Florida Health Insurance Advisors

understand people. I spoke to this very nice woman the other day who was an internet lead, meaning she is looking for information about health insurance and wants an agent to call her.

So within seconds of receiving this lead, I’ve got her on the phone. We have a great chat and we go over some plans. She loves the Humana Autograph Total plan but is also considering a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida plan. We set a time to get on my desktop share program for later that day to go over everything in detail.

I call her and we go online with her coming onto my computer through web conferencing. I point out that I think she has made a great choice with the Humana plan but it’s an HSA. She says “oh no, that won’t work” So I try to show her some other plans. Nope, she only wants this plan from BCBS that is great as long as you don’t get any serious illness. She loves it.

I keep pointing out it’s shortcomings and she doesn’t listen to a word. We’re now starting to get a little aggrivated with each other. She is under the impression that because her grandma was 96 when she died of natural causes and no one in her family ever had anything serious and because she is extremely healthy she isn’t worried.

So I guess she is getting health insurance so she can have dr co-pays. I tried to explain to her the parallel of car insurance asking her “would you buy car insurance so it would only pay for your oil change, tune ups and windshield wipers”? If you get hit and your car is totalled you get close to nothing for replacing it.

To her it wasn’t a concern, she is not planning on getting hit with any major illness. The plan my friend sold her from BCBS will only pay 60% of name brand drugs . Well if she or anyone on that plan gets cancer and the drugs are $2,000 a month she has to pay 40% of that while still paying for her health insurance. Seems ludicrous to me. Especially because full coverage from the Humana plan was close to the same price and she isn’t even paying, her boss is.

So the moral of the story is….no matter how nice anyone is, or how well I explain insurance, people have their own mindsets and no one is going to change them. Nothing against BCBS at all, but pick a different plan from them if thats what you want for heavens sake! Make sure if you get cancer you pay your $500 or $1,000 prescription deductible and then pay $35 a month per drug.

Holy cow, it really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out and I am sometimes appalled at some peoples thinking. I guess I need to work on the different strokes for different folks theory a bit more and move on. At least I knew someone reputable to refer this client to and now we split the deal. Works out well as long as she’s happy and she stays well.

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There is nothing better then finding out a client realized the value of my job as a health insurance agent. I had tried to help this couple for a long time but as truckers they are not around to meet with often.

This was before I knew everything could be done through desktop share where I can have people come onto my computer through theirs in the comfort of each of our homes in order to show them the carriers, plans and premiums.

I persisted in finding a time to meet with them. Then a day finally came where she said she’d like to meet. I had her bring her policy with her so I could look it over while we had a nice lunch at Applebee’s.

I found out she had this limited benefit policy which of course she thought was great. Her “friend” had sold it to her. Once I pointed out all of it’s flaws she was completely shocked at what a disasterous situation she would have in the case of a catastrophic illness or injury.

Thank goodness we made all of the changes and she now has my World Freedom Care plan with a $6,000 accident/injury benefit.

Months after she got this plan she called me. She had a broken collar bone. I told her to send all of her bills to the Small Business Association which is the $6,000 accident/injury benefit. All she had to pay was the $100.00 deductible from that and SBA took care of the rest.

While home recouperating from this injury, this beautiful 35 year old woman felt like her heart was racing. She went to the doctor and discovered she had extremely high blood pressure and had to be hospitalized immediately.

She has some heart defect and has had every test under the sun and still they are not sure of her heart health. She has been in touch with me, fearful of how her new insurance is going to work out for her.

All I could say was thank goodness she switched before she had this situation. She would have only had discounts and her maximum out of pocket would not have been all the help she needed especially because she couldn’t work during this time. Not to mention , no name brand drugs.

Now she finds out her collarbone isn’t healing and she may very well need surgery. She frantically called me as her bills started to come in and was really upset. I explained to her that if she was going to have this situation, she had the best scenerio she could hope for.

First, her accident/injury benefit payed her deductible and coinsurance and her part was only that $100 deductible.

Now all of her labwork,radiology, hospitalizations and doctors bills……all of her medical bills are covered 100% until 2009. She was so happy and relieved and especially grateful that I stayed in contact with her all that time before she made her switch. If I hadn’t been persistant she would be responsible for huge amounts of money today.

At this point if she tried to change companies, she would not be able to because her heart would be considered a pre existing condition.

So for all of the medical costs associated with her accident and heart she has paid a total of $100. As for me, the satisfaction in knowing I really had an impact on this couples life is more fulfilling then words can express. Her gratitude and relief are apparent and now that she has great health insurance she will hopefully be mended and heart healthy once again.

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I talk to people everyday who insist they have great health coverage. If I get the feeling I can help them I will ask some questions. Basically, I’m trying to find out what makes them feel that they’re as fully protected as they think.

“Well, whenever we go to the doctor for the flu or sinus infection everything is covered. Our generic prescriptions are covered too.”

Then I ask-
“Did you ever have anything serious to use your insurance for?” And almost always the answer is no.

Then I generally ask for them to fax me their plan or find out the name of it. A lot of people don’t even know where their policy is. Once I hear what they have, I can point out that there is a very good reason that their monthly premium is $225 for a family of four with the adults being 40 and 41 years old or so.

The reason they think it’s such good coverage is because they never had to use it.
This is when an independent health insurance agent is a huge advantage to anyone looking for coverage. Especially when it doesn’t cost the client a cent. If anything it saves you money, If an accident or illness came about, having an agent could be exactly what saves you from financial ruin. It may sound dramatic but it’s not.

It is possible to shop for benefits and affordability.
What if someone had no name brand drug coverage? If you or a family member got a major illness, your generics are not going to help you in most cases. Name brand drugs,self injectibles, Cancer, Hepatitis C all have very expensive prescriptions.

I never feel comfortable selling a policy unless my clients have unlimited prescriptions. Sometimes people are shocked by a $500 deductible on name brand drugs. Yes, that is alot of money but what if your prescriptions added up to $3,000 a month. If you get a major illness this is quite possible. All of the sudden your $5oo deductible is a bargain isn’t it. My favorite plan is just like that. You pay the $500 and every name brand prescription is $35 after that for the rest of the year.

So, just because the price, deductible, co insurance and co pays seem great, doesn’t necessarily mean you have great protection. Always keep this in mind when shopping for health insurance because once you get hit with an illness and you find your insurance isn’t good enough, it’s too late to change it.

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When I was a new health insurance agent I was told not to sell HSA’s. What did I know? I took their word for it since everyone telling me this was far more experienced then I.

Then as I gained my own experience I found myself curious and researched HSA’s. What I found made perfect sense to me.

Now all of the sudden they seem to be gaining so much popularity. And why not? Who wouldn’t love to have great health insurance protection for a less expensive premium every month.

I would rather see my clients put the dollar difference of the co-pay plan into their HSA account so that when they have medical expenses there is money already put aside for things like dental, vision, over the counter medicines. In my mind, it’s the best bang for your buck.

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This really does happen to people. Thats why I am so intent on giving my clients as much coverage as they can afford. People want to know what the co-pay is and deductible and they think this is all they need to ask about.

Even if your broke, somehow we can usually come up with the money for the doctor visit or some lab work. What we can’t afford is the major accident like falling off a ladder or down the steps.

What if you got cancer and your plan doesn’t include outpatient services? Chemotherapy and radiation are outpatient! It could literally run into many tens of thousands of dollars and even hundreds of thousands. Do you only take generic drugs? Again, what if a family member got cancer? Do you think the drugs would be generic? No way! I will always make sure you have all the insurance I can get you for your hard earned money to protect your family.

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I got a call the other day from a nice young man who needed health insurance for school as soon as possible. You know kids ( and so many adults) who wait for the last possible second to do annoying chores. I guess buying health insurance fits into the procrastinating catagory.

I had sold his dad a policy earlier this year and his dad gave him my number. Of course being a healthy 20 year old, getting him insured was super easy and affordable.

The problem was finding a time to get him to really learn about his coverage. He just wanted to fill out the application and get the job done.  Of course I finally tracked him down to explain the policy to him. I needed him to understand his deductible, co insurance, the accident benefit that came with his plan and all the bells and whistles as well. Not to mention what wasn’t covered.

When I got the e-mail from World telling me his policy had been approved, I called his house. His dad answered the phone. He is the nicest guy so he just started chatting with me. I came to find out that his dad had an accident and cut his leg at work really badly.

I made sure he remembered that he had an awesome accident and injury benefit that came with his World plan through the association that accompanies the plan. He totally forgot about it. This accident benefit covers the first $6,000 of unpaid medical expenses. Meaning his deductible was not going to come out of his own pocket. Wow was he happy.

So I explained the so simple process of sending in his bills and the form. Once he sent it in, he got processed and received a check for the bills he had paid and now has his deductible behind him for the rest of the year. Talk about making a client happy. I know I was his hero that day.

For me, it was so fabulous to have made this client so happy. I know he will be happy to refer me to others and best of all his leg is fine now and he only had to pay the $100 deductible that is required before the $6,000 is paid. All in all it was a winning ending for something that was not a great situation to start with. I bet I have a client in him and his son for life.

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It’s really funny how different independent health insurance agents or brokers have such different experiences. A year ago today I was a newish agent with World.

My daughter was visiting her Dad so I figured what the heck, I’ll work if I can get appointments. So many self employed business owners are too busy and welcome that day off to get these kinds of things done. 

Selling health insurance on the 4th of July sounded crazy to other agents. My manager told me “if you can get an appointment these people mean business”. So I got up early and drove to my first appointment not far from home. It was such a pleasure helping these people. They were relaxed and attentive and so grateful that I would come out bright and early on a holiday.

For me it was a great day, no traffic, helping people to get better benefits and less of a premium. What more could I ask for? So, I get back in my car and drive 30 minutes to Tampa. I get to my next appointment and was greeted by such a great young man who is self employed and his COBRA from his past job was running out.

As a construction company owner, he loved the fact that my World Insurance came with a $6,000 accident and injury benefit. At 20 something years old, lets face it, he is much more likely to get hurt then sick so this would be very beneficial to him.

So two sales and I think it was 11 am. I had saved both clients a great deal of money, gotten them great coverage and I still had the whole day ahead of me.

Now….. 2008, I’m on Google chat with some other agents yesterday (July3) and they’re talking about how July 3rd and 4th are the worst days of the year to sell health insurance.  Nobody answers the phone, nobody has time because they have holiday plans, blah, blah……….

I told them all of my experience last year and no one could believe it. They didn’t understand how their reality was so much different then mine. I don’t know how that worked out so well for all of us either but I’m not complaining. 

 I still have these clients, they have both used their insurance and they are all still happy and staying on as my clients. It’s a win win.

This year, I didn’t work or even try to. My son and his friend visiting was my big priority and what I was concentrating on. This is what’s beautiful about being self employed. Helping families with their health insurance needs is wonderful but family time is priceless especially when your child lives 1,200 miles away.

Health insurance, dental, life, deductibles and co-insurance talk is there every day of the week. Enjoying talking to people, educating and improving their situations is wonderful too. Working on a holiday whats the big deal?

I completely loved talking to these agents yesterday and being the only one who had ever had a sale on a major holiday. I may never do it again, but that will be by choice, not because I can’t.

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I’ve decided that timing is of the utmost importance and significance in life. Not that this is a news flash. In all of my past insurance sales experience, the only way to go was to spend many work hours dialing a phone and finding people to sit in front of and show them how you can help them.

It involved lots of driving and trying to organize my own schedule with my potential clients. Some are self employed and I’d go to their business during the day. Others have to meet only in the evenings. Then there are those self employed who work 80 hours a week and have a difficult time arranging things like health insurance appointments.

Sometimes things work out just like they are meant to. After finding out I needed an ankle reconstructive surgery and that I couldn’t drive for at least 3 months I just about lost my mind with worry. What was I going to do to stay in business, to help people and also to reach as many people as possible?

Then I find out about online health insurance sales. This has become the way to go for me, for my clients and I guess the whole industry. Well, what better timing!

 As I was learning about this process and recovering from surgery, I was watching the gas prices steadily rise. Now at $4.00 a gallon and even more, I can kind of kiss my days in the car goodbye. Driving 400 to 1,000 miles a week…or….staying home and helping many more people with their health insurance challanges doesn’t even seem like a choice. It’s such a no brainer.

So now I help people with everything from coming off of group insurance, to educating on what is an HSA, to critical illness and accident insurance.

The beauty of this is that I can accomodate everyone because I am in my office and can work anywhere I can turn my computer on. So if a client needs an 8 am appointment with me or an 11 am on Saturday,or a 7:30 pm after work, I can do that and not spend a dime on gas.

 I love getting my clients better insurance benefits and better premiums. I think it’s fabulous that I can do almost anything that makes it possible to help all of these people. Spending time through a web conference and quote comparisons is exciting and at least puts a little fun into the process.

Obviously, the internet is here to stay. I’m quite sure the same goes for selling health insurance online. However, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and everything from life, health ,dental insurances is going to be able to benefit many more people as this technology grows and changes over the years. What an awesome way to earn a living!

 HOPE= Helping Other People Everyday

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Health insurance should not be the steaming mass of confusion it now is. We can help. Florida Health Insurance Advisors can simplify the process, save you money and get you set up with the right health insurance for you and your family.

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