- 18,988
Re: Never Assign Commissions
Carriers do pay direct to new agents or old agents. If they are telling you differently, they are not telling you the truth.
Like I said, I paid dearly for that lesson. I will never do it again. Last year I went to a meeting in Evansville, In. for a local MA HMO plan. It was the only one in the area and had decent benefits. Even though I had stopped doing MA plans by that time, I had almost 600 Wellcare and Coventry clients that were going to be losing their plans at the end of '09. I thought that plan might be a good place for some of them to land.
There about 15 other agents at this training. The trainers really didn't understand the MA program at all, so, I basically ended up teaching the rules for them. At the end of the day they starting the contracting process for all the agents. We did the little tests and then they presented the contracts, $400 for 1st time enrollees and $200 for people not new to MA. There was one little sentence in there about the commissions coming from the FMO. I asked the guy if we had to assign commissions, he feigned ignorance at first, then asked me, "do you want to be paid straight from the company?'. Of course I said that I did. He said they didn't do it that way. I refused to sign the contract and therefore I did not work for that plan and did not enroll anyone for them.
I was the only agent in the room that refused to sign. A few months later I found out that they were only paying the agents $100 for any enrollment, new or former, and were not paying at all on some.
The provider and that FMO had a separation over it and they are not doing business with that FMO anymore. Those agents, besides being screwed out of what they were promised for enrollments, will never see any renewals on that business now. Unless they sue, of course, but good luck with that!
One agent that sat next to me at the training is always crying the blues about what they did to him. I keep telling him that he should have known something was up when I wouldn't sign. That same guy was screwed by P and A just as I was. He has two expensive lessons now. I hope he has finally learned.
Carriers do pay direct to new agents or old agents. If they are telling you differently, they are not telling you the truth.
Like I said, I paid dearly for that lesson. I will never do it again. Last year I went to a meeting in Evansville, In. for a local MA HMO plan. It was the only one in the area and had decent benefits. Even though I had stopped doing MA plans by that time, I had almost 600 Wellcare and Coventry clients that were going to be losing their plans at the end of '09. I thought that plan might be a good place for some of them to land.
There about 15 other agents at this training. The trainers really didn't understand the MA program at all, so, I basically ended up teaching the rules for them. At the end of the day they starting the contracting process for all the agents. We did the little tests and then they presented the contracts, $400 for 1st time enrollees and $200 for people not new to MA. There was one little sentence in there about the commissions coming from the FMO. I asked the guy if we had to assign commissions, he feigned ignorance at first, then asked me, "do you want to be paid straight from the company?'. Of course I said that I did. He said they didn't do it that way. I refused to sign the contract and therefore I did not work for that plan and did not enroll anyone for them.
I was the only agent in the room that refused to sign. A few months later I found out that they were only paying the agents $100 for any enrollment, new or former, and were not paying at all on some.
The provider and that FMO had a separation over it and they are not doing business with that FMO anymore. Those agents, besides being screwed out of what they were promised for enrollments, will never see any renewals on that business now. Unless they sue, of course, but good luck with that!
One agent that sat next to me at the training is always crying the blues about what they did to him. I keep telling him that he should have known something was up when I wouldn't sign. That same guy was screwed by P and A just as I was. He has two expensive lessons now. I hope he has finally learned.
