About the Founder and CEO
Eric C. Wurzel
Eric C. Wurzel is the founding partner and serves as President/CEO of Bold Lion Brokerage LLC (d/b/a Bold Lion Benefits (BLB)). Mr. Wurzel has more than 30 years of experience underwriting of group insurance products to reduce excess vendor margin as well as marketing and servicing the same.
His employment within the healthcare industry originated at Great West Life & Annuity, where he specialized in the saelf-funded group medical and ancillary insurance products. In 1991, he was recruited by a managed care company, Oxford Health Plans, Inc., to work within its Broker Business Unit (BBU) located in New York City. After 9 consecutive years as Oxford’s #1 organizational salesperson (for 5 of these years Oxford was the fastest growing company in America, regardless of industry). Wurzel was hired internally by Oxford’s Senior Management to produce seminars/lectures regarding field–underwriting of companies with 25 – 5,000 employees. Eric presented these lectures to Oxford’s entire sales and service staff. Wurzel served as Oxford’s Director of Sales for his final 2 years of employment at Oxford, which ended in 2000.
Realizing the massive void in knowledge that brokers had in their ability to underwrite risk and accurately assess premium levels for their clients, Wurzel left Oxford to begin his much-lauded career at Travers, O’keefe & Associates (TOK). While at TOK, he brokered companies that ranged in size from 50 - 8,000 employees. Eric served as a partner at Travers, O’keefe & Associates, Inc. for 6 years before moving to Towers Perrin (presently Towers Willis Watson) where he further honed his underwriting skills to better attack insurers’ bloated medical and ancillary premiums using cutting edge underwriting techniques. Wurzel has consistently delivered the best possible new and renewal business premiums to his clients that are available in the marketplace.
Mr. Wurzel has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall St. Journal, Crain’s Magazine and USA Today amongst others and his writings have appeared in National Underwriter Magazine. Wurzel was also the special guest of Michele Caruso-Cabrera on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” regarding The Mental Health Parity Act, and he has given lectures about trends and hot topics in the group medical insurance industry throughout the United States.
Eric is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, where he majored in Economics Management. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and currently splits his time between Southport, Connecticut, and Charleston, South Carolina.