Greetings,

Spiritdental.com is an online storefront for Direct Benefits, Inc., a managing general agency that provides full-service, one-stop dental, disability, life and vision benefits consulting to employee benefits agents and brokers nationwide. Spiritdental.com allows individuals to calculate their rates and enroll online; easily, quickly, and without confusion.

Tom Mayer,
Spirit Dental Founder

Our approach is simple. We listen. We listen to you and our clients' needs.

We heard our customers say they didn't want to print out forms and mail them in and have to wait for an answer.

We heard our customers say they wanted to plainly see the rates they'd pay, what would be covered, and easily sign up online.

We also heard our customers ask for the best, most economical plan that gives you the most choices possible. Spirit lets you choose Indemnity or PPO dentist, graded benefits or waiting periods, child orthodontia, and much more. That's why we created Spirit Dental.

Using this simple approach, we build quality long-term relationships with providers that allow us to offer you the best products to meet your specific needs.

To learn more about Direct Benefits, Inc., you can visit www.directbenefits.com

Meet Our Dedicated Staff

Paulette Kotila, Dental Guru,
CISR Paulette Kotila has been active in insurance for seventeen years.
Paulette began her career in nursing. She worked in a doctor's office and then left to teach certified medical assistants. She taught nursing skills, lab work, and filling out insurance forms.
When her youngest child was born, Paulette left teaching and began her insurance career. She started in life and health, and then went on to commercial insurance. Her first love has always been life and health and she is finally back doing what she likes best. Paulette enjoys the people contact and working with the brokers.
She has continued her education in insurance over the years. Paulette has taken and received her designation for CISR, and is now taking classes for the designation of CLU.


Fride Mauritzen is the Chief Quoting Officer at Direct Benefits.
Fride is a native of Norway but completed a majority of her schooling in the USA. She graduated in 1997 from Concordia College in Moorhead Minnesota with a double major in Business and Scandinavian Studies. She has been active in the financial services industry for seven years. Fride previously worked as a customer service representative for Delta Dental of Minnesota and as a client associate and senior branch operation associate for RBC Dain Rauscher, a top 10 full-service securities firm. Her other jobs have included horseback riding instructor, trail guide, cook, office manager, snowmobile instructor and an electric fence tester. Fride's hobbies include softball, snowboarding, traveling, and volleyball. Fride normally gets your quotes within 24 hours or less. Ya! You BETCHA!


Diane Lysen - VP of Broker Operations & Benefits Fairy Godmother
Diane’s career in the health insurance industry started in 1972 at Control Data’s employee benefits department. In 1983 she joined Hanratty & Associates as office manager. 3 years later in 1986, Diane went to work as an account manager at Chandler Insurance. Her manager at Chandler recognized the talent she had working with clients and encouraged her to consider sales on a full-time basis.

In 1991 she and a former property and casualty colleague formed Consultants 4 Insurance Benefits. As a partner and Vice President of Benefits Administration, she successfully helped the agency achieve a preferred agency status with many carriers in both health insurance and ancillary products.

The Minnesota Association of Health Underwriters (MAHU-NAHU) has played a major role in Diane’s career. She has been a member of MAHU/NAHU for 20+ years and was President of the Minnesota Association of Health Underwriters in 2001-2002.

In 2003 she was awarded the Symanitz Award, which honors only one person each year in the state for their outstanding contributions to the insurance industry. Diane currently serves as the Region 4 Media Relations chair.
Diane’s new position as Vice President of Broker Operations for Direct Benefits will allow her to utilize all of her skills and industry knowledge. She looks forward to waiving her pink magic wand to increase sales for the agents doing business with Direct Benefits.

Diane enjoys spending her free time with friends and family and catering to her two Scottie dogs, Winston and Duffy. She enjoys gourmet cooking, especially Italian food, and watching HGTV and Food TV Network.


Carrissa Profant - Benefits Therapy Officer
Carrissa joined Direct Benefits after more than 12 years in the healthcare and insurance industries. Her career path has included working for companies like Diversified Pharmaceutical, Smith Kline Beecham, United HealthCare and Delta Dental Plan of Minnesota. She's worked her way up from member materials to contract installations, proposals, and underwriting and now finally to sales. Carrissa's role at Direct Benefits is to wear all those hats and more. She takes pride in providing creative and responsive solutions to our agents and then making sure everything is processed smoothly for their clients.

Carrissa enjoys being active outside the office too. Her hobbies include: traveling, motorcycling, volleyball, and the occasional remodeling project around her house. In her down time she loves to catch up on the latest movies, HGtv, Boston Legal, and Grey's Anatomy!


Tracy Hagemeier - Benefits Princess
Tracey brings more than 8 years of experience in the insurance industry to her position with Direct Benefits with prior employers ranging from Delta Dental Plan of Minnesota, Park Nicollet Medical Center to the State of Minnesota. Tracey has a laundry list of experience in a wide variety of areas ranging from employee benefits to insurance billing, claims review and even the development of ceramic dental molds. While working her way up the ranks with previous employers, she also pursued and achieved an Associates Degree in Veterinary Assisting. Tracey takes pride in her ability to effectively resolve customer concerns while also balancing the responsibility of new group implementation.


Tracey’s hobbies include, but are not limited to - biking, bowling, music, reading, caring for animals, and trying to figure out what will happen next on "LOST".


Jodie Ingeman, Benefits Rock Star
Born and raised in Minneapolis and a graduate of South High School, Jodie participated in the infamous "Work Program" and landed her 1st job at Dr. Brackney & Associates. After graduation she continued working full-time at the dental office for 5 years until the birth of her first child. Jodie became a stay at home mom until her children were full-time students. Then she went back to school and earned her M.S.C. degree at Saint Paul Technical College. After working at Affiliated Reconstructive & Cosmetic Plastic Surgery for several years, Jodie was lured into the insurance industry in 1999. At Corporate Benefit Services of America (CBSA), she spent 7 years in the administration services only (self-funded), new business processing and underwriting departments and 1 year at Insurance Administrators Corporation (IAC). She has enjoyed working in this field ever since.
Jodie enjoys cruising the Caribbean, camping at Minnesota State and National parks, walking, Sunday dinners with her whole family and playing with her 3 dogs-Boogie, Ellie and Vito.


Tys Sniffen - Direct Web Monkey
Tys is heading up 'Direct Benefits West' as a vaguely experienced website developer and project manager. With knowledge of internet marketing and usability issues, Tys tries to keep the insurance language to a minimum and ease-of-use at the top of the list.


Having run his own efficiency consulting business as well as a stint as a consultant in Human Resources, Tys brings a 'let's get this done' mentality to the Direct Benefits Team. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Hamline University, and has previously been an Executive with the Boy Scouts of America, a Sales Director for an international software company, and a Sales Rep in a number of industries.

Other aspects of heading up the west coast office include: always carrying the five foot long tooth brush to the conventions, living off-the-grid and three miles off the paved road in a yurt (a round Mongolian-style tent), practicing martial arts with his lovely wife Melissa, growing his own food and hot-tubbing as often as possible.