the needs of the client.
Q: How many claims have you seen?
AS: The early part of my career I sold across the kitchen table for 2-3 yrs, before being hired on the carrier side, then developed my own distribution channel, and now work with the clients of private wealth managers and benefits consultants. So, over 21 years or so, there have been about 6 claims I’ve seen.
The one that stands out was back in 1990: One week after policy delivery, a client had a claim. The individual was a widow in her early 70s, had gotten up in the middle of the night, tripped and fell, broke her hip … most of us know the rest of the story.
Q: Think back to when you graduated; what did you plan to be then?
AS: It started for me sitting with guidance counselors before college. They asked “What do you want to do?” I didn’t know, but I did know what I did not want to do. I said, “I don’t ever want to sell anything!”
So, I started as poly sci major, then switched to business administration. I started in the advertising department at Southern New England Telephone (the Bell system). Then, in the late 1980s, due to long-term care issues in my own family, I gravitated toward long-term care insurance because I saw the impact.
