There's no feminine mystique with benefits consultants Mary Lou Buettner and her daughter, Laurie Miller, who pride themselves on their attention to clients....

by Karen Lee

February 1, 2005 - There's no feminine mystique with benefits consultants Mary Lou Buettner and her daughter, Laurie Miller, who pride themselves on their attention to clients. Miller, for example, is the one who tells you straight up that their agency tries to "outservice everybody."

That may sound like common sense; service obviously is an important part of the broker-employer transaction. But clients routinely extol Miller & Buettner Inc., of Winnebago, Ill., indicating that service is more appreciated than many people realize.

"They have service like I've never seen," says Clarice Brown, who handles administrative matters, including benefits, for Rockford Industrial Welding Supply, a 98-life company in Rockford, Ill. "They seem to have more follow-up ... They seem to go out of their way more than any broker I've ever seen."

That means regular meetings, extensive preparation before those meetings, monthly status calls, yearly seminars with speakers such as local politicians or hospital administrators, efforts to make sure all the paperwork is done. It also means little, personal touches, such as birthday cards for Brown or cookies during the holidays.

"They give us the attention, which is easy to get away from," remarks Bruce Obendorf, executive vice president and finance director for Kable News Co. in Mt. Morris, Ill.

In fact, a "wall of fame" at the agency displays letters and e-mails thanking brokers and support staff for their extra service and attention.

Clearly, Buettner, 60, and Miller, 41, have made a success of their seven-year-old agency, making them something of an anomaly in the overwhelmingly male world of insurance sales.

Gender bender

Despite the ever-increasing presence of women in the workplace over the years, a dearth of women still exists in the world of insurance brokers. Statistics show that number is growing, but men still constitute the vast majority of brokers and advisers.

A report by LIMRA International found that in 2001 (the most recent numbers available), about 20% of affiliated career agents were female, but only 7% of some 6,750 agency heads - 472 of them - were women.

"In our area, there are more female brokers than there were," says Miller. "But very few own firms, and if they do, they're usually one-person operations."

She and her mother did not exactly plan to establish their own agency, although they both had put in time in various aspects of the insurance business. Miller, a former journalist and public relations representative, worked with a health plan for several years and spent five getting her MBA, while her mother has more than 30 years in the industry, including 17 at Aetna and six at a broker firm.

They opened their agency with only one employee and now have 10, including an additional broker who usually works with mid-sized companies of a few hundred employees, including 40 school districts. They take pride in the money they save their clients - such as the $150,000 they saved a 135-person company, or the $100,000 savings on one transplant claim for a 2,000-life client.

It is hard to say whether their success has anything to do with any sort of a female sensibility. Certainly, Miller is not sure that has much to do with the way they do business, since she does not necessarily know how male brokers practice.

But really - can you picture a male broker bringing the clients Christmas cookies?

Maybe Buettner and Miller do not run their business the way they do primarily because they are women, but that the fact that they are informs their experiences and interactions.

Buettner, at one point a single mother, received her college degree after 10 years of going to school one night a week so she would not have to spend too much time away from her children. While she had a mentor at Aetna, manager Don Thoes, who encouraged her studies, she also remembers working for the insurer when the first female group insurance representative was hired at her office.

"They didn't know how to treat this woman," Buettner says. "They were worried about what people would say [about a female agent]."

To an extent, that attitude still exists. For instance, you will not necessarily find Miller and Buettner partaking in that usually male bastion of networking, the golf outing. Because neither woman plays very much, Miller notes, they miss out on a number of vendor-sponsored golf days, although they do occasionally participate.

Besides, she continues, "I think some carriers have some difficulty imagining women in anything but support positions."

"We're not part of the good old boy club,' so we miss out on things," Buettner says.

Becoming indispensable

So they make up for that by making themselves indispensable to their clients. Miller, Buettner and their staff handle just about everything for the employers, including reinsurance.

Obendorf, who works in his company's Illinois office, where a quarter of Kable News' 1,600 employees are located, says he originally was looking for a nearby broker who would provide more personalized service and take a flat fee. He found, he says, "someone you can trust."

Among other things, Buettner stepped in to handle much of Kable News' day-to-day business when the company's benefits manager left. Moreover, Miller & Buettner has been successful in keeping Kable News' health care costs down over the last two years, after a previous 20% increase.

"We feel comfortable with their personalities, and their relationships with vendors go a long way," Obendorf states. "They're well-rounded in a lot of areas and they bring good alternatives to the table."

Buettner and Miller want to continue to expand their agency - within reason. After all, raising four children between ages 8 and 14, as Miller is doing, takes a great deal of time, although she and Buettner receive a lot of help and support from their husbands of 19 and 30 years, respectively.

They will, however, continue conducting their business the way they always have, with persistence, organization and significant attention to detail and to their clients.

"The whole goal is to keep clients long term," Miller says. "We stay on a claim until it's solved." - .K.L.