Principal: Meet Richard Matthews

Richard graduated from Western Michigan University in 1968 with a degree in teaching. After 4 years in education he left the field to begin his insurance career with Equitable Life of New York.

He struck out on his own in 1984 to establish an employee benefit practice in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. In 1986 he established a specialty product with Cigna for ancillary benefits that fit perfectly with Michigan Blue Cross and Blue Shield. At the time BCBS has a “triple option” health product that was a perfect precursor for Defined Contribution plans. The combination of the BCBS health product and the Cigna ancillary plans allowed Richard and his new partners to lead the way for DC plans for companies with as few as 25 employees.

While DMCO enjoyed great success with the DC approach, it created substantial administrative headaches with the annual Open Enrollments. So in 1996 Dick jumped on the digital admin bandwagon with Employease and never looked back. In 2004 he sent everyone home to work at their own pace from their own homes. And again, neither he nor his staff ever looked back. Over the years DMCO has used a number of vendors including the aforementioned Employease, bSwift, benefitsConnect, and Accordware.

Dick (along with his wife Martha) moved to South Carolina in 1997 betting that the Internet would be the future of the insurance business - actually the future of any and every information based enterprise. It took a while to be sure, but now there is no doubt that a digital backbone is required for any agency that wants to survive and thrive in the 21st Century.

Dick now calls on agents that need guidance on moving their practice and admin services in to the digital age, with ACA compliance a real specialty.