WellCare Action Plan.........

[InsuranceGuy29]

Why would you waste your time to go to the event? I mean, if you aren't going to write their plans and will move those you have away, just do it. Save your valuable time for something else. You can always email them to let them know.

I’m with Vale on this one. Good ol’ fashioned justified professional rage is best face-to-face. It makes it very real for the ones receiving it. They need to understand that this is wrong and needs to change. The same way going right to a politician, in-person, is always the best method and way more effective.

 

[Russ]

Why would you waste your time to go to the event? I mean, if you aren't going to write their plans and will move those you have away, just do it. Save your valuable time for something else. You can always email them to let them know.

I've never wasted my time going to any event. I can read what the benefits are without wasting a day plus the driving.

 

[sman]

I’m with Vale on this one. Good ol’ fashioned justified professional rage is best face-to-face. It makes it very real for the ones receiving it. They need to understand that this is wrong and needs to change. The same way going right to a politician, in-person, is always the best method and way more effective.

These broker reps have ZERO pull with carriers. Sure, they can pass it along to their superiors. But the ONLY thing that will get the higher ups attention is loss of business. Even with that it only matters if it hurts profitability. They are going to need to see that they were better off financially with the independent agent force sending them business.

If it makes you and other agents feel better to go fuss at broker reps, more power to you. Personally, I'm not spending my time driving to a location that's probably an hour away (it's hard to go anywhere in Metro Atlanta in under an hour), sit through a dog and pony show and then drive back to express my frustration with someone who had absolutely no part in making the decision. I can tell him/her in an email or phone call. And I can stop writing business with them.

Again, that's my personal preference. If it works for you, great.

 

[DonP]

These broker reps have ZERO pull with carriers. Sure, they can pass it along to their superiors. But the ONLY thing that will get the higher ups attention is loss of business. Even with that it only matters if it hurts profitability. They are going to need to see that they were better off financially with the independent agent force sending them business.

If it makes you and other agents feel better to go fuss at broker reps, more power to you. Personally, I'm not spending my time driving to a location that's probably an hour away (it's hard to go anywhere in Metro Atlanta in under an hour), sit through a dog and pony show and then drive back to express my frustration with someone who had absolutely no part in making the decision. I can tell him/her in an email or phone call. And I can stop writing business with them.

Again, that's my personal preference. If it works for you, great.

I’ll agree with this . Most broker reps are failed salesman that know jack crap . I’m amazed sometimes at the lack of knowledge of broker reps . That said my favorite carrier as far as interaction with broker reps and what they give me has always been Humana . United is a joke as far as i do big business with them and they’ve never helped me with anything

 

[MedicareWAA]

Why would you waste your time to go to the event?

To eat their free snacks and maybe blow off some steam. And to be wasteful with the snacks.

Carrier reps can’t change the decision but the overall feedback makes its way to the top, usually through the market and regional managers. So the more of them that share the same message, the more likely that feedback has perhaps a small ability to influence future decisions.

 

[MedicareWAA]

Wellcare cannot move clients to another plan that will, going forward, exist under new contractual rules

Yes, they can. Our agreements with them have absolutely no bearing on how any of the program rules work … crosswalks for example. Sucks for us.

They have the contractual right to flip the script on us, but we have the ability to move our clients elsewhere.

 

[sman]

To eat their free snacks and maybe blow off some steam. And to be wasteful with the snacks.

Carrier reps can’t change the decision but the overall feedback makes its way to the top, usually through the market and regional managers. So the more of them that share the same message, the more likely that feedback has perhaps a small ability to influence future decisions.

As I said, my time is way too valuable to waste it going to one of these "events" for a free snack and to blow off steam. Hell, the drive there through Atlanta traffic would only create more steam. Ditto for coming back home.

Let's say you make $250k per year and we'll pretend that you work 40 hours per week and only take two weeks of vacation. That amounts to $125 per hour in salary. Wasting $500 (4 hours driving and meeting) to tell someone I'm upset with the company's decision about PDP commissions just doesn't appeal to me at all.

My broker rep can get the same venting in an email or phone call.

The main way to make them feel it is by not writing their products.

YMMV

 

[renee15]

Like everyone here, I'm just as enraged as all of you. But I think the silver lining here in this insanely evil, greedy, and absolutely unprecedented move to strip hard-working agents of their hard-earned commissions is, we need to start organizing (essentially unionizing, of sorts), gaining political power, keeping a CLOSE eye on these carriers and their executives, and most importantly......I think we need to start making some demands of our own.

Keep in mind, we brokers do have a lot of influence and sway over our clients. My clients are like family to me. I recently relayed what this company did, and they were not pleased at all to hear this. A few of the ones I told are with WellCare. I implore everyone to share the story of what WellCare did to anyone and everyone....your clients, the news media, local politicians, etc.

This is something that really resonates with the average person, because they can easily put themselves in our shoes. We are just small mom and pop business owners that are trying to put food on the table and help people we care about. And then here comes some greedy and evil CEO (yes that's you, MICHAEL CARSON) that decides he's gonna steal our future pay, steal our renewals, and with many of our clients already with his company, apparently we should now do free work servicing them, in his mind. This is literal slave labor.

This puts us in a no-win situation, and was a deliberate trap. He knew what he was doing by offering $0 premium plans. I don't know much about the topic, but I know this has to violate some sort of labor law. Our clients are with them, and we still have to service them and basically work for free, according to MICHAEL CARSON.

What I say we demand when we are meeting with ALL of these insurance companies in these upcoming 2025 rollout meetings is a pledge that renewals will NEVER be touched, under ANY circumstances. Keep in mind, these companies are still compensated VERY well for Medicare Advantage, and competition is still fierce amongst them.

They all want all the people we can bring to them. Those that are actually doing the right thing by the clients and us are the ones that should be rewarded. We want this to simply be a given. ETHICS! These companies make us sign ethics agreements. Great....then how about practicing them YOURSELVES! The same way some of the companies pledged to never have our clients stolen by their own in-house agents, they can do the same with renewals.

If anyone also has any other ideas, please feel free to add them, and I encourage all the dialogue and as much brainstorming as possible. Again, this move was INSANELY greedy and completely unprecedented. Many hard-working agents just lost $20k, 30k, 40k with the swipe of MICHAEL CARSON'S pen. This has to stop. This cannot be something we are worrying about year-after-year.

The message to convey to ALL of these companies is....what we want is untouchable vesting of our EARNED renewals, and we want it IMMEDIATELY. We want an unending contract that is not able to be legally terminated (in regard to our renewals), that states that our existing renewal pay belongs to us and will never be arbitrarily stripped away on the whim of some greedy and evil CEO.

I stopped selling for Wellcare 12/31/2022, as
I didn't certify for 2023. They withheld my Oct-Dec 2022 commissions for 10 months, then suddenly paid them in a lump sum...

 

[KellyAH]

Why would you waste your time to go to the event? I mean, if you aren't going to write their plans and will move those you have away, just do it. Save your valuable time for something else. You can always email them to let them know.

You have to know what you are selling against to do so effectively I would think...

 

[sman]

You have to know what you are selling against to do so effectively I would think...

You do realize you can review a Summary of Benefits booklet once they are released, right? You don't need to go to a meeting to see their product.