BEWARE of Some FMO's!!

Sheila Spears

Expert
35
I just wanted to warn other new agents out there to beware. I have learned the very hard way that you if you sign up under agency and they don't work out for you, you can get stuck in a 6 month waiting period to transfer to your New Agency with certain Medicare Advantage carriers, UHC, Humana and others. The local GA I signed under for my Medicare contracts under promised me he would give me an immediate release and even put it in writing. A few months in I realized we were not a good fit to work together but UHC was in a blackout during AEP 2018 so I waited till January to find a different agency to work with.
I found one, went to sign up with them and went to get my written releases which UHC, Humana and others needed. My old Agency was under 2 different FMO's. One of them does give a release and are a good agency that I hear about on these Forums sometimes. But my GA has to request to them to release me and they write the release. Waiting on him to contact them for some of my contracts.

The big problem is his other FMO which is for my United Healthcare contract, who is the big player in this area for Medicare Advantage. They will not give me a written release and I believe that is their policy but they refused to tell me that. So I assume they are an FMO that will NOT give an Immediate Written Release. They have no reason to withhold a written release from me since I do not owe any chargebacks and I am in good standing, so obviously this is their policy. I will tell any new agent wanting to get started selling Medicare and is looking for the right FMO or IMO to work with, please get it in writing from the FMO or IMO that they do offer Written Immediate Releases. If you are going through a GA, UHC, Humana will not take a Written Release from the GA, the Written Release has to come directly from the FMO or IMO. And if you are going to work under a local GA, you better find out who all their FMO's are and talk to them individually directly yourself before getting yourself stuck with an FMO or IMO who will not give releases because I found out the hard way that it does not matter if the GA that you sign up with tells you they will give you an immediate release or not, they do not have the authority to give you a written release. That comes from their FMO or IMO. This is important because if they have an FMO that won't give you a release, then that puts you in a 6 month waiting period in which you can't transfer or move your contracts under another Agency till after that 6 month waiting period. So after saying all this, the only other advice I can give you is to stay away from an FMO called MCC Life Brokerage. This is the one that refuses to give me a Written Release and I would warn others that this could happen to them if they sign up under them.
 
Sheila,

This is the fault of your direct upline. For example, if we have to put a contract through another IMO or something, the very first thing is that they understand we release agents and we will not take a "no" from them. I let them know right up front, if they don't release an agent of ours we will immediately stop doing business with them and will pull all of our business from them.
 
Sheila,

This is the fault of your direct upline. For example, if we have to put a contract through another IMO or something, the very first thing is that they understand we release agents and we will not take a "no" from them. I let them know right up front, if they don't release an agent of ours we will immediately stop doing business with them and will pull all of our business from them.


Todd, thank you for getting back to me on that. I also have figured it out that he shouldn't be under any agency that won't give immediImm written releases. Makes an Agent very untrusting of FMO's for sure, at least for me.
 
Companies should allow all to contract direct, FMO's do nothing more than the majority of agents can do on their own, they just collect a piece of your pie!
 
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Companies should allow all to contract direct, FMO's do nothing more than the majority of agents can do on their own, they just collect a piece of your pie!

Some of the Carriers prefer to have that level between them and the Agent in the event of debt.
 
I have been in the Medicare business over 35 years, I know most of them pretty well.
 

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