Don’t you just hate it, after calling all of those insurance leads being stood up on an appointment? This past week I had a health agent contact me about the difficulty he was having explaining the benefits of association group health insurance coverage to a potential health client. He ended up losing the sale to a individual health policy that was only $10 cheaper on the monthly premium.
I know that a majority of our readers are health agents who write health insurance policies for the large captive agencies that offer association group health insurance policies, so I wanted to share a cool visual that really helps a potential health client to fully understand the benefit of association group health policies.
In most states , when presenting an association group health policy, the health insurance must present the association group first. The biggest benefit to association group health insurance protection offers is that the member’s premiums are determined by the usage of the entire group (risk pool) whereas an individual policies premium is determined by the individuals claims.
The way that health insurance premiums are determined is:
rate (regulated by state DOI) x risk pool (there can be up to seven on individual policies, only one on association group) = premium.
Ever had a health insurance prospect unable to grasp this?
Here is a good visual to add into your presentation to give your health insurance prospect a much better way of understanding the benefit that association group health insurance will have to them over the long term.
First pull out the book that contains the association benefits and place it to the side but in the health insurance prospect’s immediate view. Proceed to tell your prospect about the association and that it offers many valuable benefits outside of the health insurance but the greatest benefit is in the group health protection that the association offers the ask this question exactly this way:
What is your understanding about how group protection works?
Most will answer “I don’t know.” Any answer is good though.
Now pull out Seven of your business cards and place them on the table longways side by side and ask the health insurance prospect if they know about risk pools. After they answer tell them:
rate (regulated by state DOI) x risk pool (there can be up to seven on individual policies, only one on association group) = premium.
This past week I had a health agent contact me about the difficulty he was having explaining the benefits of association group health insurance coverage to a potential health client. He ended up losing the sale to a individual health policy that was only $10 cheaper on the monthly premium.
As a new health insurance agent your budget is usually very tight and your schedule is packed full of new things to learn, new prospects to get in contact with, and having to fit in personal time so that you don’t get burned out, and, by the way, you need to fit in some time for making income.
Nothing is more frustrating than slotting a time in your busy schedule to drive and see a health insurance prospect, do a full presentation, and return home, just to have some inconsiderate person not even bother to show up (or even worse, be in the house and refuse to answer the door). The wase of expensive gas certainly does not ease the pain either…
In this article we will go over a few tips that work well to reduce no shows.
1. Do you ask for directions?
It is now so easy to find our way to a potential health insurance prospect’s home or business. All one has to do is mapquest or rely on a GPS device. Remember when you had to ask for directions to get where you were going?
Now imagine giving someone directions to your house from a town at least one hour away. I bet you could visualize each turn and some landmarks along the way. The same is true when you ask for directions from a health insurance prospect. They visualize the trip you will have to make to get to them. This makes them realize to a greater extent the time and effort that you are putting forth to help them and to make a living as a health insurance agent.
It also doesn’t hurt to ask if there is a gas station nearby because you might need to refuel on the way home.
2. Do not give your health insurance prospect an instant out when giving your contact info.
This one is simple. Too many time I have heard new health insurance agents make the mistake at the end of setting an appointment: “here is my cell phone number xxx-xxx-xxxx. Please call me if anything comes up.”
This gives the health insurance prospect an instant out. Instead give them your contact info in the following way: “here is my cell phone number, xxx-xxx-xxxx, please call me with any questions you might have for me, or better yet write them down so i can answer them all when I get there. That way nothing gets left out.”
This sets the expectation to the health insurance prospect that you intend on seeing them and that you will be there to help.
3. Don’t make confirmation calls too early.
Wait until you are actually in the car and have just cranked it up to make your confirmation call. Tell the prospect you are in the car and on your way.
This also creates a visualization for your health insurance prospect of the effort you are putting in to come and help them.
These three tips combined every time will greatly reduce the number of no shows you have and make your health insurance business more profitable by not wasting so much gas and your most valuable asset: TIME
Thanks for stopping by my insurance leads blog.
Cheers,
Mac
