MANLIUS  —  A new, local financial-services firm says it’s shunning the big-broker feel. 

“In bigger companies, management decides what you do,” says Adam (AJ) Loedel, one of the founders of HighPoint Advisors, LLC. “We work for our clients.”

Loedel recently founded HighPoint along with Mathew Barber and Kristopher Wadsworth. The three started the firm in December, running it from their home offices until its headquarters was ready at the beginning of January.

That headquarters is located in suite 100 at 5900 N. Burdick St. in Manlius. It is in 2,000 square feet of space leased from Oot Bros., Inc.

The office was previously medical space and has been completely redone, according to Loedel. Crews even removed a shower as they converted the space, he says. Oot Bros. handled the work, and the cost of renovations is built into HighPoint’s lease.

“It doesn’t feel like a cube farm here,” Loedel says. “It doesn’t feel like a big competitive office.”

Loedel, Barber, and Wadsworth have known each other since 2003, when they worked together at MassMutual Financial Group. They weren’t at the same firm when they decided to form their own business, however. Loedel and Wadsworth most recently worked for MetLife, Inc., while Barber worked for JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The three HighPoint founders each specialize in different financial services. Loedel focuses on investment planning and Wadsworth deals with retirement planning and wealth transfer. Barber specializes in retirement-income planning and distribution strategies for pre-retired families, retired families, and small businesses.

HighPoint’s founders have the chance to deal with a wider range of financial products since they started the company, Barber says. The independent firm partners with LPL Financial as its broker/dealer, giving it access to services and programs from 17 companies.

“We can all still sell a MetLife product or a JPMorgan fund,” Barber says. “We don’t have to fit anyone into a specific mold.”

The firm currently has about 150 clients and another 50 who are in the process of transferring to it. And its founders have plans for more growth.

HighPoint is looking for individual clients and small businesses. Its target business has between one and 50 employees, and the company expects interest from doctor’s offices and dental offices.

HighPoint Advisors, LLC employs one part-time administrative assistant in addition to Loedel, Barber, and Wadsworth. And, its owners would like to add four more financial advisors over the next two years.

“The goal is to eventually grow even more,” says Wadsworth. “We want to hire either experienced people or people who have potential in this business.”

HighPoint’s owners plan to fuel its growth with advertising, although they declined to share any specific plans. They will also hold financial-education workshops, according to Wadsworth.

“They would be IRA rollovers,” he says. “Wealth transfer, estate planning. We’re looking to do them every two months.”

The firm’s next scheduled workshop is April 26, according to Wadsworth. It will focus on retirement income.

Loedel, Barber, and Wadsworth declined to share revenue estimates for 2012 because they say it’s too early to offer accurate projections. HighPoint will focus on fee-based services as opposed to upfront commissions, according to Loedel.

“We’re moving as the industry moves toward fee-for-service,” he says. “That really ties the client and the advisor together.”

A new set of federal rules aims to make examining different health-insurance plans less like brain surgery and more like comparison shopping for cars.

The rules set up a Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC), a document containing basic information for an insurance plan ranging from its deductible to its required co-pay fees for common medical services like eye examinations. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), U.S Department of Labor, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury unveiled the final version of the SBC rule Feb. 9.

Insurers will have to start providing SBCs for policyholders and prospective policyholders on Sept. 23. The summaries are required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the 2010 federal health-care reform law.

HHS has compared SBCs to nutrition-facts labels on packaged foods. All insurers will use the same SBC template, and SBCs for different plans will contain details in the same place, so the top line on each SBC will list a plan’s overall deductible, and the third line will hold information on out-of-pocket expense limits, for example.

That will make it easier for businesses and individuals to see the different benefits available with various carriers and plans, according to Renee Guariglia, executive vice president at Syracuse–based Falcone Associates, Inc. and a member of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of New York, Inc.’s (IIABNY) health-care reform task force.

“When you’ve got each carrier using a different format, and you’re trying to explain the deductible and the out-of-pocket expenses, it is difficult,” Guariglia says. “Now you will have uniform benefit summaries.”

Insurance brokers and agents will benefit from SBCs, contends Guariglia, who also sits on the board of directors of the New York State Association of Health Underwriters and the board of directors of IAAC, Inc., which is IIABNY’s membership-services division. In addition, the benefit summaries will be a help to businesses and consumers, she says.

“Having that summary is going to make our jobs easier, but is really going to allow us to educate people as to what the plan is that they’re selecting,” Guariglia says. “And they’ll understand to a better degree what benefits they have, what it’s going to cost them to go to a doctor, [and] to have a procedure done.”

In the past, an agent or broker would have had to create a spreadsheet to allow groups to easily compare different insurance options, according to Guariglia. That was a common practice, but it’s a step that now often won’t be necessary with the new SBCs, she says.

SBCs will be helpful for businesses that don’t use an insurance broker, Guariglia predicts. The information on the sheets will make it easier for those companies to discuss their options with carrier representatives, she says.

However, the summaries will not take the place of brokers and agents, she adds. Some carriers will likely provide more details on SBCs than others, leaving brokers and agents to fill in the gaps for their clients. And groups of employees will still ask questions that can’t be answered by a prefabricated sheet of paper.

“At the end of the day, the broker is still there to educate the consumer,” she says. “We’re there in front of the group. They know us. They call us.”

Reaction to the SBC rules was not universally positive, however. Karen Ignagni, the CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a national trade association representing the health-insurance industry, said in a news release that the regulations could increase administrative burdens for insurers, consumers, and employers.

“The rule requires that a separate document be available for each potential family size and for every possible benefit design option, including different cost-sharing levels, prescription drug formularies, and network designs,” Ignagni said. “Requiring a separate document for each coverage scenario will significantly increase administrative costs and potentially result in consumers having to sort through scores of pages of coverage information.”

Glossary of terms

The rules issued Feb. 9 also establish a uniform glossary of terms that are commonly used in health-insurance coverage — terms like co-payment and co-insurance. That glossary will help employees better understand their coverage, Guariglia says.

“When you’re doing a meeting and that employee goes home to speak to their spouse, they’re going to have the SBC, they’re going to have the uniform glossary to say, OK, I have a $15 co-pay — let me look up what a co-pay is,” she says.

The uniform glossary will be posted online. It is currently available at www.dol.gov/ebsa/healthreform.