Bill Wienhoff – Clear Cert

[Music] This podcast has been brought to you by WheatBerry. The job search site where careers and insurance and financial services begin. Post your job openings for free. Let WheatBerry help you find the talent you need. WheatBerry with an eye at WheatBerry.com. Bill Wienhoff is the founder and CEO of ClearSert, which is an independent, centralized training certification clearinghouse for producers and leading long-term care insurance and annuity carriers. His firm publishes carrier authorized state-by-state rules, pre-certifies training courses that meet carrier requirements, and maintains a direct reporting network with hundreds of training firms across the United States. The ClearSert centralized data resource can be accessed by representatives of carriers, their distribution partners, participating training firms and producers. More recently, additional training requirements which insurance carriers are legally required to validate to state insurance departments have been added to the platform. Prior to forming, ClearSert Bill enjoyed a 30 plus year career in retail, personnel, and financial services. But most recently as the director of insurance education at the National Underwriter Company. When Bill is not working on ClearSert, he and his wife have four grown children and eight grandchildren so far. In addition to time, he enjoys spending time gardening, especially raising some hot peppers in North and South Central Ohio, as well as he is a singer and musician in his church's praise band. Hello Bill. Thank you for joining us today. Appreciate you taking the time to call in. Well Dennis, definitely my pleasure. Well Bill, say what's going on there? You're just north of Cincinnati. Aren't you just north east of the Cincinnati metropolitan area? We are in a little town called OPN out here with the cows in the corn and winter has set in earnest in our neck of the woods. Yeah, so have you, did you have to get out and use the snowblower this morning or is that something from the past weekend you had to do? Well, not so far, but I'm sure that the white death will be piled up in all kinds of places before long here. Yeah, well that's, say you've started a company called ClearSert several years ago and I'm going to ask you some questions about that. But tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and where you from and your background and your family circumstances. Sure absolutely. I'm a 30 year veteran of the training industry. I've worked for a number of different organizations in several different towns. There's a North Texas resident for eight years was living in North of Kentucky that grew up in the Maryland outskirts of Washington DC. So how to chance to live in different parts of the country work for different industries and really have found a home here in financial services over the last 20 years. That started with that working for the national underwriter company before stepping out to found clear service in 2007. Interesting, interesting. So you were involved with national underwriter and you were involved in the writing and publishing of text. Was it do I recall in the subjects of long term care? Was that, was that kind of your expertise or became your expertise? I had an interesting role because we created courses both on the life and health and the property and casually shy to the house. So we were involved with just about all of the insurance products. And when the mandatory long term care training requirement was put into the 2006 model act that the NAICE adopted in December of 2006. So that really got the ball rolling with what looked like a great training opportunity. So we partnered with the corporation for long term care and created a training course. And that was the forming of your company clear cert about what year was that that you created that? Well, it led to that with national underwriter, we quickly realized talking to carriers that this new training requirement was one that they had to certify. Instead of the producer validating their training compliance with the state department of insurance like they do with licensing and continuing education. And this was confusing everybody. So we looked into the possibility of offering that kind of a service under national underwriters of well up. But I quickly realized that only an independent organization would be able to pull together. And it wasn't just not hundreds of training companies to work together to the benefit of a centralized clearing house for this new training requirement that carriers and agencies and even individual producers could get information from. So recognizing that this was was something that a training company wasn't going to be able to do because it was of course in competition with other training companies. And that was when I stepped out and found that clear shirt is an independent organization. And we thought of it as the Switzerland of long term care training. So Bill, what is the kind of explain what's the core mission of clear cert and the core service that you provide to carriers? Well, we help carriers with their administration of what has become a very confusing training requirement. What we do is part consulting and part big data where largely a website clear cert dot com where people can come and get information. They can also view transcripts that have been reported in by what is now a large national network of participating training firms. And there's authoritative and industry standard versions of the state by state rules and watch other content there to help people navigate through this very challenging training compliance issue. So do you have any interaction with the producers themselves or is it all principally interaction with documentation and training of producers with the carriers? Our primary clients are the carriers, but of course the producers work for them. So we do also a lot of talk to producers probably every day of the week. We also talk to training firms. We talk to agencies. Everybody has been affected by these training requirements. Yeah, you know, training is often seen, I guess, as a cure all for real and sometimes perceives problems with the sale of insurance and other financial products. Do you agree that training is the right approach to address these kinds of problems? You know, I guess it depends on what you think the problem is. And with the long term care training requirement. It's kind of twofold, I guess. You know, training is a proven tool for introducing desired behaviors to your target audience. And also identifying undesirable behaviors that you want to eliminate. We learned a long time ago that training alone doesn't fix anything. It has to be supported by effective supervision and a culture that recognizes and rewards the kind of behavior you're after. It's that old Abraham Maslow principle management that the behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated. That still definitely works. So just exposing people to information is is only a first step. But when it comes to these products, the training requirements, instead of really focusing on changing behavior, the two years tend to view the problem as eliminating the risk of market conduct action due to a lack of compliance. So training is absolutely the perfect tool for this problem because you've got a piece of paper training certificate that can be presented as proof of compliance. These laws requiring long term care training and an easy suitability come into play. And you know, share a little bit about the background as to how they came into play and why maybe the rules were made to where the carry would be responsible rather than the Department of Insurance. You know, that's an interesting question because when the LTCI requirement began to be implemented by states, carriers quickly realized that they had no capacity or competence for this new compliance task. So it's pretty clear that the carrier didn't ask for this new responsibility that they were a little bit of the deer and the headlights if you will. So the question is, how did this become about? Well, I had a chance to speak to members of the steering committee that drafted the language of the 2006 long term care insurance model act. And while I never got a clear answer, I suspect it has to do with expertise and the cost of administration. Since the training requirement is tied to a specific product and a product that's not necessarily that easy to understand, why not force the company's offering that product to police producer compliance? And this particularly made sense because the companies all employees such as matter experts on these products, but of course insurance companies don't are choosing insurance departments don't have that kind of expertise. So it made a world of sense to make the insurance companies responsible for policing the training community, particularly when it came to the actual course content. Now perhaps even more importantly, this prevented and administratively burdensome task from falling on the shoulders of the education staff at the safety department. If the LTCI training requirement had to be certified at the state level, states probably would not have implemented it because of this. And remember the NAICD drafts these acts in regulations, but then they have to be implemented state by state. So assigning responsibility for certifying producer compliance to the carrier made it an easier decision at the state level because there were no additional resources that had to be allocated there. I would say that really was the driving factor. Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think that these more recently enacted training requirements are not verified at the state level? I mean, should we see and expect future training requirements be handled in the same way? Do you see others coming down the pike? Possibly. Of course, the 2006 long-term care model act was followed up by the 2010 suitability and the NETS regulation. And that then, again, introduced yet a second requirement tied to a specific type of product that the insurance carrier was responsible for certifying. And we've seen some other types of requirements at the state level, although there hasn't been more national action from the standpoint of the NAICD, but we continue to hear rumors about this type of training possibly being assigned to life insurance when that model act is revised or are other types of products. And it definitely does seem like a pattern has kind of developed here. So I think you're going to see more and more of this training compliance burden being placed upon carriers going forward. And it certainly makes life a little bit more difficult on the producer as well, which, again, is part of what we battle every day, trying to keep everybody on the same page and limit the amount of confusion that can happen when companies have different certification processes in place. So if an individual producer, of course, doesn't complete their required continuing education before the expiration of their insurance licensing term, their insurance license is not going to be renewed, what are the penalties for not complying with carrier validated training requirements? Well, the carrier is the responsible entity for this. Producers don't face any direct penalties from the State Department of Insurance for non-compliance, but they can definitely run into some unpleasant consequences. But for example, if a producer can't prove that they're in compliance, they may not get appointed by a particular company, or even worse if they turn in an application for new business and the carrier deems them non-compliant, then that business will be returned. And well, this can set off a time wasting scramble at the agency trying to round up documentation that the carrier might not even accept. And I'm sure, as you know, with all your years in the insurance industry, training certificates are printed on the slipperyest paper known to math. So if you need to come up with a copy of the training certificate, it's harder to find than car keys. So if a producer can't be shown to be in compliance, then he or she may have to approach the consumer with a redated application. And there's at least one major carrier that will terminate the contract of a producer who is trying to be out of compliance. So there's not penalties, really, but there certainly are some consequences. And because the carrier is the responsible entity, of course, if a State's enforcement division finds a carrier to be out of compliance with us, and that their representative's sole negotiated or represented long-term care business without being certified, then market conduct penalties may be ready to get into the carrier. You know, this seems a little bit off topic, but we've seen kind of a dramatic shift in the last 10, 15 years anyway, away from live class to online training. Obviously, it's more convenient to do an online course or do it from home or wherever you happen to be and things have moved that direction. Why do you think it is that way? And do you think classroom training still is going to be around in 10 or 15 years from now? Yeah, I think it probably will. The persistency of the classroom training model has proven to exceed expectations for people who are sure that online training is just going to wipe classroom training off the face of the year in the early 2000s. But as a 30-year member of the training community, more I said, there has been a tremendous shift in instructional design who are trying to make the online training experience as effective as possible. But while it may not be as convenient to spend a day in the seminar, there's still a lot of people who find it preferable to go to a class instead of reading a computer screen and then taking an exam. You know, test the phobia, and that's real. But you know, from the training companies standpoint, I know you've certainly been there renting space to present a class, paying an instructor, having a fixed time when people have to appear. That just has become a cost prohibitive model that a lot of companies are dropping. What I think is interesting is the most recent trend is the webinar. You don't have to leave your desk, but you can still hear and interact with a knowledgeable instructor. And, you know, being social these days increasingly has something to do with our smartphones. And for many years, it looks like technology is finally at the point where the virtual classroom has pretty much become a reality. Yeah. Yeah. What is some of the, what's maybe the biggest issue you've got coming down the pike that you're going to have to deal with? That you see on the horizon in the space for the certification and training and documentation that you're providing? Well, Chris sort of is getting involved with the administration of the anti-money laundering requirements on the insurance side of the business. AML training has gone through a couple of different versions over the last several years. And really ever since 9/11, there has been significant regulatory activity towards all types of financial transactions. And so what's happened is a real confusing web of different types of anti-money laundering training are now required and available. And this training has to be repeated on a regular basis. So there are organizations that currently offer this training, pretty sure AD Banker Office is these courses. And there are other organizations that track some of the training completion. But Chris' model is just really unique in that multiple training firms can all participate and we can calculate dates by which training has to be taken again in a way that is carrier specific and do a lot about a really neat things again to help carriers with their administration of this in a way that makes life easier for the distribution partners. So we see a role for us in this training vertical, if you will. So that's where I'm spending a lot of my time currently is developing a model to support that. Well, that sounds exciting. And I know we always kind of all hesitate to have change, but it sounds like there's never-ending shift in change in this particular space and that creates an opportunity for you because you're able to solve carrier problems as they evolve. We think we've made a big impact, particularly with that long-term care requirement. As I mentioned, there's not 50 carriers who have active traditional long-term care policies today, but there is a new trend which is the hybrid policy, either a light LTC or a new DLTC policy. These are catching on with consumers and the producers alike. There still is a need to fulfill the trade requirements in most states for long-term care to be representing these policies, though. So there are new companies and then our new producers who are getting involved with the long-term care, creating products through these hybrid products. And so we've got companies that are now entering the marketplace where over the last 10 years, it's mostly been a story of companies exiting the marketplace. But ClearSert has managed to be a stabilizing factor for the industry in all this time, working with the carriers to develop standardized rules that can be applied in a very consistent fashion, creating predictability for their distribution and preventing the nightmare of taking courses only to find out that you took it from the long company because your carrier doesn't have a direct reporting relationship with that particular company. Yeah. So it doesn't look like the regulatory efforts are really going to slack off anytime soon, so we'll be here to help. Well, it's, I know you're in a business that requires a lot of attention to detail and obviously helping firms meet their compliance, but I noticed you also do, you mentioned in your bio that you have an activity that in your free time, you're a singer and musician and your church's praise band. Tell me a little about that. I am. I started off as a drummer when I was a teenager. Just wasn't a whole lot of call for that in the church setting, so eventually I changed over to guitar. And now I have a couple of sons who. are my rhythm section and we make up the praise band that our church and it's a lot of fun and it's a blessing to be able to do that every Sunday. Really enjoy it. - Well, that sounds like it. Well, Bill, it's been wonderful to visit with you today and I appreciate you sharing with our listeners the background about ClearSert and for our listeners just to recap, this is Bill Wienhoff, who is the founder and CEO of ClearSert, which is an independent and centralized training certification clearing house. For producers and the leading long-term care and annuity insurance carriers. Bill, thank you so much for being on our program today. - That certainly enjoyed it also. Have a great day. (upbeat music) - Oh, hi, you're still here. Since you are, could we ask you a question? We would like to hold a short interview with the most successful producers with your company. These personal stories shared by the individuals themselves is an important step in attracting new people to the insurance and financial services industry. Just go to contact us on our insuranceradio.com webpage and submit your recommendation or referral of who we should interview next. Thank you.