#133: Mike Schroeder (Roundstone Insurance)

Lay of The Land

Mike Schroeder, Founder & President of Roundstone.

Mike founded Roundstone Insurance in 2003 — when they launched the first Group Medical Captive of its kind, and have since revolutionized the self-insurance industry. Roundstone’s captive approach to insurance allows small and mid-sized businesses to take advantage of the benefits of self-funded insurance that previously only larger enterprises could enjoy — such as plan flexibility & control, transparency, and cost savings. By banding smaller companies together in a shared-risk community, those companies are protected from volatility and can be rewarded with extra savings — in practice, since its inception, Roundstone has distributed over $72 million dollars back to its captive participants – money that, in the fully insured model, would be pocketed by the insurance carriers instead.

This idea, which began with an entrepreneurial vision of creating a better life for his family and for his employees, has since evolved under Mike’s leadership into a thriving 140-person company with more than 700 employers participating in Roundstone's Group Medical Captive, saving participating companies 20% on average relative to traditional insurance plans;

With more than twenty-five years of management experience and recognized by EY as a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year in 2022, Mike has a proven track record of growing Roundstone with a 30% CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) over the last two decades, which has earned Roundstound recognition as one of the fastest growing companies in America by Inc. 5000 for five consecutive years as well a Northeast Ohio Top Workplaces — all while remaining a fully independent, family-owned organization.

In our conversation today, we explore how Mike’s experience as a practicing attorney and a property and casualty insurance expert inspired his application of self-funding and captives to employer health insurance; we talk about what captives and self-funding even are and how they compare to traditional and fully insured coverage, we unpack the biggest challenges in the employer healthcare system today and how misaligned incentives encumber attempts to solve those challenges… and importantly, how Roundstone is trying to explicitly align those incentives. This was an amazing and wide-ranging discussion — Mike is a formidable builder and leader and has built an inspiring organization with Roundstone, based here in Lakewood, Ohio.

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Connect with Mike Schroeder on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelaschroeder/
Learn more about Roundstone — https://roundstoneinsurance.com/
Follow Roundstone on Twitter @CaptiveInsurer — https://twitter.com/CaptiveInsurer

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