Employee Benefits in 2024

Jeff Risch
Amundsen Davis LLC

As a former manager and current business owner, Jeff Risch understands his customers’ objectives and applies his passion for business to his work defending employers. As co-chair of the firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group, Jeff oversees a team providing comprehensive counsel to employers across the country. His practice emphasizes all aspects of management-side labor and employment litigation in addition to traditional labor matters. He advises employers, providing them with the most efficient avenue to effectively manage.

Jennifer Smith-Hulbert
Director – Healthcare Innovation | Benefits Consultant

 In this role, Jenn is responsible for monitoring innovative and non-traditional healthcare strategies, vendors, and disruptors bubbling up around the country.  Jenn regularly meets with these cutting-edge solution providers, and brings back innovative products, strategies, and thought processes to benefit our teams and our clients.

A key component of Jenn’s role is to assess, summarize, and make available locally the initiatives, services, vendors, and disruptors being vetted by the national Brown & Brown “Innovation Lab”. Jenn reviews strategies emerging across the country with clients and prospects.

Prior Jenn was a national sales director and consultant accumulating over 15 years of experience creating new, innovative channels for employers to access and purchase healthcare.  She lowers total health plan costs while improving patient outcomes through strategies that challenge the status quo, meet employers long term benefit goals and match company culture.

Josh Rydberg
Vice President - Underwriting Services

As Vice President of Underwriting Services, Josh’s primary role is to design and implement financial management strategies for clients across the country. He also develops, maintains, and delivers financial tools and methodologies that assist in the effective management of employer-sponsored health plans.

Josh routinely provides internal and external education regarding unique opportunities for groups to improve health plan structure. By leveraging a distinctive presentation style, he illustrates the impact of pricing and consumer purchasing behavior on both employers and members. This simplification of complex theories creates actionable results that are often contrary to current trends.

A broad insurance background – which includes pricing for workers’ compensation, automobile, homeowners, and various other Property and Casualty coverages in addition to group benefits – allows Josh an objective perspective when devising and communicating winning medical plan strategies. It also provides him the ability to engage with clients that are interested in evaluating enterprise risk and cost.