Florida blue cutting commissions
- Thread starter Chazm
- Start date
Ok we were laughed at .
Ok we both said it. A question and answer with cms was done about a week ago with people asking questions . One question was isn't it " against cms rules to halt commissions during a plan yr " . They said no a carrier can pay whatever commissions they desire between $0 and max fmv established by cms .
Which is why CMS is practically useless. They think getting an additional $50 bucks to perform a HRA influences our recommendations but $641 doesn't. Fire everyone.
Don't worry Oz, bear man , and musky will fix it soon.
hockeyday, you're running a room temp IQ, right?
100% maybe a little wormey in thinker.
Special Agent
Guru
- 610
IMO the big national players like UHC and Humana will continue to pay commissions for maybe for a few more years to capitalize on the fact they know that worried agents will send their Wellcare,BCBS and like minded carriers book of business to them even if it is not the best fit.Talk about creating perverse incentives
there must be a lot of new agents here.
12 years ago, a lot of smaller regional and local carriers didn't pay FMV, and you had to wait 3 months before you got your commission.
Many plans also pro-rated the initial commission back in the day, so you rarely got the "full commission".
Non-commissionable plans have always been a thing.
dental, vision and OTC were gimmickee add-on benefits (even more so than they are today).
10 years ago we went through a hard market as well. dozens of local carriers went into receivership and/or were bought up by the big guys. This will probably happen again over the next 12 months.
All joking aside, If you are stressing out about this you should exit the business now. It's happened before, its happening now, and it will happen again. If you cannot handle the economic cycles go get a "safe" W2 job at your local post office.
12 years ago, a lot of smaller regional and local carriers didn't pay FMV, and you had to wait 3 months before you got your commission.
Many plans also pro-rated the initial commission back in the day, so you rarely got the "full commission".
Non-commissionable plans have always been a thing.
dental, vision and OTC were gimmickee add-on benefits (even more so than they are today).
10 years ago we went through a hard market as well. dozens of local carriers went into receivership and/or were bought up by the big guys. This will probably happen again over the next 12 months.
All joking aside, If you are stressing out about this you should exit the business now. It's happened before, its happening now, and it will happen again. If you cannot handle the economic cycles go get a "safe" W2 job at your local post office.
While I agree that all insurance markets are cyclical, I would argue that Medicare is still different because it's entirely a government-created market and is much more susceptible to non-market forces. Like Congress using the assassination of a health insurance executive to score political points with the electorate. The reality is our livelihoods can all be erased with the stroke of a pen. That goes for Med Supps too.
There is nothing wrong with reading the tea leaves and trying to anticipate rather than react to changes in our industry. That's what businesses do.
I don't disgree that being aware is a good thing. There are definitely risks to our business being linked to a government program. There are agents on this site that can testify about how the government destroyed their business at least once. - @somarco comes to mind.
But there is also nothing more permanent than a government program.
However, the risk of the President's pen does not only apply to our industry. I watched friend's businesses get destroyed because of the scamdemic shutdown 4 years ago.
That all being said, having your business diversified is not a bad idea either. Personally my Medicare book is 45% medsupp and 55% MAPD. But I also have a book of HIP, dental/vision, Life insurance, and annuities. I also recently started recently expanding into ACA.
On top of this I also invest aggressively outside of the industry. - something all independent brokers should be doing since we do not have an employer that provides us a retirement.
