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Kopps-Wagner brings healthy interest and engagement to fast-changing industry

By: Justin Kern//June 23, 2011//

Kopps-Wagner brings healthy interest and engagement to fast-changing industry

By: Justin Kern//June 23, 2011//

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(Staff photo by Kevin Harnack)
(Staff photo by Kevin Harnack)

When it comes to complex and political topics, you can’t find one much more loaded than “health care reform.” To Jennifer Kopps-Wagner, general counsel and senior vice president at Assurant Health, the phrase brings along with it echoes of “excitement” and “opportunity.”

With the recent health care overhaul on the federal level, Kopps-Wagner has adapted important health policies for the Fortune 500 company with an emphasis on seller agents and, ultimately, consumers to be introduced in dozens of states. Kopps-Wagner followed up her assessment that the changes have created an “incredibly challenging time” with her confidence in the skills of her team and connection with Assurant’s business division.

“With all of its difficulties and challenges comes a lot of opportunity, so it’s just a matter of trying to figure out our business inside that construct and our next step,” Kopps-Wagner said.

Scott Krienke, senior vice president of product lines and marketing at Assurant, has worked closely with Kopps-Wagner and her team of eight in business counsel legal representation at Assurant Health. Krienke lauded her capabilities to think broadly on risk assessment and deal structures for the legal end of policies, which are on the frontier of offerings and regulation.

“She is a very good partner and guide through that process, to take a midsized car and turn it into a pickup truck,” Krienke said. “Jennifer set this up through dozens of states, interpreting law that didn’t have regulations issued yet.”

Kopps-Wagner mentors three female lawyers, and said she consistently was mindful of the path women before her have made in the past two decades, including two previous Assurant Health counsels. Throughout policy deals and development, colleagues who nominated Kopps-Wagner cited her consciousness in bringing all pertinent in-house parties to the table, regardless of gender. It’s those partnerships that dig beyond superficial differences to success at the professional level that Kopps-Wagner said has made her most proud to this point in her career.

“It’s something completely different than what I thought I would be doing [out of law school], but I really enjoy the business aspect of it, being both a legal advisor as well as a business person who creates something and is looking to provide value to people and customers,” she said. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqRN4N70Esc

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