If you're referring to me, then I must be centrist because my friends on the left think I'm a right-wing wacko.
I'm Wondering if There Will Be a Place for the Agent in Trump Care?
- Thread starter BibH
- Start date
If you're referring to me, then I must be centrist because my friends on the left think I'm a right-wing wacko.
- 8,448
It's ironic that you ask this, because when ObamaCare/ACA was passed, agents started asking if we'd have a job, since the new law required everyone to buy health insurance. So why would insurance companies need us to sell something that everyone must have?
- 10,318
Everyone who owns a car must have car insurance. Been that way for years. P&C agents are still alive and well selling auto policies.
People must have it. But they do not understand it, they are not experts in which policy will benefit them the most. This is why they seek out assistance.
Carriers know this. Sure they look for opportunity to reduce costs, but they value increasing sales over reducing internal costs.
-----------------
What killed agents was the fact that the business just became unprofitable. Plus, the Feds spent tens of millions of tax dollars on "Navigators"... who turned out to be useless... and even dangerous/negligent in their recommendations.... but it was the main sign up method advertised to the masses.
-----------------
The real risk to health agents (and all insurance agents who sell commodity type products) is AI. Give it 10 years and virtual agent bots (who have the combined knowledge and experience of 50 different veteran agents) will be taking care of the less complex sales.
Last edited:
Nah. That's what they said when the internet started getting popular.
And there ARE agents out there who saw income explode with ACA. Don't kid yourselves, not everyone took a hit.
- 10,318
I didnt mean to imply that it killed all health agents (I was responding to someone's post). But as you know, there was a MAJOR consolidation in the industry because of it. It now takes what, 2x/3x/4x a number of clients to make the same income? And yes, I do realize the agents that were capable of staying probably increased their book by larger %s than that and saw net increases in income. But you know thats not the majority of agents who sold individual health pre ACA. You would know much better than I would; what is your guesstimate for the total consolidation of agents in the individual health market? Above or below 75%?
As far as AI, it is a totally different paradigm than the internet. There is a reason carriers are investing billions into the technology right now. A lot of that is on the admin/claims side, but its on the sales side too.
It wont kill off agents entirely, it will just create HUGE consolidations within the industry. But, it will eventually eliminate those who are just salespeople and not able to act as a consultant on complex needs. AI is not the end for all, but it will be the single largest disruption of the industry as a whole. Way different than the web. A webpage alone is not capable of performing complex decision making.
Last edited:
You may be right or wrong. People don't need an agent right now they could go to website and buy it without an agent. Alot of people got burned to by doing that. That being said you also hit on the agent will have to be more than just a sales person which I think if your in the business for any length of time you have to anyway.
They may be able to go buy online without an agent but have no idea what they're buying. A Trumpie at the gym was bitching about how narrow the BCBST network is. He didn't know the difference & bought the wrong network. S was available. I told him not to blame OCare for his ignorance. There are enough problems but network was not one of them.
- 389
network problems are a huge problem with Obamacare.
They are in many locations but not this one. The individual bought strictly on price without understanding that he was buying a very restricted network. He had the exact plan available with a perfectly fine network but because he isn't an agent and didn't ask bought wrong. That wasn't Ocare's fault. It was his.
We had 2 major problems before Ocare's. People couldn't pass underwriting and premiums increased every year. Ocare took care of underwriting. The issue now is premiums which is a function of price and utilization. The primary driver of utilization in Ocare is participation and adverse selection.
The current proposals address utilization by going back to various forms of restricting coverage via trusts/ associations which is underwriting. Underwriting is only a form of price competition. The cleaner the group, the lower the price. Farm Bureau is a perfect example. Stricter underwriting on same plan and network had lower rates than BCBST direct. This was the case for years and years.
Two ways to deal with premiums. Reduce numerator (claims) or increase denominator (participation). Current proposals are numerator focused and the people who are the denominator and left out got mad. Repubs discovered they have to give lip service to pre-ex and underwriting.
Another big issue is procedure price increase that will sink the ship regardless of what happens in the next few years. Price controls aren't efficient and there are no market forces when insurance is the primary way of paying.
I'd prefer we address denominator then work on procedure price but expect we don't have enough nerve to enroll everyone and Congress makes too much money off lobbyists to address price.
Last edited:
