CaliforniaChoice?

[Agent-California]

CaliforniaChoice is traveling the state this week. Presenting seminar talking about integrated payroll and new plans. etc. Presenter states their exchange and/or similar ones will dominate the future. I am too green to know if what they say is smoke or facts. However the business as they describe it seems to me like they would control a most aspects of any business sent to them. and me/broker could/would be at their mercy. What's your opinions regarding CaliforniaChoice and should I embrace them and sell it without fear or approach with caution or somewhere in between. Thanks

 

[Fisher]

CaliforniaChoice is traveling the state this week seminar talking about integrated payroll and new plans etc. Presenter state their exchange and/or future one similar will dominate the future.

I'm not entirely positive I'm deciphering your words exactly correctly but regardless... any outfit that spews definites (we will DOMINATE) re. things yet unknown leaves me hoping that I at least got a free lunch out of the come-to-Jesus seminar I got roped into. And that there were some hotties to occupy my ocular nerves while I was there.

 

[Agent-California]

Affirmative to free lunch and hotties.

 

[Dave020]

CalChoice is the only small group exchange/pool currently operating in California. There used to be two, CalChoice (private) and HIPC/PacAdvantage which was the state exchange (public). HIPC went under when Blue Shield bailed out.

CalChoice is simply a buying pool for small groups 2-50. They can buy into the exchange and offer plans from multiple carriers.

Blue Shield just got booted out and replaced by Anthem Blue Cross as the primary carrier on June 1st. They have 7 or so carriers available for health.

If you sell a CalChoice plan, you have the same control as if you sold it direct with a carrier. Last I knew carrier commissions were paid directly to the agent.

They are not a GA/FMO/IMO. They are a buying pool or an exchange for small groups. They negotiate prices with the carriers based on the size of their pool.

Illustrations are long and complicated and prospects can get lost in the 55 or so pages of output.

They are good if you want to sell a small group a multiple carrier plan. Sometimes their rates are better than direct, sometimes not so be careful. Last year Kaiser undercut KPChoice by offering 2009 rates through 2010 for group moving from KPChoice to KP direct.


They are owned by Word & Brown which also owns KPChoice (Kaiser), ChoiceBuilder, HSACalifornia and Ceridian. Word & Brown is the GA you can write with for single carrier sales if you are using a GA (like BenefitMall, Warner Pacific, Dickerson and so on).

John and Rusty own it all