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IFG Adds 50-State Health Plan for Members · On Deathcare

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey folks, Tony Russo here from On Deathcare.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode of On The Clock, we're going to speak with Brad Cooknicki.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: He is the executive director of the Independent Funeral Group.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: The thing I want to point out is this interview took place last Monday with
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: the intention of just having parts of it aired during last week's podcast,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: last week's The Rest podcast.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the conversation went so well, I wanted to put the whole thing out.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So he says things like today and tomorrow.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And just pretend he says recently because that's all it means.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else is relevant except the immediacy isn't as immediate as maybe we make out.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm wearing a different shirt.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the two giveaways.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I'm just going to run this for you now.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my conversation with Brad Kuchnicki.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Brad.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you having me.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me just real quickly about your announcement and what it entails.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Today we made the announcement
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: that we unleashed our proprietary PPO healthcare plan,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: which has been approved in all 50 states.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was an enormous project that we've been working on between me,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: the associate director,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: and our tech person, actually, that runs our continuing education as well.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: We've been working on this for decades.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, nearly 11 months.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: having to go through all the legal steps and trying
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: to figure out how we could cross state lines.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very complicated.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so we had to go through a census, we had to go through bidders.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And finally,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: we were able to stick one that was willing to work with us in
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: the independent funeral group to provide that to our membership.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: We actually, I interviewed you not quite a month ago, maybe two months ago.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: My timing is weird.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you kind of teased this, but I don't think I wrote about it.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think that you said to be quiet about it until you had it all together.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So 11 months is a long time to work on just getting insurance.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So what were some of the struggles that you guys had during this process?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the struggles were basically crossing state lines is nearly impossible.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: We were able through one of the board of members,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: one of the owners of the independent funeral group, he struck the conversation.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Met an individual that said, hey, you know what?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think I know someone that might be able to help you.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: We contacted that person and that's when everything started.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And they realized that it was even more difficult than they thought it would be.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's not one size fits all.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you would have, we want Blue Cross or we want this or we want this.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to go with whoever can accommodate all 50 states,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: one, and who is going to actually work with you.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what we were able to do is we were able to finally secure a PPO company,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: which we'll be releasing soon.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: We're just at this point having to go through the initial steps of enrollment
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: and all those things.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: But it was very difficult.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of...
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: It depended the company.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: It depended on whatever their legal was.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a lot of legal that, to be quite frank, it was, I didn't understand it.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Our lawyer didn't understand it.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: We had a lawyer that actually understood it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And what we found out is there's not many lawyers that actually understand it
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: that don't actually work for the insurance company themselves.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, that's tricky.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so we had to figure out on our own.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Just constant due diligence of making sure we're looking
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: at every single option we can through the work with
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: the insurance company we were dealing with.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: They were very fantastic to deal with as well.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: They were able to secure bidding and then from there we were able to finally secure
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: and we're real excited about it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know of anybody in the industry that's ever done this before
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: and I completely understand why they wouldn't take it on.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: It is hours and hours beyond hours.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, hundreds and hundreds of hours of work and going back and forth and documentation.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also insurance.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people take that.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a It's fairly private and it's very confidential.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we were trying to make sure that whatever we did throughout this process,
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: that we were going to be able to not only give people an option
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: for discounted health insurance,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: but we wanted to make sure that they would have that privacy and confidentiality
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: that they deserve.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that we wanted to do is the independent funeral group said
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: that we don't want to make money off of this at all.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: We just want to save funeral homes real money.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's literally what it came down to.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is just something we want to offer so that everybody has peace of mind
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: and they can continue to hire the best employees.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: They can continue to take care of them and their families as well as their own.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: We need to take some pressure off people.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: The practitioners of the trade because they are under a lot of pressure with everything.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: So anything we can do to help that, that's what we are
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: here to do.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And now you guys are also administratively light as it is.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So how much of this burden are you going to be able to handle?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: How much work will the funeral home do as far as if they decide to sign up?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: We have secured companies that That are going to assist us along the way so
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: that we aren't getting involved into their personal financials.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's something we didn't want to do,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: but we had to find a legitimate company that could handle that.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: We also had to work with the insurance company to make sure that they were willing
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: to accommodate these people.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: If they don't want to go through our web portal to sign up,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: if they don't want to do this because they would rather talk to
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: the insurance company directly, we have that agreement as well.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we're trying to be as flexible as we can.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: We know we're going to have to pivot many more times.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: We know that we're going to have to figure things out because you are going to run
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: into situations where somebody may not be happy,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: but we're going to do everything we can to accommodate them to make sure
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: that they can get this offering as comfortable as possible.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And easy as possible.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: It will be a process though.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Once this goes into effect and we get some traction going, it's going to get a lot easier.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: But like I said, crossing state lines was the tricky part.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's not so bad to get it done in your own state.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Still hard, but we were able to make sure that that got done.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we're so excited and we really hope that we can benefit our membership
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: and future membership as we move forward.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: They sign up and they have to be an independent funeral home.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And those are the only rules?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, we do have a couple rules.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: We have an application process.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's not intensive at all.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: But we also have protective territories.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: we're going to take,
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: if there's a funeral home in this town this size, that's the funeral home.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they apply first and they meet all of the requirements of our rules.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Then We're going to grant them membership.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there,
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: part of the deal of us working with the family-owned funeral home is
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: to make sure they also have a competitive advantage.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we try to keep it that way.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there are other associations that had protective territories.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: We always have.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to continue that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, our whole goal, our whole mission statement is to keep family-owned, family-owned.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we...
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: This past year,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: a year ago,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: we went from being, we were always kind of a buying slash education group.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're officially a buying slash education group that also has insurance.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we're not stopping here because we listen to our membership because we work for them.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's part of the charm of this group.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when I hired in 14 years ago,
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: learning how to The executive director of this group was to make sure
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: that your full focus is on the family-owned funeral home.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of along those lines,
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: the other reason we were speaking was because you started getting people calling you
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: that wanted to be members.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't really do much solicitation,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: but the next thing you know,
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: you went from just being in a couple of states to being national members.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: We were in the Southeast and we always traditionally were only Southeast.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So when we decided to make that announcement a year ago, the board approved us to go nationwide.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we were nervous about it because we've always been in our regional pocket,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: but we were getting phone calls from people all over the country wondering
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: who we were because they found our website.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: We don't really advertise at all.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: We work by referral.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, we have a very light staff, but we don't want to.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: We always look at it this way.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: We always thought slow growth is good growth.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we always wanted the best funeral homes we could possibly find.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: And whatever, how many there are, it's how many there are.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we just make everything work.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: With what we have.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we're very fortunate to have a lot of really wonderful funeral homes in our group.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And they've been with us for a very long time.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so excited that,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: just even in the last seven days,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: we've brought in,
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: four new funeral homes that we would not have been able to get otherwise
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: and growing.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we're very excited about this.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're trying to be a very affordable group.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: If we go through the application process and you get approved, it's only $250 a year.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: We're not looking to,
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I guess,
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: not the correct word to use,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: like gouge or anything like that,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: but we're trying to make it affordable so that they can get everything
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: that they need.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we want them to have as much control as possible.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want that control.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody knows their community and their funeral home better than
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: the funeral home owner themselves.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we're never going to put ourselves in that position.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a lot of plans moving forward next year, too.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: We've got plans that we're going to be releasing next year.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: This doesn't stop here.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: But we do focus staying in our own lane, just taking care of our membership.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: We welcome people to entertain us,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: to visit or talk with us just to see if that's a possibility
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: that we could help them.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: We can't help everybody, but we can help a lot of people.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so very much for your time.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: I really do appreciate you inviting me here.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: And to all the family-owned funeral homes, we got your back.