Secret Shoppers

[Freddie]

Some of these educational training things should provide disclosure forms to help agents. AARP is secret shopping annuity seminars. You want to make sure you are not saying things you should not be saying.

You may also want to buy a digital tape recorder that can export to your computer. This way you can burn a DVD and put it in a folder with the seminar date. The tape recorder might cost about $50 and a DVD is maybe a buck at the most. It is cheap insurance.

 

[Frank Stastny]

Why worry about "secret shoppers"? Only agents who don't know what they are doing really need to be concerned. If the agent doesn't know then don't do seminars.

I would mention that secret shoppers do attend seminars and that you hope there are some in attendance at the seminar. Also explain why they attend. This will add credibility to everything you say.

Do your homework and make sure you understand everything you can and can't do or say. Make a list of every item that is required for you to cover and make sure each item is covered at the beginning of the seminar.

Pass out a list of the items along with a pen or pencil and remember to leave plenty of space under each item for the attendees to make notes. At the top of that list have your name and contact information.

 

[jerrykramer64fan]

I'm not really worried about secret shoppers other than the fact they can call you, set up an appointment, make you do all of the work, show up at the appointment after spending time, gas money, and more time (1-3 hours for the meeting), with no possibility of compensation. The earlier post of the shopper forgetting her notes and accusing the agent of misconduct is scary. The suggestion of a tape recorder is a great way to cover your butt. Otherwise, what ever the shopper states will be taken as fact (even when they are wrong). Why aren't THEY required to record your seminar? Like I said before, I'm not really impressed with some of theses Medicare employees, and my livelihood should be put in jeopardy due to incompetent people.

PS: When Medicare continually changes the rules and even their people don't know all the rules, how am I supposed to confident that I'm ALWAYS following their interpretation of the rules?

Many of the rules can be gray when applying to brokers. They are mostly written with the idea that a direct agent from an insurance company is doing the presentation. Obviously the agent above could have had their business put in jeopardy due to an incompetent person. And you tell me not to worry??? I have been doing this long enough to know that Medicare is NEVER wrong.

 

[Frank Stastny]

The earlier post of the shopper forgetting her notes and accusing the agent of misconduct is scary.

I believe you read that post too quickly. This is what he said "I was kind of hoping a complaint would come down from the carrier so we could expose the incompetence of this secret shopper."

PS: When Medicare continually changes the rules and even their people don't know all the rules, how am I supposed to confident that I'm ALWAYS following their interpretation of the rules?...I have been doing this long enough to know that Medicare is NEVER wrong.

As you know when selling Med Supps that is not a problem. All the more reason to stay away from the Part C plans, especially the PFFS ones.

 

[Norwayguy]

I'm not really worried about secret shoppers other than the fact they can call you, set up an appointment, make you do all of the work, show up at the appointment after spending time, gas money, and more time (1-3 hours for the meeting), with no possibility of compensation. The earlier post of the shopper forgetting her notes and accusing the agent of misconduct is scary. The suggestion of a tape recorder is a great way to cover your butt. Otherwise, what ever the shopper states will be taken as fact (even when they are wrong). Why aren't THEY required to record your seminar? Like I said before, I'm not really impressed with some of theses Medicare employees, and my livelihood should be put in jeopardy due to incompetent people.

I agree with you on the shoppers essentially wasting your time...it reminds me of the dateline exclusive on annuties...they spent maybe 30 seconds mentioning that there were other agents that didn't do the aweful things they were accusing people of...I wonder how much Agent time they wasted.....

 

[alainssolutions]

I am not sure I trust the secret shoppers myself. I contracted with Wellcare last October, but never submitted any apps due to working with other companies. I recieved a call from Wellcare about 2 weeks ago stating that in December a secret shopper tried contacting me 3 times and I did not answer. Therefore it was a mark against me according to Wellcare. I asked when they said they called, and what number did they call. She looked it up and it was my fax number. Why would they call my fax number instead of my business line or cell number? Something I learned from by this what ever number you put on your contract make sure it is the number you use for your customers to call you. Needless to say, it was removed from me bc they made a mistake calling my fax number.

 

[xrac]

I am not sure I trust the secret shoppers myself. I contracted with Wellcare last October, but never submitted any apps due to working with other companies. I recieved a call from Wellcare about 2 weeks ago stating that in December a secret shopper tried contacting me 3 times and I did not answer. Therefore it was a mark against me according to Wellcare. I asked when they said they called, and what number did they call. She looked it up and it was my fax number. Why would they call my fax number instead of my business line or cell number? Something I learned from by this what ever number you put on your contract make sure it is the number you use for your customers to call you. Needless to say, it was removed from me bc they made a mistake calling my fax number.

Calling a fax number is that another great mark of intelligence of these people?

 

[insurance0707]

That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Now you can get in trouble for not anwering your phone/returning a call. Granted you said they called the wrong # but they can really penalize you for that. During AEP an agent is busy enough. I was getting too many calls and finally put a message on my machine that I wasn't taking any new clients during AEP, that I could only help my current clients. It was around the time the GM people lost their coverage and I was getting some days 30-40 calls. I just couldn't handle them.

 

[alainssolutions]

I AGREE! Well after the fact I had to explain to a handful of people did they take the ding away from me. But my opinion, its not fair they dont check these things out first before giving the ding. Makes you wonder what all they really are shopping for against us.

 

[Lute]

Sounds like someone calling you without mentioning a personal referral is a red flag. Has anyone ever had someone return a lead card that was a secret shopper? I mean, how could they really? Sit around and wait for a mailing.

I think a secret shopper in a non-seminar situation is not fair at all for the agent. That could waste hours of an agents time.

Of course this is all brought to you by the people that have no accountability for their actions and have no criteria place to hold the insurance companies responsible for their incompetence in getting policies issued, clueless agent support personnel, pay screw-ups ect. ect. Arrrrhhh!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I am not sure I trust the secret shoppers myself. I contracted with Wellcare last October, but never submitted any apps due to working with other companies. I recieved a call from Wellcare about 2 weeks ago stating that in December a secret shopper tried contacting me 3 times and I did not answer. Therefore it was a mark against me according to Wellcare. I asked when they said they called, and what number did they call. She looked it up and it was my fax number. Why would they call my fax number instead of my business line or cell number? Something I learned from by this what ever number you put on your contract make sure it is the number you use for your customers to call you. Needless to say, it was removed from me bc they made a mistake calling my fax number.

This is just an example of the type of "political correctness" fanatics that we are dealing with at CMS. You're in violation if you don't answer your phone? What nonsense. What if I was out of town? What if my mother died? What if I'm on the other line talking to another prospect? What if I decided to not do anymore selling in a given enrollment period? Most of us are self-employed, now we can't NOT WORK if we don't want to? I've picked up on this attitude for a long time now in their guidelines. For example, is there not a guideline that says you can't refuse to sign a person to a plan? First what kind of *** do they think we are? Nah, I don't need another $400, call somebody else. Second, what about any persons right about self-determination?

Also a guideline that say's something to the effect that you can't target certain neighborhoods. (Note I'm not talking about senior apartment complexes.) Ya know, a neighborhood with lots of $500,000 homes might just not have many Medicare Advantage prospects. On the other hand I can't "descriminate" against someone in a poor neighborhood even though there are crack dealers on every corner and there were drive-by shootings the day before.

The truth is most of my MA business is in poor to very poor neighborhoods and rural areas but it's MY right to decide where I will sell and why. Beware of that crowd, they think they are the most benevolent people on the face of the earth but they have more in common with Nazis than philanthropists.