West Allis-based Dynamis Software Corp. recently launched its first product, the Dynamic Plan Designer, which is a cloud-based software system for health insurance brokers.
The software allows brokers to “showcase and communicate their expertise in plan design to their clients,” said chief executive officer Andy Nunemaker.
“It allows them to sell more quickly,” he said. “It really takes them into the 21st century when it comes to communicating plan design. (Health insurance brokers) were all – with no exception – 20 years behind the times.”
The Dynamic Plan Designer takes this part of the business up to Google speed with Google flexibility, shortening the sales process to a single meeting.
“All health insurance brokers were using excel spreadsheets and three-ring binder reports, printed reports, to discuss a very dynamic part of their business plan design,” Nunemaker said. “In the Google age where all of us expect answers in 15 seconds, to come back and say, ‘Oh, I’ll have to get back to you on that,’ and come back two days later with a new set of spreadsheets is ridiculous.”
Nunemaker was the founder of EMSystems LLC, a provider of web-based health care information technology solutions in the public health and emergency services markets, in 2004. That company was sold to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Intermedix Corp. in April, 2010. Nunemaker led the management group that sold EMSystems, and stayed on with Intermedix for two years to run its emergency preparedness division. He then moved on to form Dynamis by acquiring the company Dynamic Benefit Systems, which had the original version of what became the Dynamic Plan Designer product.
Funding for Dynamis came from Golden Angels Investors LLC, the Milwaukee Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) and the West Allis Department of Development. Total funding will reach $1.5 million by the middle of this year, said Nunemaker.
The cloud-based Dynamic Plan Designer software is functional and interactive on a variety of different platforms, and is specifically designed to utilize the iPad as a selling tool. Being on the cloud also adds flexibility, allowing for improvements to be implemented more rapidly.
“As we come up with improvements, new features and new functionality, we can immediately release that to all of our clients,” said Nunemaker. “That’s the reason we redid this as a cloud-based system.”
Through the company’s development, Nunemaker and his team are employing a specific strategy for determining clients, focusing exclusively on health insurance agencies that are pushing themselves forward and looking to grow within the health insurance market.
“I think other people are running away from this market and we’re running straight into it,” said Nunemaker. “We’re making investments in the health care insurance market where other companies who are even in it today are going the other way, they’re retreating, they’re diversifying out of health insurance, and we’re solely investing in health insurance agencies.”
While there is uncertainty in what’s ahead as the Affordable Care Act is implemented, Dynamis is betting that group health insurance will still be important.
“We think, despite some of the changes with the Affordable Care Act, that group health care is going to be relevant and still going to be a differentiator for employers, that they will offer it, and that they’ll need brokers to purchase it,” said Nunemaker. “That’s a fundamental bet that we’re making.”
With health insurers faced with challenges in addressing rising premiums and adapting to the introduction of reform legislation, the industry is getting more competitive and more decisions are being made based on costs, said Nunemaker, and the Dynamic Plan Designer is built to address the bottom line.
“Prior to Obamacare being introduced and prior to these ridiculously high skyrocketing premium increases we’ve seen in the last few years, this was more of a relationship business,” said Nunemaker. “You bought insurance from your golfing buddies. You didn’t really care as much about the bottom line impact of health care costs like you do today.”
The official release of the Dynamic Plan Designer came on April 26, roughly one year after the company was formed. Before the release, extensive research went into the product’s development, as Nunemaker and his team had conversations not only with clients and potential clients, but also with employers in order to find out what they wanted in this type of product.
“We designed all the presentation modules of the system – the entire presentation system for employers – around direct employer feedback,” said Nunemaker.
