How Many EB Accounts Do You Have?

celtyliz

New Member
4
I'm an Employee Benefits Account Manager at a large agency in NYC. I manage 67 corporate accounts. I think my book is too big. How many accounts do you manage?
 
Depends on a few things. First, when you say account manager does that mean you are the only one responsible for the group? Or is their a sales person who is responsible.

Next, what types of group coverages? Are you talking all medical, or are some of them ancillary only? Are the medical smaller/fully insured larger/self-insured?

Assuming you do not have a sales person assigned to help you, and these groups tended to be fully insured and/or ancillary, I would say you do not have enough. If its the opposite I would tend to think you have the right amount, or thereabouts.
 
I am the only person that services the accounts. The producer (sales person) is responsible for bringing in the new business, but once the BOR is processed I take over the group, both service and account rounding.

The producer receives commission for the life of the account, I just receive straight salary.

The 67 accounts all have fully insured medical plus an additional 3 or 4 ancillary lines. The accounts are all under 100 lives.
 
Sorry, but short of some other facts or circumstances, that does not appear to be too large a load.
 
Celtyliz have you considered going into opening accounts. The pay can be much more as a producer although it is strictly commission based.
 
I am the only person that services the accounts. The producer (sales person) is responsible for bringing in the new business, but once the BOR is processed I take over the group, both service and account rounding. The producer receives commission for the life of the account, I just receive straight salary. The 67 accounts all have fully insured medical plus an additional 3 or 4 ancillary lines. The accounts are all under 100 lives.

I think the important question is do you handle renewals? That's a resell and can take up most of your time.
 
I handle the renewal marketing, the presentation, the open enrollment and the carrier installation. I am responsible for account rounding, cross selling , ACA compliance and client service.
 
It appears that you may be still searching for validation that your load is too high. Let me put this in different terms. I asked in an earlier post if there were any other facts or circumstances about your job that I was not taking into account, and there were none offered. My reply assumed a normal distribution of group size and product offerings as you described in your posts.

So assuming a normal schedule of holidays, vacation and pto, I assume you had 1 and 1/2 months off from work, or 30 work days. That leaves slightly more than 3 work days for each group. As a benchmark, my metric would be 85-90 maximum.
 
No, Leevena, I am not searching for validation. I am just answering the question that Beachgirl asked me.
 
An important factor is that YOU feel it may be too much. Typical of a learning curve, it gets easier as you gain experience. You said that you work for a large agency in NYC. Hopefully they provide you with resources and services that makes your job more efficient. If not, then you should look at ways to do so, for yourself.

In the tasks that you described, the most difficult is the renewal, which can be almost as difficult as the initial sale. It's a warm sale for sure, and you have data already about the census, and likes/dislikes of the employer and employees. Other than that, it's a sale all over again. If you ever want to become a commissioned producer, you will be glad that you cut your teeth on the sales process as a salaried employee. It's great learning ground!

Open Enrollment takes some time too. The rest of the tasks are minimal. For me, I find that it's the truckload of "minimal tasks" that bogs me down. I love renewals and the "big projects". I hate the little repetitive ones. So, I mark my to-do list with 10-10-10. It's what can be done in 10 minutes, 10 hours, or 10 days. Then I just wipe out those 10 minute tasks in a morning. Actually, lots of them are 45 second to 4 minute tasks. But there is a huge list of them! Ah, what relief to wipe them off the to-do list. It makes the larger tasks (like renewal, open enrollment, compliance) easier, especially if I break them down into parts and follow a checklist.

If you have resources, efficiency, and some experience, handling 67 groups should not be an overload. There are always extenuating circumstances, though, like large groups, self-funding, HR tasks that you do for the client, etc., or a small office where you wear many hats.
 
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