Buying Leads Question

[saintstigers]

Has anyone had good experience with buying leads (exclusive or live transfer leads) for the last open enrollment period? Or did you do your own advertising/lead generation?

 

[bluediamond]

Forget buying leads for oep, do your own advertising or get in with community center's and churches and ask to hold under 65 seminar's.

 

[sman]

Has anyone had good experience with buying leads (exclusive or live transfer leads) for the last open enrollment period? Or did you do your own advertising/lead generation?

With the PMPM or low commission percentages, I can't imagine that would be a great strategy. My average commission on my U65 book is about $30 per month per client. While I would traditionally be willing to spend some money to get a $360 commission, in this case I'm not as willing to do it. The reason being, these may not be long term clients.

For example, if I were still in a position where I needed to buy leads, I would spend some money to buy Med Supp leads because the persistency is great and they are traditionally long term clients. With U65, if they're on-exchange, there is the potential for additional work due to issues with having to provide documentation and also the potential of having your I.D. removed. Not to mention the potential for them losing the subsidy and no longer having insurance. Just too much work for not enough money. Then there's the potential that carriers decide to reduce or cut commissions completely.

Obviously you can tell I'm a little jaded on the U65 market. I'm not actively pursuing this business because I'm not convinced it's going to be here 5 years from now. I will take care of my existing clients and any referrals I receive, but no way I'm spending any money trying to grow that portion of my business. I could be completely wrong and we could still be getting commissions on U65 20 years from now. But I've made a personal decision not to waste too much time and definitely not any additional dollars on that business.

 

[pbbaseball]

We did a ton of direct mail and telemarketing going after aca business, and it worked very well. I think a big key is to go to the states with the highest commissions, and counties that you know your carrier of choice is the cheapest. Even if it's not here 5 yrs from now, I think the upside and amount of commissions you can make for such a short period of work are well worth it. I had several guys do 25/50/100/200k of income in 3 months of business. The more you spend the more you make, but you definitely have to manage the eligibility requirements.

UHC in NC last year was 10% on exchange, so when you tailor a mailpiece to people over 55 with high subsidies, it is easy to make $50pm per app.

 

[LGilmore]

Not real active in buying health leads. Even before the ACA the people doing the shopping thought $25 a month was too much for health insurance premiums. Wasn't the best market to pursue.

Now with the ACA in my state we're about to see the first plan being offered that will pay $0 in commission. If it does well, the days of health insurance commissions for individuals will be gone. If it sells poorly, that love/hate relationship between health insurance companies and agents will continue a while longer.

Because clearly, that $17 a person monthly commission is what is driving health care premium inflation.

I think if you're putting a lot of money into individual health insurance marketing you may find yourself in tough shape in about 5 years or so.

 

[mschlange]

Save your money
Talk to people and gat referrals

 

[AllenChicago]

Now with the ACA in my state we're about to see the first plan being offered that will pay $0 in commission. If it does well, the days of health insurance commissions for individuals will be gone. If it sells poorly, that love/hate relationship between health insurance companies and agents will continue a while longer.

I think if you're putting a lot of money into individual health insurance marketing you may find yourself in tough shape in about 5 years or so.

That's quite bold for a company to state this far in advance that they're not going to pay commissions. Perhaps because it will have the lowest premium and attract more than enough customers?

Buying leads for ACA would be worth it if they were internet generated and $1 or less each. Particularly if you use a personalized (your name/e-mail/phone)web broker site that's simple for the prospect to understand and enroll.

Would be nice if you could remove the $0 commission companies from the website, but that's illegal I think.

 

[pbbaseball]

I ve got some guys that sell in the 17, 20, 21 pmpm states. At those commissions I would definitely spend my open enrollment doing mapd plans because of persistency.

But in those states with 8 to 10% commissions, I ll take the health money all day.

In the 1 week I personally sold last year, I did 104 that week, even at 30 bucks an app, thats 36k in a week. Yeah I spent 5k on leads and had them scrubbed for interest by my telemarketers, but in my 17 yrs in the business, I don t think there's a quicker way to make money in the right states, with the right marketing, and the right followup for persistency.