Succeeding with enhanced benefits — formerly known as voluntary benefits — involves a super simple strategy. It’s all about setting up a dedicated time with your prospect or client to discuss how enhanced benefits fit directly into their total benefits strategy. Those benefit brokers who get it, get it. But sadly, up to 95% take the wrong approach. As a …
Is the largest enrollment firm hiding in plain sight?
Most 1099 contractors mistakenly believe they are beholden to one insurance carrier for enhanced benefit enrollment services. Most folks who consult on voluntary or, as I call it, enhanced benefits, have an enrollment arm to their business that acts as an in-house enrollment firm. They also have in-office counselors who conduct one-on-one meetings with employees to educate them on various enhanced …
Jimmy Fallon Shouldn’t be the Only One Writing Thank You Notes!
Have you ever considered sending a handwritten note to thank a prospect for hanging up on you? One of my favorite comedy bits on the new Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is his Friday night “thank you notes” segment. Sure, they’re hilarious and witty, and the musical interaction with his band member and his cohost is comedy gold, but what I like …
Be coachable: how brokers can stay out of their own way
Trust the experts to know how to overcome objections and close the sale. When I take on a new client, I start by telling them how the relationship works — and how it doesn’t work. In other words, I’m a big believer in laying down ground rules: What I expect from them as a partner, and what they can expect …
For Benefits, Word Choice Can Prove Paramount
How “Ancillary” and “Voluntary” may be hurting your enhanced benefit sales I just closed my first 50-life case and couldn’t wait for the employee group meeting. Visions of 80% employee participation were letting my mind cash checks that inevitably my mouth hadn’t yet written. While presenting, I proceeded to, innocently enough, refer to the majority of their employees as “tow …
Hi, my name is Eric, and I’m a recovering carrier rep
There’s little concern about the damage carriers’ always be selling mindset is causing employee policyholders, and even sales reps. “Hi, Eric!” said the group of attendees joining me at this week’s fictitious recovering carrier reps anonymous meeting. Now, before you judge me for poking fun at very serious topics like gambling addiction, or those constantly seeking an adrenaline rush and …
Voluntary disruption, Part 2: Products
As you begin to have proactive conversations with your clients to ensure they have a proper enhanced benefits offering that complements your recommended overall health care strategy, its important that you understand all of the products and services that are available within the marketplace. Last month, I discussed how the most influential disrupter to the enhanced benefits industry must be …
Voluntary disruption
I would argue that the most influential disrupter to our industry must be the willingness of the broker community at large to adjust, adapt, and embrace our ever-changing market. “Disrupter” is the term most often used to describe health care industry thought leaders like Mark Gaunya of Borislow Insurance in Boston, Massachusetts, and Andy Neary of VolkBell in Longmont, CO. These consultants, …
3 simple ways to crush enhanced benefits open enrollments
Raise your hand if you’ve ever had an enhanced benefits (formerly known as voluntary benefits) open enrollment not go exactly as you envisioned or would have liked. If you’re one of the few who has never had this happen and you have a perfect open enrollment season score, then I applaud you with a raised and very suspicious eyebrow. For …
How benefit advisers can use negative enrollment to achieve some very positive outcomes
How can advisers use automatic benefits enrollment to better support their clients? Here’s a real-life case study provided by Matt Berger, who heads the Philadelphia market for Aflac. An employer was seeing the bulk of its employees abuse the ER or similar urgent care facilities for mundane ailments like colds and stomachaches. The employees’ $50 copay wasn’t much more than …
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