An Old Friend Breathes New Life Into INDEMNUS

It sounds hard to believe that a progressive company like ours that was only three years old could benefit from new ideas. It would be hard to believe for a lot of firms. However, as I mentioned in yesterday's blog we are obsessive about pushing the envelope and at the speed in which we work, in our world one year seems like three.

Vipul (vee-pull) Shah and I grew up together in a suburb outside of Des Moines, Iowa. He had moved here with his family from India when he was very young. I met him while in the fifth grade. We hit it off almost immediately. We were both planners and dreamers. Had we been adults at the time you might have called us 'visionaries'. We were both very creative in different ways. I was interested in temporal arts (music, movies) and Vipul was great with numbers and a great problem solver. I'd have a hard time remembering now all of the home movies we produced or pseudo-businesses that we invented. Anyway, it was always great fun brainstorming with Vipul.

One Friday night in the fall of 2006 my wife and I were having dinner with Vipul and his wife. The conversation of business and automation began between Vipul and lasted most of the evening.

Unbeknownst to each other the two of us spent the entire weekend independently thinking about our conversation. I woke up in the middle of the night more than once to write down the multitude of ideas that were pouring into my head. I keep a notepad by my bedside just for this purpose. By Monday morning Vipul was at my office eager to pick up the discussions and share with me all of the thoughts that he had in his head since our dinner.

I welcomed that opportunity to share with him all of the things that we were doing at the agency. By this time Vipul had spent the better part of 12 years as a business consultant travelling throughout the United States. My business partner (and brother) Ryan and I welcomed all of the free advice that Vipul would offer.

We started by sharing with Vipul our expenses. Vipul managed to come up with several easy to implement ideas that had a great impact on our bottom line. Over the final months of 2006 he saved our company 20% off of our expenses. Remember I've already told you that I am the left brain thinker (creativity, etc) of the group. Complex financial modelling and spreadsheets are clearly not my forte.

After months of brainstorming and implementing some of our better ideas, genius struck. Genius had hit on such a grand scale that no idea before or since have ever compared in terms of scope and potential.

Vipul had spent a lot of time thinking about the workflows and automation that we had developed (I'll never divulge them here as our competitors read this blog too :) ). Anyway he was sitting in a church service. The pastor was requesting that the congregation consider a donation to the church's capital campaign. The church was building an addition and needed to raise money. Vipul looked around the room. Everyone in this room buys auto and home insurance and some even buy life insurance, he thought. Even in a state like Iowa, where premiums are among the lowest in the nation, the commissions that insurance agents earn on their policies must equal about $200 per family. And because of the unique nature of the insurance business, that $200 is earned by their agents every single year that their policies renew. To Vipul that meant that in a church with 2,000 members, their total opportunity represented $400,000! That's $400,000 the first year, $400,000 the second year and every year thereafter. Now obviously he knew that one could never come close in capturing 100% of anything. But if 10% of the congregation participated, that would equal a $40,000 contribution to the church every year. A sizable and perpetual income borne out of an everyday household expense. No donation required!

So there it was. The Indemnus Fund. Our minds went wild thinking of the possibilities that a program like this could create. Non-profit organizations could rally their supporters to save money on their insurance and support cherished causes at the same time. It was the ultimate win-win.

We've spent the past fourteen months researching similar programs (not many exist--believe me). We've met with attorneys, insurance commissioners and countless non-profit organizations. One of the last pieces to fall into place is a web-based quote to purchase solution. Ironically all most of those solutions arrive this month. With plans for Progressive and Allied Insurance to deliver an online rating and e-commerce solutions for us and EMC National Life to deliver a term life solution, the final piece of the Indemnus Fund puzzle has been laid.

Over the course of the next several months look for big changes at indemnusfund.org. All of the tools will soon be in place to allow you to quote your policy, vote for your favorite charity and research insurance terms and different types of policies. We are working with our insurance providers to offer you group discounts to ensure that our rates will always be among the lowest offered anywhere.

The potential for this program is overwhelming. We're excited about this opportunity and what it will mean for charitable organization throughout the United States. We look forward to hearing from you and your ideas about how we can make this program even better.

Regards.