Advice on going independent

[Calisajizzle]

Hey guys I was recently talking to someone about medicare sales and he mentioned since I have a background selling home, auto and pet insurance to just go independent. I've always had this thought that I needed office space, and employees but he just said nope he works from the comfort of his own home. This sounds like a good Idea can anyone share their experiences?

 

[fed up]

You will need a few years of experience and a BOB if you want to go independent and get direct appointments. Go with one of the IMO's listed on these pages and get appointments through the IMO. If you did not have walk-ins, you don't need office space.

 

[TRG1225]

Hey guys I was recently talking to someone about medicare sales and he mentioned since I have a background selling home, auto and pet insurance to just go independent. I've always had this thought that I needed office space, and employees but he just said nope he works from the comfort of his own home. This sounds like a good Idea can anyone share their experiences?

What Fed Up said. It can be done from home. All the major carrier call centers are home based now, anyway. So it's not like talking about Medicare over the phone is new to the clients.

What I've found is that it's difficult to get business in the independent Medicare world from the start, no matter how much skill you have. So getting with the right IMO is critical. Take your time and do your research. There are some crappy IMO's out there, but there are also some great ones. What you want is the IMO that's going to be the best fit for how you want to do business going forward.

The best IMO's I've talked to and heavily considered are the ones that offer either built in lead sources and/or generous marketing coopts, training, and most of all...transparency.

There should be no mystery surrounding how your contracts are set up, what you need to do to advance in whatever way you envision yourself down the road, and how they can help you get there. Good luck!

 

[DonP]

TRG are you talking about building a Medicare shop using the call center model ? Are you talking about doing mostly med advantage or Medigap? I promise you if you try to do dual mapd over the phone year round your stick rate won’t be good . 1000’s of fe guys like me are knocking those people on the ground every single day. picking them off left and right . If your doing a phone center I’d concentrate on middle class mapd and medigap .

 

[TRG1225]

TRG are you talking about building a Medicare shop using the call center model ? Are you talking about doing mostly med advantage or Medigap? I promise you if you try to do dual mapd over the phone year round your stick rate won’t be good . 1000’s of fe guys like me are knocking those people on the ground every single day. picking them off left and right . If your doing a phone center I’d concentrate on middle class mapd and medigap .

I gotcha. I should've been clearer. What I meant was that the OP didn't have to have a brick and mortar spot to make initial contact with potential Medicare clients. No one has ever asked me where my office is in terms of being the 'official place to provide consultation.'

With what success I've had with limited sample size so far with Facebook and mailers, any client willing to initiate contact has been willing or wants to at least talk about their situation over the phone to the point to where if making a change/initial election is the right fit, it's not hard to efficiently do it over the phone or setting up a F2F. With COVID, more often than not they would like to just enroll over the phone or e-sig it when presented with the option of 'we can take care of it now or set up a time to meet.'

Even when I was at the kiosk in Wal-Mart, most people I met there were ok with doing it on the phone when I called them back to follow up. I was kinda surprised, to be honest.

As far as retention goes, I just try to have some type of passive scheduled contact in place like a thank you card, a "heyhowyadoin" call, email, etc. Still working on getting that fine tuned though.

I don't believe one should approach it like a call center model (unless you have the ridiculous amount of financial and human resources to even make it possible), because that's ripe for getting picked off for a plethora of reasons. I just think the OP might consider looking at the flexibility a home office provides as a plus for taking care of clients efficiently, rather than a liability. However, that could be easily be different by location, phone skills, etc.

The first 'shellshock' I had when going independent was coming to terms with people not just calling to talk to you like they do in the carrier call centers. Gotta be patient...at least that's what I keep telling myself, lol.

 

[Travis Price]

TRG are you talking about building a Medicare shop using the call center model ? Are you talking about doing mostly med advantage or Medigap? I promise you if you try to do dual mapd over the phone year round your stick rate won’t be good . 1000’s of fe guys like me are knocking those people on the ground every single day. picking them off left and right . If your doing a phone center I’d concentrate on middle class mapd and medigap .

DSNP plans are highly unstable anyway.

I don't work in a call center and do applications over the phone from my home. My clients (the couple of DSNPs I have) are trained that I am their expert.

People will contact you to switch, and you'll never hear from them again after you're sold.

All I ask before they make a switch is to give me an opportunity to make sure their plan is the best for them.

Plus, I build a relationship with them. If they leave, they leave, but acting like doing DSNP over the phone is somehow any less stable in person is ridiculous.

Call centers are not the same as telesales.

To the OP:

Yo do not need an office or staff to work in Medicare Insurance. You do need money though. You need to be able to eat and market for at least a year. You're really luckily if you have a profit your first year in this market.

Most agents fail because of undercapialization. I'd say easily you should have 10-15k liquid cash before you go at this 100%.

If you don't that's okay. Don't be afraid to hold off or work a part time job until your book is paying renewals.

 

[TRG1225]

To the OP:

Yo do not need an office or staff to work in Medicare Insurance. You do need money though. You need to be able to eat and market for at least a year. You're really luckily if you have a profit your first year in this market.

Most agents fail because of undercapialization. I'd say easily you should have 10-15k liquid cash before you go at this 100%.

If you don't that's okay. Don't be afraid to hold off or work a part time job until your book is paying renewals.

BOOM. That's it. I had that and still got taken to the cleaners by making a mistake on the upline to start with. That's why getting the right upline is so critical.

 

[mudhound]

do it! I wish i had started off non captive! Oh well

 

[InsuranceGuy29]

The bigger you get, it will definitely be beneficial to get office, employees, etc., but be warned that Medicare sales isn’t exactly easy — and that especially applies in the beginning.

There are a million rules (especially with Medicare Advantage plans, which are rapidly gaining in popularity). You generally can’t just go up to people and try to find business.

They need to call you. You can do mailers, where they will ask to be called, but most forget they sent it in, are confused, don’t want to be bothered, etc.

That especially applies in today’s climate of scams everywhere and general societal distrust of strangers. Barely anyone picks up the phone anymore, and even if they do, they think you’re a scammer.

The business is great once (if?) you have steady referrals rolling in, but it takes many years to build this kind of setup, if you last. And that’s a big “if.”

A great variable in your potential success depends on your upline/mentor. If you’re “in the club” and they’re helping you a lot, your chances are pretty good. If not, you will likely be one of the 98% of failure statistics in the health insurance industry.

It takes a lot of money to market, and you’ll need money and time to not make a whole lot of money for at least 4-5 years. There’s a reason why most agents don’t make it past the first year. Not trying to be discouraging, but it is what it is. Would rather potential agents know the reality of it, up front.

 

[LostDollar]

That’s especially applies in today’s climate of scams everywhere and general societal distrust of strangers. Barely anyone picks up the phone anymore, and even if they do, they think you’re a scammer.
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The latest thing is real estate. I get calls for my son and daughter wanting to know if they are interested in selling my house!