Monthly Recurring Expenses Selling Med Supps & Cross Selling FE?

Yes, the 150 is for my cell phone. I dont have a landline. You could probably get a csg paid for if you talk to the right people. You could also probably do Uber in addition to selling, while you get started. You can also do promo jobs for marketing companies to pick up some extra cash here and there, usually pay $20/hr, and last a few days. Do a search for "brand ambassador" in the gigs section of craigslist. Get in good with some promo companies and they'll send you future openings.

My 2005 car is too old for Uber. Although some days I miss driving for Uber. Other days I don't. Driving Uber would be too much since I already have another job & then pursuing insurance.

Thanks for tip on brand ambassador. Do you have to be fairly attractive? one ad was saying send pic. Although Not many opportunities in my area. Will keep it in mind.
 
I needed to get many things in place myself before I started selling Medicare insurance as well, but that was because I live on a very low income and literally didn't have everything I needed to market and sell. I had 10 years on industry experience as an assistant office manager for a successful agency that grossly underpaid me during my entire tenure (between 80% to 85% of salary industry standards). I took time off to determine if I really wanted to do this gig and since I was already licensed and know this industry I decided to go for it. I didn't choose the Chris Westfall Medigap only telesales route but decided upon being a local broker. Here is the cold hard truth about marketing yourself as an independent insurance agent: if you don't have skills door knocking and cold calling you will fail 100%. There is an art to doing it effectively and you need to learn this first and foremost. There are good people on Youtube that you can mentor like Bryan Cassella (California real estate agent), Tony Robbins (self improvement guru), and tons of sales mentors like Brian Tracy, Grant Cardone, and many others.

Learn how to door knock effectively. Watch most of Bryan Cassella's videos as he gets what it takes to effectively door knock. You need to be confident in what you are doing and this comes with experience so understand that you will seriously struggle at first and time and experience will make you better with a proper mentor education. You need to look professional, have professional materials, and be extremely confident that you know what you are talking about which comes with your industry knowledge that getting your license won't teach you.

Cold calling is almost dead in 2017, but it still works and works best for retired people since they are from the previous generation and ultimately you are trying to educate T65s or save over T65s money on what they already have. You need to master both forms of marketing.

Leads. I hate to burst your bubble but the commissions are too small in this industry to rely on direct mail leads to start. If you spend $1,000 on a mailer campaign you will be lucky to make $1,000 in commissions. You will spin your wheels and not make any profit or you will lose money.

Here is the cold statistic numbers on the Medicare industry: 28% of seniors have Medigap coverage, 34% have Medicare Advantage plans, and about 20% have group retirement plans. The other categories are people who have Medicare and Medicaid (known as dual eligibles) and people who have A and B only (about 2%). If you sell Medigap only you are only marketing to 28% of the population. You will want to also sell Medicare Advantage plans as well.

Since MA plans are governed by CMS and not the States like Medigap, you have to deal with federal regulations. Ready? It is illegal to cold call for C and D. It is illegal to door knock for C and D. It is illegal to call referrals for C and D. Any seminar you want to hold will require reporting it to the plan and then CMS will send secret shoppers to watch you and take notes to make sure you are always 100% compliant with the 150 rules CMS has. The insurance carriers will randomly audit your Scope of Appointment forms to make sure you are not breaking any rules because of CMS's Star Rating system (they want to get higher stars to get more CMS money for their plans). Not only do you have to worry about your prospects or clients filing a complaint against you, but your competition will probably be the first to report you for not following the 150 rules. Even if you only want to sell Medigap, you still need to sell Part D and the rules apply the same to C and D.

You have a 95% failure rate to fail in this industry within the first 2 years for many different reasons. Even if you follow the rules and walk that fine line that exists, those audits by the insurance carriers will still get you in trouble because they assume you are illegal marketing C and D. The carriers ask the questions of your clients very sneakily like "so tell us how you first met your agent?" Your client will tell the truth and you will get in trouble.

Your sales ability needs to be great and this is one of the worst industry to sell in since commissions are so small and the legal liability and regulations are so large. You can make more money selling real estate which you already tried and failed. This is not different on how to market and the results will be the same unless you learn how to be a great marketer and salesman. You need to learn about Medicare inside and out so you don't get sued for negligent advise and so you can be confident that your advise is accurate. You must learn how to underwrite policies so the policy won't be rescinded up to 2 years from the date of sale and the client wants to kill you for having all their previous medical bills unpaid from a rescinded policy and the hospital bills your client for all the money the insurance took away (this happens very infrequently, but it does occasionally happen).

Then you have to worry about individual insurance carrier rules. Many have minimum production requirements to stay appointed and if they find out you are moving your clients to a competing Medigap carrrier they will terminate you. UnitedHealthcare (AARP) doesn't allow agents to cold call for their Medigap policy. Some States don't allow cold calling for Medigap policies as well.

This industry went to sh*t in 2009 when CMS made all these rules for selling C and D like the Scope of Appointment form and other anti-sales rules for agents. Many Medicare agents left this industry back in 2009 and went to other industries. As hard as it is to sell, CMS makes it 10x harder.

It would be easier to make it as a real estate agent than it would be as a Medicare agent in 2017. You may want to rethink joining this particular industry. Medicare is very complicated and the pay is terrible considering how hard it is to get clients and get infront of prospects.

My FMO recommends to me that since I want to sell all Medicare products that I need to volunteer my time at a food bank to market myself and to hold seminars in which secret shoppers will almost always attend. How to you feel about taking a vow of poverty to make it in this industry for the first 1 to 2 years?

Also the perception of insurance agents amongst the general public is terrible. The vast majority of people hate insurance companies, hate sales people, hate wealthy people, hate cold callers, and hate door knockers. Being a self marketing insurance agent pretty much covers the entire gambit of what the general public hates. Good luck using your charm to overcome these built in objections that exist with about 80% of the population.

Don't be a Medigap only agent as well. It's not your choice to decide that for consumers, it's the consumer's choice. You need to be ethical and that requires offering Medigap, C and D. Also there are DSNP MA plans you can sell to dual eligible, but this segment of the population is challenging to work with (low income Medicaid eligible). You can sell these people all year long because the government acknowledges that low income people are morons and can't figure out enrollment periods since they can't figure out how to financially sustain themselves.

Also don't think you can sell Obamacare either because you will have about a 20% persistency and all your sales will result in chargebacks because major medical people only get insurance when they need it for a medical procedure and then they cancel the insurance afterwards and you lose all your commissions and time invested. This is why Obamacare is failing. Underwriting is very important and when people don't have to go through that they just buy insurance when they need it and cancel it afterwards immediately resulting in a rapid disenrollment and 100% chargeback of commissions in 80% of cases.

Yes you would think with the Baby Boomers flooding onto Medicare now that this industry is golden until you learn how tyrannical CMS is with marketing and selling C and D plans. Like I said Medigap is only 28% of the market. 90% of people are also on the Do Not Call list so you can't call them so have fun driving around town knocking on doors and telling the home owner you are an insurance agent. I know how that goes, but you can learn the hard way. I've had many people happy for me to give them a free education, but when you ask them to sign the Scope form many won't and if you ask for their contact info they won't give it to you or they give you fake information. How does being an unpaid teacher sound to you? Do you enjoy giving your time for free to others while they refuse to do business with you because they don't trust you due to your career choice?

If you are a great salesman then find another industry to sell in that pays better commissions. You could go the Chris Westfall route and license in 40 States and do 100% cold calling and selling over the phone, but that is 10x harder to do than being a local independent agent. Also you could lose your license or get terminated for cause with various carriers in which you lose 100% of your small residual commissions. How would you feel to lose those little commissions you worked your butt off for?

I know I said a lot but that is because you don't know what you are getting yourself into. The average age of a Medicare agent is 60 years old for 1 of 2 main reasons: #1 the Medicare agent established themselves prior to 2009 and they are dealing with CMS regulations or #2 the Medicare agent is semi-retired and they are doing this as a hobby for passive income amongst their coffee group friends. Chris Westfall is making a lot of money because he only sells Medigap and cold calls 40 States and lies about UHC, C and D due to the regulations against selling these policies over the phone. Are you comfortable to make it in this industry marketing to 28% of the population while getting crap pay and learning 40 different insurance carrier State markets? Each State has different rules for insurance carriers and each State has different mandates. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Massachusetts also don't use the alphabet soup system and use a base policy with riders instead.

Simply put the Medicare industry is not worth the reward for all the risks involved and until you learn this industry you won't understand why. The government destroyed this industry and don't expect the Trump administration to fix it because they probably won't. Go back to real estate and make your fortune their instead. Unless you have a lot of free time and money and have a passion for helping stuck up seniors save $30 per month on their Medigap policy. Also you have a decent amount of competition as well that is competing against you.

Being a great salesman is all a mental game. You need to always agree with the client, mimic their behavior (if they talk loud you talk loud, if they scratch their nose you scratch your nose, etc), ask many questions, ask more questions, ask even more questions, seem extremely fascinated in whatever your prospect is talking about (even if they are moron liberals talking about single payer health insurance and how it needs to be free for everyone), and then ask for the sale. If the client likes you enough because they feel that they can trust you due to you asking them 50 questions and pretending to be interested in them then MAYBE they will choose YOU as their insurance agent and not your competition. Watch this Tony Robbins video and memorize it and implement it:

Here are some of my other top Youtube training videos on selling and door knocking:














The Verizon salesman is how you want to be when meeting with a prospect and always ask questions and when you think you asked enough, ask more questions. Mimic the prospect's behavior as well. Match tone of voice, speed of talking, physical gestures, etc. Be extremely interested in your prospect and be a fantastic listener and show that you acknowledge what your prospect is saying by responding properly. As I said sales is all about building rapport and making a relationship. Act like your prospect is your high school crush and always act that way. If you can do this along with your knowledge industry and expert advise you should have a 30% to 60% close ratio. The hardest part is marketing and getting the appointment. This is harder than most sales people assume.

Also learn to remove some words from your vocabulary like contract, signature, monthly premium, appointment and other words. Some words like appointment are associated with things like a dentist appointment and on the sub conscience level people fear appointments because of the negative feelings associated with it. People also hate the word contract because you are associating something that their parents taught them to never enter into. Find alternative words that are less threatening to the prospect.

If you can get your prospect to talk more than you do and they open up to you, asking for the sale should be much easier and many times you can use the two option close and then shut up and let the prospect talk.

Overcoming the 'we need to think about this' objection is important too as more times than not that is a default objection that the majority of the general public uses to get rid of sales people. Here is a good video on that objection as well:



Senior citizens are professional objection tellers. They have dealt with sales people for over 50 years and they know what to say to get rid of us. You need to be at the top of your game. This is why I said if you had problems selling homes to people under 65, the 65+ segment of the population is even harder to deal with. Most seniors are also extremely poor and have made bad financial decisions that have made them not having enough money in retirement and simply cannot afford a Medigap policy which is why only 28% of seniors have Medigap and 34% have Medicare Advantage. Close to 30% of seniors are so low income that they qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid (dual eligible). Asking seniors to pay for insurance that initially starts at $180 per month with a 4% to 8% annual rate increase as each year goes by. Also you the writing agent only get commissions based off of the initial premium of the policy that you sold. Sure if the client is healthy enough you can move them, but some carriers will investigate you if you are moving large chunks of your business away from them and to competitors. It a good idea if you do this to protect yourself and have you client sign a form saying they initiated contact with you and that if you didn't move them to another carrier that they would have found a different agent that would have and have them sign and date it. If a carrier terminates you over this issue, you will still be paid on previous active business, but they won't let you write new business for them anymore.

If you can master the art of selling by building rapport, asking tons of questions, and being a fantastic listener then you need to ask yourself why you are selling your butt off and only making $300 per year on a sale that usually lasts for 2 to 3 years when you could sell a home worth $150,000 to $250,000 and make 3% to 6% commission all at once. If I could start over knowing what I know about the Medicare industry, I would have choose to sell real estate instead as the struggle is identical, but the commissions are 10 to 20x higher.

Also you need to care more about helping people than you do about making a sale. If your motivations are inverted, people can sense that and they will not want to talk with you. You need to have a genuine passion for helping people and that genuine passion you have to help others will allow you to make a sale. You need to care more about helping 1,000 prospects save $1,000,000 in premiums than you do about making $1,000,000 in commissions. If you don't genuinely have a passion for helping others you will fail.
 
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I needed to get many things in place myself before I started selling Medicare insurance as well, but that was because I live on a very low income and literally didn't have everything I needed in place. I had 10 years on industry experience as an assistant office manager for a successful agency that grossly underpaid me during my entire tenure (between 80% to 85% of salary industry standards). I took time off to determine if I really wanted to do this gig and since I was already licensed and know this industry I decided to go for it. I didn't choose the Chris Westfall Medigap only telesales route but decided upon being a local broker. Here is the cold hard truth about marketing yourself as an independent insurance agent: if you don't have skills door knocking and cold calling you will fail 100%. There is an art to doing it effectively and you need to learn this first and foremost. There are good people on Youtube that you can mentor like Bryan Cassella (California real estate agent), Tony Robbins (self improvement guru), and tons of sales mentors like Brian Tracy, Grant Cardone, and many others.

Learn how to door knock effectively. Watch most of Bryan Cassella's videos as he gets what it takes to effectively door knock. You need to be confident in what you are doing and this comes with experience so understand that you will seriously struggle at first and time and experience will make you better with a proper mentor education. You need to look professional, have professional materials, and be extremely confident that you know what you are talking about which comes with your industry knowledge that getting your license won't teach you.

Cold calling is almost dead in 2017, but it still works and works best for retired people since they are from the previous generation and ultimately you are trying to educate T65s or save over T65s money on what they already have. You need to master both forms of marketing.

Leads. I hate to burst your bubble but the commissions are too small in this industry to rely on direct mail leads to start. If you spend $1,000 on a mailer campaign you will be lucky to make $1,000 in commissions. You will spin your wheels and not make any profit.

Here is the cold statistic numbers on the Medicare industry: 28% of seniors have Medigap coverage, 34% have Medicare Advantage plans, and about 25% have group retirement plans. The other categories are people who have Medicare and Medicaid (known as dual eligibles) and people who have A and B only (about 2%). If you sell Medigap only you are only marketing to 28% of the population. You will want to also sell Medicare Advantage plans as well.

Since MA plans are governed by CMS and not the States like Medigap, you have to deal with federal regulations. Ready? It is illegal to cold call for C and D. It is illegal to door knock for C and D. It is illegal to call referrals for C and D. Any seminar you want to hold will require reporting it to the plan and then CMS will send secret shoppers to watch you and take notes to make sure you are always 100% compliant with the 150 rules CMS has. The insurance carriers will randomly audit your Scope of Appointment forms to make sure you are not breaking any rules because of CMS's Star Rating system (they want to get higher stars to get more CMS money for their plans). Not only do you have to worry about your prospects or clients filing a complaint against you, but your competition will probably be the first to report you for not following the 150 rules. Even if you only want to sell Medigap, you still need to sell Part D and the rules apply the same to C and D.

You have a 95% failure rate to fail in this industry within the first 2 years for many different reasons. Even if you follow the rules and walk that fine line that exists, those audits by the insurance carriers will still get you in trouble because they assume you are illegal marketing C and D. The carriers ask the questions of your clients very sneakily like "so tell us how you first meet your agent?" Your client will tell the truth and you will get in trouble.

Your sales ability needs to be great and this is one of the worst industry to sell in since commissions are so small. You make more money selling real estate which you already tried and failed. This is not different and the results will be the same unless you learn how to be a great salesman. You need to learn about Medicare inside and out so you don't get sued for negligent advise. You must learn how to underwrite policies so the policy won't be rescinded up to 2 years from the date of sale and the client wants to kill you for having all their previous medical bills unpaid and the hospital bills your client for all the money the insurance took away (this doesn't happen often, but it does occasionally happen).

Then you have to worry about individual insurance carrier rules. Many have minimum production requirements to stay appointed and if they find out you are moving your clients to a competing Medigap carrrier they will terminate you. UnitedHealthcare (AARP) doesn't allow agents to cold call for their Medigap policy. Some States don't allow cold calling for Medigap policies as well.

This industry went to sh*t in 2009 when CMS made all these rules for selling C and D like the Scope of Appointment form and other anti-sales rules for agents. Many Medicare agents left this industry back in 2009 and went to other industries. As hard as it is to sell, CMS makes it 10x harder.

It would be easier to make it as a real estate agent than it would be as a Medicare agent in 2017. You may want to rethink joining this particular industry. Medicare is very complicated and the pay is terrible considering how hard it is to get clients and get infront of prospects.

My FMO recommends to me that since I want to sell all Medicare products that I need to volunteer my time at a food bank to market myself and to hold seminars in which secret shoppers will almost always attend. How to you feel about taking a vow of poverty to make it in this industry for the first 1 to 2 years?

Also the perception of insurance agents amongst the general public is terrible. The vast majority of people hate insurance companies, hate sales people, hate wealthy people, hate cold callers, and hate door knockers. Being a self marketing insurance agent pretty much covers the entire gambit of what the general public hates. Good luck using your charm to overcome these built in objections that exist with about 80% of the population.

Don't be a Medigap only agent as well. It's not your choice to decide that for consumers, it's the consumer's choice. You need to be ethical and that requires offering Medigap, C and D. Also there are DSNP MA plans you can sell to dual eligible, but this segment of the population is challenging to work with (low income Medicaid eligible). You can sell these people all year long because the government acknowledges that low income people are morons and can't figure out enrollment periods since they can't figure out how to financially sustain themselves.

Also don't think you can sell Obamacare either because you will have about a 20% persistency and all your sales will result in chargebacks because major medical people only get insurance when they need it for a medical procedure and then they cancel the insurance afterwards and you lose all your commissions and time invested. This is why Obamacare is failing. Underwriting is very important and when people don't have to go through that they just buy insurance when they need it and cancel it afterwards immediately resulting in a rapid disenrollment and 100% chargeback of commissions in 80% of cases.

Yes you would think with the Baby Boomers flooding onto Medicare now that this industry is golden until you learn how tyrannical CMS is with marketing and selling C and D plans. Like I said Medigap is only 28% of the market. 90% of people are also on the Do Not Call list so you can't call them so have fun driving around town knocking on doors and telling the home owner you are an insurance agent. I know how that goes, but you can learn the hard way. I've had many people happy for me to give them a free education, but when you ask them to sign the Scope form many won't and if you ask for their contact info they won't give it to you or they give you fake information. How does being an unpaid teacher sound to you? Do you enjoy giving your time for free to others while they refuse to do business with you because they don't trust you due to your career choice?

If you are a great salesman then find another industry to sell in that pays better commissions. You could go the Chris Westfall route and license in 40 States and do 100% cold calling and selling over the phone, but that is 10x harder to do than being a local independent agent. Also you could lose your license or get terminated for cause with various carriers in which you lose 100% of your small residual commissions. How would you feel to lose those little commissions you worked your butt off for?

I know I said a lot but that is because you don't know what you are getting yourself into. The average age of a Medicare agent is 60 years old for 1 of 2 main reasons: #1 the Medicare agent established themselves prior to 2009 and they are dealing with CMS regulations or #2 the Medicare agent is semi-retired and they are doing this as a hobby for passive income amongst their coffee group friends. Chris Westfall is making a lot of money because he only sells Medigap and cold calls 40 States and lies about UHC, C and D due to the regulations against selling these policies over the phone. Are you comfortable to make it in this industry marketing to 28% of the population while getting crap pay and learning 40 different insurance carrier State markets? Each State has different rules for insurance carriers and each State has different mandates. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Massachusetts also don't use the alphabet soup system and use a base policy with riders instead.

Simply put the Medicare industry is not worth the reward for all the risks involved and until you learn this industry you won't understand why. The government destroyed this industry and don't expect the Trump administration to fix it because they probably won't. Go back to real estate and make your fortune their instead. Unless you have a lot of free time and money and have a passion for helping stuck up seniors save $30 per month on their Medigap policy. Also you have a decent amount of competition as well that is competing against you.

Being a great salesman is all a mental game. You need to always agree with the client, mimic their behavior (if they talk loud you talk loud, if they scratch their nose you scratch your nose, etc), ask many questions, ask more questions, ask even more questions, seem extremely fascinated in whatever your prospect is talking about (even if they are moron liberals talking about single payer health insurance and how it needs to be free for everyone), and then ask for the sale. If the client likes you enough because they feel that they can trust you due to you asking them 50 questions and pretending to be interested in them then MAYBE they will choose YOU as their insurance agent and not your competition. Watch this Tony Robbins video and memorize it and implement it: Best Methods to Build Rapport - Anthony Robbins - YouTube

Here are some of my other top Youtube training videos on selling and door knocking:
How To Master The Art Of Selling Anything - Tom Hopkins - YouTube

How to close any insurance sale? - YouTube

Top Qualities Of ALL The Most Successful Sales Professionals - YouTube

Door Knocking for Real Estate Agents .. THREE THINGS + SCRIPT - YouTube

The BEST Way to Handle "Not Interested" - YouTube

5 Helpful Tips For Door-to-Door Marketing - YouTube

Verizon Training - YouTube

The Verizon salesman is how you want to be when meeting with a prospect and always ask questions and when you think you asked enough, ask more questions. Mimic the prospect's behavior as well. Match tone of voice, speed of talking, physical gestures, etc. Be extremely interested in your prospect and be a fantastic listener and show that you acknowledge what your prospect is saying by responding properly. As I said sales is all about building rapport and making a relationship. Act like your prospect is your high school crush and always act that way. If you can do this along with your knowledge industry and expert advise you should have a 30% to 60% close ratio. The hardest part is marketing and getting the appointment. This is harder than most sales people assume.

Also learn to remove some words from your vocabulary like contract, signature, monthly premium, appointment and other words. Some words like appointment are associated with things like a dentist appointment and on the sub conscience level people fear appointments because of the negative feelings associated with it. People also hate the word contract because you are associating something that their parents taught them to never enter into. Find alternative words that are less threatening to the prospect.

If you can get your prospect to talk more than you do and they open up to you, asking for the sale should be much easier and many times you can use the two option close and then shut up and let the prospect talk.

Overcoming the 'we need to think about this' objection is important too as more times than not that is a default objection that the majority of the general public uses to get rid of sales people. Here is a good video on that objection as well:

Client says, "Let Me Think About it." and You say, "..." - YouTube

Senior citizens are professional objection tellers. They have dealt with sales people for over 50 years and they know what to say to get rid of us. You need to be at the top of your game. This is why I said if you had problems selling homes to people under 65, the 65+ segment of the population is even harder to deal with. Most seniors are also extremely poor and have made bad financial decisions that have made them not having enough money in retirement and simply cannot afford a Medigap policy which is why only 28% of seniors have Medigap and 34% have Medicare Advantage. Close to 30% of seniors are so low income that they qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid (dual eligible). Asking seniors to pay for insurance that initially starts at $180 per month with a 4% to 8% annual rate increase as each year goes by. Also you the writing agent only get commissions based off of the initial premium of the policy that you sold. Sure if the client is healthy enough you can move them, but some carriers will investigate you if you are moving large chunks of your business away from them and to competitors. It a good idea if you do this to protect yourself and have you client sign a form saying they initiated contact with you and that if you didn't move them to another carrier that they would have found a different agent that would have and have them sign and date it. If a carrier terminates you over this issue, you will still be paid on previous active business, but they won't let you write new business for them anymore.

lol you could not be more wrong or clueless, I hope you got a job some place
 
lol you could not be more wrong or clueless, I hope you got a job some place

Actually what I said is exactly how you want to be when you are trying to marketing yourself to others. If your prospect comes to you then you don't need to have all these sales tips and tricks, but if you want to be an effective self marketing agent (which you will have to be) knowing and understanding what I posted will be 100% crucial to your success or failure.

The reason why 92% of insurance agents fail within the first 3 years is because they don't understand how to be a great salesman and many of you guys on this site need to learn from what I posted as well. Ignorance is bliss and many sales people don't know anything about sales which is the main reason why they fail and why 80% of the 'sales' force only does 20% of the industry sales.

Posting a one sentence response to the abundance of information that I posted is extremely rude and shows that you most likely haven't read what I posted and/or you are a troll here to persuade others to their demise. Sure some of you guys may be naturals at selling but most people aren't and they have to learn these tactics in order to become good at sales.

If you are referring to my industry overview sections then what did I say that was incorrect? I have 11 years of experience in this industry and I know what I am talking about. I worked for an agency that had over 10,000 active Medicare policy holders. I know the problems with this industry and with CMS. My FMO is Jack Shroeder and Associates which is far better than your guy's FMO of Ritter Marketing. The marketers that work at Ritter don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. I asked a marketer there about marketing an appointment either cold calling or door knocking T65s for Medigap and if I could walk away with the Scope authorization and a C or D application and they guy never answered my question.

JSA says that while yes it is legal to do it that way, when the insurance carriers ask the member in the Scope audit how we initially meet and the client responds that I cold called or door knocked them, the carrier will immediately assume that I did something wrong and I will get a violation even though I did everything to the book. So I will constantly have to prove myself and I will have nothing but problems offering Medigap, C and D to prospects when I market Medigap only by cold calling or door knocking. JSA knows what they are talking about and JSA also tells agents to offer both Medigap and C to prospects to clients because it is not the agent's decision to make that ultimately that decision belongs to the consumer. I agree 100%. A lot of you agents on this website are Med sup only agents and are butt hurt over agents who sell all types of Medicare coverage.

28% of seniors have Medigap and 34% of seniors have Medicare Advantage. Enough said. You go be a Med sup only agent that markets to 28% of the Medicare population. I want to be able to offer coverage to any senior that wants my help. The only reason I am thinking about leaving this industry is due to the CMS marketing regulations and the low commissions. I haven't given up yet entirely, but I am well aware of all the pitfalls that can destroy an agent's book of business and livelihood. As I said the risks of this industry are not worth the rewards.

Here is the commission schedule for various plans:

Medicare Advantage: 1st year of MA/MAPD plan: $443 renewal years: $222
Part D: 1st year on a Part D plan: $71 renewal years: $36
Medigap: depends on carriers but typically between 18% to 21% of premium minus the Part B deductible UNLESS client is a guarantee issue in which the carrier will screw you over and only pay about $20 per year to 5% per year commissions.

That is the other issue. If your client has a guarantee issue and is not starting Medicare Part B the carriers don't want that business and they pay us almost nothing because of it.

JSA is aware of this issue and is working with local lawmakers to try and have this corrected so we make normal commission rates, but the industry screws us over for non-Part B eligible guarantee issue Medicare Supplement policies. I'm aware that there are a few carriers out there that don't do this but the vast majority of them pay us this amount.

The original poster failed at being a real estate agent and going over to the Medicare industry is not any easier. I realize why people think it is, but the reality is that selling Medicare insurance is just as hard, if not harder, than selling anything else. When you can making $12,000 from 1 sale in real estate versus $1,500 from 1 sale in Medicare and all the extra regulations in our industry he is going to have an even harder time trying to make it in the Medicare sales world than he did failing in the real estate sales world. Watch all the videos I posted as this will set him straight in regards to selling which is needed to become successful in this industry unless you work as a captive agent for an insurance carrier in which clients are calling you. 98% of insurance agents don't have that luxury.

Sales is all about Jedi mind tricks and how you word things and asking questions to build rapport. 20% of the sales force makes 80% of industry sales for a reason. hockeyday I would say you fall into the 80% of the sales force that does 20% of the industry sales. You are a small fish.

Prior to 2009 this industry was great and was a dream career. CMS destroyed that dream and most real sales people moved on from this industry at that time. Prior to 2009 you could sell Medicare Advantage all year long and never needed a Scope of Appointment form.

Also consumers who have Medicare Advantage plans love them as evident by the over 4.5 Star rating that AARP Medicare Complete has along with the other 3 Star or higher rating that the other various MA carriers have. 34% of seniors have Medicare Advantage and love it. The network issue isn't that big of a deal since most people are used to network group health coverage anyway. The biggest threat to MA plans is Congress defunding them for Obamacare or Trumpcare or whatever reasons Congress thinks they need the money for, but as you guys should know by now if you lose MA coverage you have a guarantee issue given to the former policyholder. Yes people who do a lot of doctoring should avoid MA plans, but that is the agents job to explain to the prospect why that is.

Offering both Medigap and MA fits in the two option close as well to make your close easier. Your prospect like the concept of Medicare Advantage over Medigap? Great! You still make a sale. Also with the 3 midnight rule Medicare has for Skilled Nursing, MA plans far outperform what Original Medicare offers anyway. I would post JSA's Vimeo video about Medicare 101, but I'm not going to do that without their permission. The part when Adam talks about the agent offering both MA and Medigap should slap about 75% of you 'agents' across the face like a floppy taco. 34% of seniors have MA and 28% have Medigap. The nation is split and it's not the choice for the agent to make. Your job is to educate the consumer about their options and let them choice which they fell is the best option for them. 9x out of 10 when a client chooses Medicare Advantage it's because the client cannot afford the $200 per month premium and I don't blame them since our commission is 20% of the premium. How many of you Med sup only agents tell the consumer you make 20% of their premium in commission??? (Crickets are chirping)
 
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Actually what I said is exactly how you want to be when you are trying to marketing yourself to others. If your prospect comes to you then you don't need to have all these sales tips and tricks, but if you want to be an effective self marketing agent (which you will have to be) knowing and understanding what I posted will be 100% crucial to your success or failure.

The reason why 92% of insurance agents fail within the first 3 years is because they don't understand how to be a great salesman and many of you guys on this site need to learn from what I posted as well. Ignorance is bliss and many sales people don't know anything about sales which is the main reason why they fail and why 80% of the 'sales' force only does 20% of the industry sales.

Posting a one sentence response to the abundance of information that I posted is extremely rude and shows that you most likely haven't read what I posted and/or you are a troll here to persuade others to their demise. Sure some of you guys may be naturals at selling but most people aren't and they have to learn these tactics in order to become good at sales.

If you are referring to my industry overview sections then what did I say that was incorrect? I have 11 years of experience in this industry and I know what I am talking about. I worked for an agency that had over 10,000 active Medicare policy holders. I know the problems with this industry and with CMS. My FMO is Jack Shroeder and Associates which is far better than your guy's FMO of Ritter Marketing. The marketers that work at Ritter don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. I asked a marketer there about marketing an appointment either cold calling or door knocking T65s for Medigap and if I could walk away with the Scope authorization and a C or D application and they guy never answered my question.

JSA says that while yes it is legal to do it that way, when the insurance carriers ask the member in the Scope audit how we initially meet and the client responds that I cold called or door knocked them, the carrier will immediately assume that I did something wrong and I will get a violation even though I did everything to the book. So I will constantly have to prove myself and I will have nothing but problems offering Medigap, C and D to prospects when I market Medigap only by cold calling or door knocking. JSA knows what they are talking about and JSA also tells agents to offer both Medigap and C to prospects to clients because it is not the agent's decision to make that ultimately that decision belongs to the consumer. I agree 100%. A lot of you agents on this website are Med sup only agents and are butt hurt over agents who sell all types of Medicare coverage.

28% of seniors have Medigap and 34% of seniors have Medicare Advantage. Enough said. You go be a Med sup only agent that markets to 28% of the Medicare population. I want to be able to offer coverage to any senior that wants my help. The only reason I am thinking about leaving this industry is due to the CMS marketing regulations and the low commissions. I haven't given up yet entirely, but I am well aware of all the pitfalls that can destroy an agent's book of business and livelihood. As I said the risks of this industry are not worth the rewards.

Here is the commission schedule for various plans:

Medicare Advantage: 1st year of MA/MAPD plan: $443 renewal years: $222
Part D: 1st year on a Part D plan: $71 renewal years: $36
Medigap: depends on carriers but typically between 18% to 21% of premium minus the Part B deductible UNLESS client is a guarantee issue in which the carrier will screw you over and only pay about $20 per year to 5% per year commissions.

That is the other issue. If your client has a guarantee issue and is not starting Medicare Part B the carriers don't want that business and they pay us almost nothing because of it.

JSA is aware of this issue and is working with local lawmakers to try and have this corrected so we make normal commission rates, but the industry screws us over for non-Part B eligible guarantee issue Medicare Supplement policies. I'm aware that there are a few carriers out there that don't do this but the vast majority of them pay us this amount.

The original poster failed at being a real estate agent and going over to the Medicare industry is not any easier. I realize why people think it is, but the reality is that selling Medicare insurance is just as hard, if not harder, than selling anything else. When you can making $12,000 from 1 sale in real estate versus $1,500 from 1 sale in Medicare and all the extra regulations in our industry he is going to have an even harder time trying to make it in the Medicare sales world than he did failing in the real estate sales world. Watch all the videos I posted as this will set him straight in regards to selling which is needed to become successful in this industry unless you work as a captive agent for an insurance carrier in which clients are calling you. 98% of insurance agents don't have that luxury.

Sales is all about Jedi mind tricks and how you word things and asking questions to build rapport. 20% of the sales force makes 80% of industry sales for a reason. hockeyday I would say you fall into the 80% of the sales force that does 20% of the industry sales. You are a small fish.

Prior to 2009 this industry was great and was a dream career. CMS destroyed that dream and most real sales people moved on from this industry at that time. Prior to 2009 you could sell Medicare Advantage all year long and never needed a Scope of Appointment form.

Also consumers who have Medicare Advantage plans love them as evident by the over 4.5 Star rating that AARP Medicare Complete has along with the other 3 Star or higher rating that the other various MA carriers have. 34% of seniors have Medicare Advantage and love it. The network issue isn't that big of a deal since most people are used to network group health coverage anyway. The biggest threat to MA plans is Congress defunding them for Obamacare or Trumpcare or whatever reasons Congress thinks they need the money for, but as you guys should know by now if you lose MA coverage you have a guarantee issue given to the former policyholder. Yes people who do a lot of doctoring should avoid MA plans, but that is the agents job to explain to the prospect why that is.

Offering both Medigap and MA fits in the two option close as well to make your close easier. Your prospect like the concept of Medicare Advantage over Medigap? Great! You still make a sale. Also with the 3 midnight rule Medicare has for Skilled Nursing, MA plans far outperform what Original Medicare offers anyway. I would post JSA's Vimeo video about Medicare 101, but I'm not going to do that without their permission. The part when Adam talks about the agent offering both MA and Medigap should slap about 75% of you 'agents' across the face like a floppy taco. 34% of seniors have MA and 28% have Medigap. The nation is split and it's not the choice for the agent to make. Your job is to educate the consumer about their options and let them choice which they fell is the best option for them. 9x out of 10 when a client chooses Medicare Advantage it's because the client cannot aford the $200 per month premium and I don't blame them since our commission is 20% of the premium. How many of you Med sup only agents tell the consumer you make 20% of their premium in commission??? (Crickets are chirping)
You are a tool.................
 
Chris Westfall is making a lot of money because he only sells Medigap and cold calls 40 States and lies about UHC, C and D due to the regulations against selling these policies over the phone.

Wow, you have absolutely no idea what in the world you're talking about. I absolutely do not cold call. I take incoming calls from free internet traffic. I lie about United Healthcare? What in the world have you been smoking this week?

And you think it's illegal to sell MAPD, and Part D by phone? You really have no idea what's going on.
 
I am not appointed with AARP by choice. I receive 5 to 25 calls a day, all incoming calls here in my office from my online presence. I could sell AARP all day long but have chosen not to. What independent agents that affiliate with me do on their own, as independent agents, is completely up to them. My reasons for not writing their insurance, up to this point (might in the future, who knows) has nothing to do with MY marketing. That's for sure.

Lying to people about MAPD? You have some harsh black and white conclusions based on what you know nothing about - again assigning intentions to my chosen marketing niche.

Seems like you started this thread, or chimed in, just to insult everyone you can possibly think of. I would suspect there are far better things you could do with your time, but for now, enjoy yourself. I will go on enjoying my chosen niche, very much! ;)

Congratulations on making $1,000,000 in annual commissions.

Thanks! Been a long time in the making.
 
I am not appointed with AARP by choice. I receive 5 to 25 calls a day, all incoming calls here in my office from my online presence. I could sell AARP all day long but have chosen not to. What independent agents that affiliate with me do on their own, as independent agents, is completely up to them. My reasons for not writing their insurance, up to this point (might in the future, who knows) has nothing to do with MY marketing. That's for sure.

Lying to people about MAPD? You have some harsh black and white conclusions based on what you know nothing about - again assigning intentions to my chosen marketing niche.

Seems like you started this thread, or chimed in, just to insult everyone you can possibly think of. I would suspect there are far better things you could do with your time, but for now, enjoy yourself. I will go on enjoying my chosen niche, very much! ;)



Thanks! Been a long time in the making.

I deleted my post because I agree that you may not make cold calls. You sell over the phone. So I apologize. I have dealt with Medigap only agents who lie so much about Medicare Advantage that I lumped you in with them and I corrected myself when I said you cold call.

I still do agree though that telling consumers that Medicare Advantage plans are all terrible is lying. In some areas and with a few carriers that is true, but in many areas Medicare Advantage is a fantastic option for consumers and 34% of beneficiaries have MA and 28% have Medigap so the nation is split. The Medicare Star rating for AARP Medicare Complete is 4.5 Stars and many other MA plans have 4 Star or higher ratings, so most consumers are satisfied with their Medicare Advantage coverage and it's not because they have never used it.
 
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