Washington State IFP Agent

[LGilmore]

It took about 5 years for even the local companies to open up the individual market again. Back then you didn't even have to live in WA to purchase health insurance according to how it was liad out. Carriers feld, the local blues just stopped selling and things ground to a halt.

That said, compared to Obamacare, this stuff looks pretty golden....

 

[somarco]

WA adopted the Clinton Plan back in 94. It's been fiddled with and has been this way since about 2000.

That's scary.

Or as PPL says, scarry

 

[briangruss]

I started selling insurance in 2007, but was born and raised in WA. I don't remember much about health insurance other than, 2003 time frame a NASE agent found me and sold me a piece of, well NASE, which was cancelled a couple months later. Larry what was the IFP market like before we went to the system we have now?

Like it has already been said, health insurance is more like a commodity.

 

[GreenSky]

Licensed Insurance Planner

Just curious, what is a "licensed insurance planner?"

Is it different than an agent?

Rick

 

[LGilmore]

" Larry what was the IFP market like before we went to the system we have now? "

Really no different than anywhere else. You had maybe 15-20 different carriers you could quote and offer. All had underwriting. When we switched over to the Clinton plan, we went very quickly from those 15-20 choices to offer to none for a while. Individual sales shut down for about 4 years until the governor relaxed their position of staying with the Clinton plan.

I call it the modified Clinton plan now. It's not all bad, a lot of the bugs have been worked out.

Commissions of course s uck big time compared to elsewhere. The kicker with Obamacare kicking in, was reducing agent commission to ZERO for very small group (3 or less). Then they have the balls to send me a late notice for one of these groups asking me to contact them.

I wrote back I didn't know if I had the group anymore because they no longer appear on my commission run, but "I'm sure you can contact them at your convience. "

There are some pluses to Health Insurance in WA for the consumer, price and choice really aren't there, but in the same token, you can be sick and still move from plan to plan.
We still have a pre-ex 3/9 (one of the changes to bring back individual). You aren't necessarily stuck.