Hello,
I have a read several posts on this forum in previous weeks, and have made the decision to join the forum and begin to contribute.
I am a health insurance technology professional, having began my insurance career many years ago working as a carrier executive (Internet/tech/e-business) and a technology executive (business development) and an independent consultant to carriers (tech and e-business). I have worked for many years with agents of all levels, and I care very much about their uses of technology and improving agents' efficiency/effectiveness.
For the last year, and hopefully for many more, I head up business development for the Quotit Corporation, an Irvine-based health insurance quoting company.
I see many posts out here about Quotit and our competitors, and it is good to read them, whether they be positive or negative. All are useful to me, if they are presented in a productive, honest fashion- which seems to be the flavor of this forum overall.
Please feel free to contact me via email, through this forum, or as a RESPONSE TO THIS POST for all to see. I'd like to know how you use quoting services like Quotit, what we do well, and how we could improve. We won't always be perfect, but I guarantee you I will do all I can, always, to strive to get there. Your input helps tremendously.
Thank you,
Mark at Quotit
Last edited by Mark Quotit : 06-19-2008 at 04:05 PM.
Your prices are too high.
And especially your sign up fees!
While we strive to be competitive, we will not always be the lowest price. Similar to a Honda/Acura analogy, we believe one gets what one pays for.
At Quotit, all we do is technology. We do not sell retail leads, although we have cooperative relationships with several leads companies. This singular focus on quoting services and related tech help us create and support what we believe is the strongest, most flexible, and easiest to use professional selling system available. We are not a "leads company that also has a quoting service."
I look at it this way. If a more flexible, more professional presentation (plus increased confidence from same) - and better customer support - helps you get ONE more sale than you would have had otherwise, this can pay for the monthly price difference between us and our competitor for THREE YEARS or more.
Secondly, regarding setup fees, we generally do not lock in our agent customers into long-term CONTRACTS. Our competitor has gone as long as 5 years with their contracts, often calling agents and offering free leads if they will lock into multi-year contracts. I personally wouldn't sign up for Sports Illustrated for a five year contract, much less technology that I rely upon for my business.
Thirdly, on setup fees, we sometimes have carrier- or general agency-launched endorsements wherein you can get a SIGNIFICANT discounts on setup fees if you are contracted with a specific carrier. Currently, we have endorsements in effect with one carrier and one general agency.
Thank you for your comment. I hope you will give us a shot at some point in the future. I think you'd be happy you did.
- Mark at Quotit
Last edited by Mark Quotit : 06-18-2008 at 06:55 PM.
I used Quotit in the past. Used it for a year and really only used it for proposals and loved it. Didn't get many leads off it as an online marketing tool...but then again I'm still new at online marketing.
When I ditched Quotit's website feature, it was just more economical to use Zapquotes since I'm only selling in CA and need it for quick comparisons. If you charged $50 a month with a website, I would switch back because your customer service and product are outstanding.
Say what you want Dave, Quotit isn't paying me anything to be a shill.
But if they would like to . . . .
Just messing with you Bob, you ought to hook up with Norvax, I hear they are looking for a few good shillers!! or better yet maybe Benepath.com and then you can contract with healthchoice one and make a million with all your Humana advances.
Say what you want Dave, Quotit isn't paying me anything to be a shill.
But if they would like to . . . .
I will see if I can justify a budget for "blog shillers." These days that might not be a bad investment. I will consider you when we start interviewing for that newly created position.
you ought to hook up with Norvax, I hear they are looking for a few good shillers!! or better yet maybe Benepath.com and then you can contract with healthchoice one and make a million with all your Humana advances.
Nah, that's too much like work.
Think I would rather set up an association for recovering Mega agents . . .
I will consider you when we start interviewing for that newly created position.
I will see if I can justify a budget for "blog shillers." These days that might not be a bad investment. I will consider you when we start interviewing for that newly created position.
I think it really takes some grandes huevos to open Quotit up to our "wrath." I have their quote engine on my website and think it's swell! Service is great.
Used Norvax a few years ago and still waiting for tech support to respond to my questions.
By the way, more posts like this will be available to Quotit for a small decrease in my monthly charge.
Rick
------------------------------------ ILIAA
Training, Community, Support, and Success Independent Life Insurance Agents Assn rick@iliaa.org
Does Zapquotes have an auto-responder like Quotit?
I actually like zapquote better than quotit mainly because I've used it for so many years. However, it is not as "pretty" so I have quotit on my public sites. My private site that I use for quoting "internally" is zapquote.
Why don't you go to www.zapquotes.com and take a look for yourself. You can run as many quotes as you like. I understand that at least one agent on this forum is stealing the work by not paying for the quote engine but I'm sure you're better than that.
I don't have an external quote engine on my site as I don't believe it is worth the time and effort. I have used Quotit but since I don't do much IFP anymore I don't think I will keep it much longer.
For the little IFP I do these days, 90% of the time I either recommend a couple of Shield plans if I think they will get past UW .... or a couple of Anthem plans if I don't. Like some agents I do a "fact finder" and then just recommend the plans I think are best for the client... instead of trying to sell from a long laundry list without taking the up-front time for a fact-finder. Thus I most often use the carrier's quote system to get a price.
(One lesson I learned from selling life that applies to health... if the client is not willing to meet with you in person (or a LONG phone call) for a fact-finder, you can send them all the quotes in the world but you will not make a sale. I wish John had taught me that two years ago when he was my coach! (He did a good job on everything else and I'm sure his assoc. will help lots of new people.) Back then the paradigm was "Quote early, quote often." Now when I prospect I prospect for the appointment, not the "opportunity" to email a quote. Took me a long, long time to learn that lesson. YMMV.)
For group quotes I usually use the free Rogers Benefits quote engine as I find it to be the easiest. W&B and BM have good ones but you have to be a PH.D to figure them out... and I don't think either will quote CA or KP Choice... but Rogers will (they send it off to CA/KP and you get quote via email an hour or so later. Works well.)
For life, I use Winflex. It's a really nice system. I wish MoO would use the web-based version... but it runs fine on my Mac when I run Windows with Parallels, as well as on my hundred year old XP Toshiba lappy.
Actually, I have reached the point in my career that I don't use quote engines either. In fact, I don't use any quoting software at all. Based on my experience (and keeping up to date with rate changes) I estimate my quotes to the client (calculating rates in my head) and most often, I'm within 1.5%.
It was scary at first when I changed to this method, but now it is very quick, efficient...and rather fun as well.
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