fbpx
What are Medicare SEP’s?

What are Medicare SEP’s?

What are Medicare SEP’s?
Comments

To start off you may wonder what are Medicare SEP’s and what does SEP even stands for. According to Medicare.gov  “when certain events happen in your life, like if you move or you lose other insurance coverage. These opportunities to make changes are called Special Enrollment Periods (SEPs). Rules about when you can make changes and the type of changes you can make are different for each SEP.”

Can You Market SEP’s?

Certain Special Election Periods you will be able to market. The most common is to go after DSNP, Dual Special Needs, Clients. Dual special needs refer to the Medicare and Medicaid coverage that these clients are eligible for.  Obviously, because they must be Medicaid eligible this means these clients are low income. This makes it extremely easy to target leads because most programs can filter clients by income.

When is the SEP for DSNP Clients?

The reason we bring up marketing Dual Special Needs clients is because they can make a change to their plan once every quarter. This is a presents ample opportunity for agents to have year-round Medicare sales. I believe that sometimes this can be a better alternative than marketing specifically to turning 65 agents. T65 clients are often over-marketed, and you make just as many commissions as you would a regular Medicare Advantage sale.

Are there other SEP’s I can Market?

There are other reasons your clients may have a SEP, a lot actually, but not as many that you could potentially market in bulk. Some examples are loss of credible coverage, change of address, or change to their Medicaid status. I would say the most popular SEP agents would run into if not marketing DSNP is loss of credible coverage. An example could be a client on group coverage retiring, losing that coverage, and enrolling into Medicare.

The team at Pinnacle Financial Services is here to help.  Not sure if your client qualifies for a SEP? Need some additional one on one training? For any other questions please feel free to reach out to a sales director today.   We can be reached at 1-800-772-6881 x-7731 or healthsales@pfsinsurance.com.

For more information, contact a Pinnacle Financial Services representative today

1 (800) 772-6881 x7731 | sales@pfsinsurance.com

James Norton

James Norton

Director of sales | Heatlh

x7797 | jnorton@pfsinsurance.com

Contact a Pinnacle Representative if you have any questions.

1 (800) 772-6881
support@pfsinsurance.com

Contact Us

Contact a Pinnacle Financial Service representative today for assistance.

CallEmail

Medicare Advantage Commissions

Medicare Advantage Commissions

Medicare Advantage Commissions
Comments

Each year CMS changes the Medicare Advantage Commissions. Fortunately for Medicare agents, this amount has increased every year it has been in existence. Not only does this apply to Medicare Advantage (MA/MAPD) commissions but also to Prescription Drug plan (PDP) payouts.

How Medicare Advantage Commissions are paying out in 2021

If you were selling Medicare advantage plans or PDP’s this past year then you know $510 was paid out on “new to Medicare” cases. $255 was paid out on renewal or plan to plan change basis. These amounts apply to the majority of states excluding  PA, CT, DC, CA, NJ, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. For 2021, those amounts have gone up to $539 and $270. The same structure applies to PDP’s except the amounts are a lot lower. $81 for new PDPs and $41 for renewals or plan changes for 2021.

What if you sell in PA, CT, DC, CA, NJ, PR, or the Virgin Islands?

Good news. If you sell in any of the states listed above your commissions are higher than listed in the previous paragraph. See the chart below for the full breakdown.

Initial Renewal
Product Region 2020 2021 2020 2021
MAPD National $510 $539 $255 $270
CT, PA, and DC $574 $607 $287 $304
CA and NJ $636 $672 $318 $336
Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands $350 $370 $175 $185
PDP National $78 $81 $39 $41

Want to learn how to increase your Medicare Advantage Commissions?

Reach out to our sales team to learn about a few of the new and most successful lead programs that we offer.  We can tailor certain programs to your needs whether you are new to the insurance industry or trying to cross-sell to a current book of business. We can get you trained up and ready to sell in no time with our library of recorded training webinars. If you would like to register for future webinars check our schedule here.

For more information, contact a Pinnacle Financial Services representative today

1 (800) 772-6881 x7731 | sales@pfsinsurance.com

James Norton

James Norton

Director of Sales - Health

x7797 | jnorton@pfsinsurance.com

Contact a Pinnacle Representative if you have any questions.

1 (800) 772-6881
support@pfsinsurance.com

Contact Us

Contact a Pinnacle Financial Service representative today for assistance.

CallEmail

Medicare Sales Training

Medicare Sales Training

Medicare Sales Training
Comments

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of insurance agents specializing in other products have realized firsthand that senior insurance services are a recession-proof career. This has proved evident in our recent growth in contracting and production from newly contracted agents.  

Here at Pinnacle Financial Services Medicare Sales Training paired with all the tools and free technology we have for our agent including the client-facing proprietary online enrollment tool, Connect4Medicare has made all the difference for agents. We have been able to see continual sales growth throughout this time. During this onboarding and training process, we have been developing a set strategy that has been working to get new agents contracted and submitting business within a month.

The first step is training. Here at Pinnacle, we have training webinars twice a day 5 days a week. We also offer 1 on 1 training on webcam, screen share, PowerPoint slides and not to mention we have a full-time National Training Specialist. You may have listened to his webinar where he discusses creating a Medicare compliant website for less than $20. We will walk you through some mock sales, prospective sales, and get you used to our different quoting and enrollment platforms. With these platforms, you can create profiles for your clients using their personal info such as prescribed medication, preferred pharmacy, and doctor networks. You will be able to see estimated annual health costs, exact medication co-pays for the year, not to mention showing if they can save money by receiving meds through the mail. This includes the electronic scope of appointments and sending quotes and enrollment links by text or email.

The next step is getting the first sale. No matter if you are a property and casualty, life and annuity, or even home and auto insurance agency the first thing we always recommend is cross-selling to your current book of business. When we discuss personal branding and one of the biggest steps is first creating a relationship or common bond. If you have already sold a client a plan then you have already completed this step. Not to mention the more policies you have in a household the higher your client retention. On average about 3 policies get you above 90% retention.   

After cross-selling to your current book of business, the next step of the process would be to start marketing yourself as a Medicare Agent/Agency utilizing outbound vs inbound marketing. This can have many different faces such as adding Medicare information on your webpage, to your email signature, blogging, dropping Medicare mailers, radio ads, and other marketing strategies. Click the link above to view a recent webinar done on the different forms of marketing. From here this is how you grow as an agency and continue to grow your presence in the senior market. Pinnacle Financial Services provides you with the tools and the training to grow your business as a valued partner.

For more information, contact a Pinnacle Financial Services representative today

1 (800) 772-6881 x7731 | sales@pfsinsurance.com

James Norton

James Norton

Director of Sales - Health

x7797 | jnorton@pfsinsurance.com

Contact a Pinnacle Representative if you have any questions.

1 (800) 772-6881
support@pfsinsurance.com

Contact Us

Contact a Pinnacle Financial Service representative today for assistance.

CallEmail

Final Expense vs Medicare Lead Programs

Final Expense vs Medicare Lead Programs

Final Expense vs Medicare Lead Programs
Comments

As a sales director at Pinnacle Financial Services, one of the most popular questions I often get is “What are your Final Expense and Medicare lead programs?” Now of course the follow-up question from that is “which lead program should I use?”  The simple answer could be “both”.  But often as a new insurance agent that just might not be in your budget.  As a Sales Director in our Medicare department I may seem to have a bias by saying this, but I usually always recommend Medicare leads.

Reas0n One: Cost Matters

I usually see final expense leads going for about $28-$30 per lead. Our Medicare leads come out at about half of that, not to mention if you qualify for our marketing coop program. Call for more information.

Reas0n Two: Cross-Selling

When purchasing final expense leads, yes, they will all be final expense prospects but not always Medicare-eligible prospects. Whereas Medicare leads will be 65 and you can also talk about Final Expense plans to everyone. With the saturated T65 leads market I often recommend targeting outside the 6-month window and creating a life or final expense sale to get a policy in the household followed by a Medicare conversation when they are eligible. This will also assist with client retention, when increasing from two policies to three in a household your client retention rate rises from around 50%-60% to over 90%.

Now I am not trying to say our Final Expense lead programs are not effective, they are, and we have success with them. If you would like to hear about those please reach out to our Final Expense team.
To get started with lead program marketing with Pinnacle Financial contact a Sales Director today.

For more information, contact a Pinnacle Financial Services representative today

1 (800) 772-6881 x7731 | sales@pfsinsurance.com

James Norton

James Norton

Director of Sales - Health

x7797 | jnorton@pfsinsurance.com

Contact a Pinnacle Representative if you have any questions.

1 (800) 772-6881
support@pfsinsurance.com

Contact Us

Contact a Pinnacle Financial Service representative today for assistance.

CallEmail

Personal Branding

Personal Branding

Personal Branding
Comments

What is Personal Branding? Well if you search the term online, you might find definitions like this one listed by Wikipedia:

|

Personal branding is the practice of marketing people and their careers as brands. It is an ongoing process of developing and maintaining a reputation and impression of an individual, group, or organization.

Some may begin to wonder how this can apply to insurance agents. Well, first and foremost, it helps you get discovered by your prospective audience.  Establishing your personal brand within a certain specialty also provides value to your prospects. Your prospect isn’t going to work with you just because you can enroll them. Most have the availability of online tools and services, such as medicare.gov, to enroll themselves without an agent. A prospect would choose you because you have established your name as a Medicare expert because of the content you have put out. The bottom line is, if personal branding is done the right way, it will create sales and referrals.

When it comes to creating a brand for yourself, it is often difficult to figure out where to begin. Most agents fail when trying to use the same tagline of “reliable insurance services.” This will not make you stand out from your competition. You need to use your own connections through memberships, hobbies, or affiliations to start. Some great examples of those would be; if you are a veteran, do you play golf or belong to a country club if you belong to a church or synagogue, or really any center of influences. By having that commonality, you can build trust with your prospects which could lead to referrals beyond your initial connection.

The next step is to enhance your brand. You can connect to every senior in the world, but if you don’t offer good customer service or lack product knowledge you will not build trust or earn renewals. Some key customer service traits are being readily available, educated about your topic, and to be ready to go above and beyond to make your clients happy and make their lives easier.

Now once you have achieved some of these things, you would need to build on your brand and be able to get recognized by people who you have not yet connected with. Some things you can do is making sure your word holds a certain weight for a specific subject, using Medicare as an example. You should also be publishing or producing helpful information for your target market. Examples would be publishing an informative article, host an in-person or radio question and answer session, or holding educational seminars within a local community or senior center.

The last thing is making sure you are making sure your online presence is up to date and you have a partner to help you grow it. More and more seniors are becoming competent on computers, especially with the current world climate with the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. Pinnacle Financial Services can help you grow your online presence by organizing key strategies to get your name out there on senior’s online searches without paying a dime! All of our contracted agents get access to an all-in-one agent, and client-facing, online enrollment system called Connect4Medicare. With this powerful platform, you will be able to send an electronic scope of appointment, enroll your clients directly over the phone, and utilize a personal URL to help create a website for less than $20. With the right online brand, seniors could come across your website, run their own quote, and enroll themselves to make sure you aren’t missing out on any sale! Pinnacle Financial Services is here to help you take that next step so what are you waiting for?

For more information, contact a Pinnacle Financial Services representative today

1 (800) 772-6881 x7731 | sales@pfsinsurance.com

James Norton

James Norton

Director of Sales - Health

x7797 | jnorton@pfsinsurance.com

Contact a Pinnacle Representative if you have any questions.

1 (800) 772-6881
support@pfsinsurance.com

Contact Us

Contact a Pinnacle Financial Service representative today for assistance.

CallEmail