Referral Program help

[sbg_ben]

Hello,

I am wanting to start a formal referral program for our agency for this upcoming open enrollment. I am mostly focused on getting more individual health and Medicare clients. We also write Group business so any suggestions on that would be helpful too.

I was thinking of writing a post on our Facebook and maybe even sending out some letters to current clients basically saying that we will offer something like a $25 amazon gift card for a referral. Does anyone have experience doing something like this? What were the challenges you faced?

I have concerns about Medicare marketing regulations as well but we could always just take Med Supp referrals for this program.

Any experience or advice is appreciated as always. Thanks

 

[sshafran]

Hello,

I am wanting to start a formal referral program for our agency for this upcoming open enrollment. I am mostly focused on getting more individual health and Medicare clients. We also write Group business so any suggestions on that would be helpful too.

I was thinking of writing a post on our Facebook and maybe even sending out some letters to current clients basically saying that we will offer something like a $25 amazon gift card for a referral. Does anyone have experience doing something like this? What were the challenges you faced?

I have concerns about Medicare marketing regulations as well but we could always just take Med Supp referrals for this program.

Any experience or advice is appreciated as always. Thanks

Be careful with Medicare - if you sell a supp, you'll likely sell their Part D as well - still under the regs...

My understanding that referrals work this way: Ask for them, don't tell them (induce) that you'll send them the gift. Not saying you can't properly thank - I'm saying, you can't tell your clients, "$25 gift card per sale or per referral." That's a CMS no-no.

(this is different than agent-to-agent referrals, obviously).

 

[sbg_ben]

Be careful with Medicare - if you sell a supp, you'll likely sell their Part D as well - still under the regs...

My understanding that referrals work this way: Ask for them, don't tell them (induce) that you'll send them the gift. Not saying you can't properly thank - I'm saying, you can't tell your clients, "$25 gift card per sale or per referral." That's a CMS no-no.

(this is different than agent-to-agent referrals, obviously).

Thanks for the advice. I will need to ask around some more about how this would play out with CMS regulations. I will probably ask the marketing person at the FMO I use for more information.