Lepanen Joins Higginbotham to Lead Employee Benefits Practice

Texas-based Higginbotham & Associates has appointed Dick Lepanen executive vice president in its Austin office. Lepanen brings more than 24 years’ experience in operations management and new business development with the last 17 years in the employee benefits marketplace. He will use those talents to expand the firm’s employee benefits production in Austin.

Lepanen joins Higginbotham from Aon Consulting in Austin where he led the Employee Benefits Consulting division. Previous to his 15-year tenure at Aon, Lepanen was a group health benefits account executive at New York Life/Sanus and a managed care benefits account executive at Travelers Health Network of Texas Inc., both in Austin.

“Companywide, Higginbotham’s practice is split almost evenly between property and casualty insurance and employee benefits. With Dick, we want to tap those employee benefit resources and make them available to our Austin clients,” said Curtis Page, managing director for Higginbotham in Austin.

Higginbotham brokers health, life, disability, retirement, compensation and voluntary worksite plans for employer groups of up to 3,000 employees. It also provides TPA services including health risk management, employee communications, HR technology, employee response and Section 125 Plan administration.

Source: Higginbotham & Associates