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Special delivery From his childhood days consolidating paper routes in his neighborhood in Dallas to his current role as a leading benefits innovator, Dan LaBroad has always wanted to run the show.

By Dan Cook | Photography by Kevin Garrett

From an early age, Dan LaBroad wanted to run his own show. He started as a kid, consolidating paper routes in his neighborhood in Dallas until he sold them for a profit. Working for others didn’t work out so well. As a young adult, he was let go by a major financial services firm and found himself broke. But he had one important asset: The insurance license he had to obtain as part of his (former) job. That license propelled him into realms he didn’t even know existed.

The lessons he learned from his paper route have served him well: Find a gig, do it well, and seek opportunities to expand. Never content to remain a traditional insurance broker, LaBroad serves both his clients and his industry with ingenuity and passion.

Looking back on his career trajectory, he cites his desire to be in charge as the thread running through it.

“I knew that I wanted to be a business owner and entrepreneur from an early age. I have always had a desire for freedom, to work as I wanted, and to set the rules. I am not a big follower of the status quo.”

In fact, he was always a bit of a rebel. After he parted ways with the financial services firm, he looked for his next opportunity. He’d been injured in a cycling incident, and was covered by an Aflac policy. He got paid, then dug deeper into this niche product about which he knew very little. Since he already had an insurance license, he decided to give sales a shot.

“The first year was really rough, as supplemental policies were new and Aflac was unknown. I was cold calling, door knocking, and trying to close small groups to pay the bills, all without a car. In my second year, with the help of my now wife, Haewon, an accomplished health care architect and my biggest supporter from day one, I became a top agent in Texas.”

LaBroad opened 42 new accounts that year. “Eventually, clients started asking me to do their other benefits as well. Ovation was born as a small business benefits broker.”

“I have always had a desire for freedom, to work as I wanted, and to set the rules. I am not a big follower of the status quo.”

His next opportunity came in 2010, with the passage of the ACA. Not everyone saw the possibilities, but as usual, LaBroad had his own perspective.

“I was really getting burned out spreadsheeting and competing against other brokers with the same plans and rates. I was ready to exit the game. Then, ACA came into play; while others were battling for repeal, I decided to embrace it and prepare for change.”

LaBroad latched on to the ACA with the intention of mastering it and expanding.

“I started bringing level-funded solutions to prospects and clients. It was a new concept and hard to sell, but it made sense to me, and I was presenting something different. When I began to show them lower costs with more transparency and control, I felt like I was more than just a broker. I was a consultant.”

Up to this point, LaBroad had been pretty much self-educated, advancing through trial and error.

Help from friends

“I did everything on my own, made a lot of mistakes and had a lot of successes in the first years,” he says. “Eventually, I gained an important mentor and best friend, who helped me grow the business.”

That friend was Joe Fernandez, CEO/Founder of TBX Benefits. “Joe was an amazing teacher. We used to have lunch once a month and eat churrascaria steak, play chess, and talk insurance while he sketched out strategies on a legal pad. He has been a sounding board, teacher and supporter for the last 15 years.”

And the feeling is reciprocal.

“I have learned as much from Dan as he may have learned from me,” Fernandez says. “He exemplifies service, innovation, and is always ready to serve, lead and help others be their best.”

Fernandez witnessed LaBroad’s realization of his potential as both an advisor to his clients and a force for knowledge, exchange, and innovation within the industry. He was among the first to share LaBroad’s epiphany that he could move his clients to complete self-funding, a concept about which he had been uncertain.

“I went to the ASCEND conference in 2017 and my mind was blown,” LaBroad recalls. “Nelson Griswold and his Mastermind consultants were talking about lower costs, better benefits, and higher quality of care. They were speaking the language I loved. So I dove in and learned all I could about self-funding over a two-year period.”

Soon, he decided to put what he’d been studying into practice.

“I closed my first truly unbundled self-funded plan with a 200 employee group. They had been self-funded for 20-plus years, but I brought new ideas, better benefits, and cost savings. Nelson Griswold, the NextGen Mastermind partners, and Joe Fernandez guided me through the early days of self-funding. And then things took off.”

Having found his rightful place in the industry, LaBroad reveled in his newfound knowledge. And his clients loved it.

“One of my longest tenured and larger clients is Akorbi, an international leader in localization and translation services,” he says. “We took them to level funded plans, and eventually into an unbundled self-funded plan.”

Over time, the benefits of the strategy flowed back to the client. Costs became stable for five years, with claims surpluses each year. The company invested the savings back into its plan members by reducing premium costs.

Other success stories include a 40-life client that reduced costs by 42% in its first year with a customized level funded plan, or the 200-life group that quadrupled surplus claims after LaBroad led them to self-funding.

Never content to gather dust, LaBroad began hosting discussions with like-minded brokers, exploring ways to help clients get more benefits bang for their bucks. He is the creator and host of a podcast and show on C-Suite TV, and was recently featured on United Airlines in-flight viewing.

A recipient of many industry accolades, he was honored as the “NextGen Adviser of the Year” at the 2022 ASCEND conference.

But LaBroad’s life isn’t all business.

“Dan is an amazing family man,” says Fernandez. “A true example of the whole package. Business, family, friends.”

And it all grew from a kid with a paper route who had big dreams, and the courage to pursue them.