Whatever the name – Major Medical, ACA, Medicare Advantage (MA), Medicare Supplement, Short Term Medical, Hospital Indemnity (Access plan), Small Group and more – the Health Insurance marketplace has proved to be ever evolving – mostly for the better.
What has been very good – is the private sector has been included in the transformation of this process with the introduction of Medicare Advantage (2003) and PPACA (2014), otherwise known as Obamacare (ACA plans). If you sold health insurance pre Obamacare – or Medicare Supplements pre MA – you can really appreciate guaranteed issue products – no waiting periods or rate ups – and most importantly – federal premium subsidies! Clearly – many of our agents have greatly benefited from these new products – including our company.
As we have all recently seen – the ACA space is now looking like the MA space with the introduction of the enrollment scope. This is all for the good of the consumer and continuation of a vibrant ACA market and I applaud it. All of you selling ACA should be happy as well. This should put an end to the ‘theft’ of $0 premium ACA plans by rouge agents.
In tandem with the Scope – we are now hosting Florida Blue/Compass Health ‘welcome calls’ to new enrollees. We feel these are particularly important to the $0 premium policyholder’s so we have affirmation a scope was taken and they fully understand they have been enrolled into an ACA plan with FB. This is one more step to strengthen the policyholder relationship and improve retention.
A funny thing happened on the way to the $0 premium ACA welcome calls……..we learned by asking that approximately 30% of the new applicants are interested in obtaining Dental & Vision! Imagine our surprise! My thought is if they are interested in Dental (which everyone needs and uses) – might they be interested in other products such as Accident, Critical Illness & Life Insurance? After all – they are receiving their health insurance for free – seems like a segment of these folks do have $10 a week to invest in other benefits.
Why am I bringing this up? Because Opportunities abound if you get out of your comfort zone!
While the ACA has brought many great benefits to individual health insurance space – the number of individuals insured over the last 30 years hasn’t changed much. We still insure 20 – 30M individuals in this space. What has changed is who is buying ACA and/or not. While many lower and lower-middle income people have been served by the generous subsidies and are now covered – the new uninsured is the self-employed, small businesses and white collar professionals such as Realtors, CPA’s, General Contractors, etc.
Don’t forget about this market – it is BIG and getting larger all the time. We now have Allstate Health Solutions for this market – a household brand people know and trust! Start working this market – these consumers need our products and many others contained in our ‘Best in Class’ portfolio.
To best support our Company objectives, Agents & Policyholders – we have re-organized the Company so each Carrier and/or Product category is supported by a Department Head. Your customers have many needs – just like you. We hope you will make the time and effort to learn our portfolio and market all the great products we offer to all of your customers – they need you and them!