Life Insurance
Life Insurance
Life Insurance
Long Term Care and Disability Insurance
Are Commission Eliminations a Trend for Us to be…
Presented by Leonard Berthelsen There has been a lot of talk and many articles in our trade publications about carriers suspending commission payments for open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Is this a trend that the industry needs to pay attention to, or is it affecting just this specific kind of insurance? Interesting to ponder, are you going to lose any sleep over it? I suspect that if you are one of those agents that work in this market, you are concerned about the future. Are they going to expand that to all under 65 major health products, or is it contained in a small amount of the overall business? There are pros and cons with the Affordable Care Act and many differing opinions on it’s success. There is no doubt that many more Americans are insured today than at any other time in our country’s history. Medicaid expansion has added thousands if not millions of additional covered Americans in addition to the newly insured under the ACA. Regardless of which side of the aisle you sit on, these facts can’t be disputed. What does get disputed is what effect it has on the other forms of insurance available to consumers. Most of the carriers participating in the ACA have given dismal reports for the last 2 years on premium collection, insured retention, and overall claims experience. It is not a disputed fact that the majority of carriers are paying more out in claims than what they are collecting in premiums from the open enrollment section of the ACA. How long will that trend continue? Time will certainly tell. These same carriers that are reporting significant losses in the ACA open enrollment are looking for all means to “right the ship”, unfortunately, commissions got caught up in that correction. It appears that this commission suspension is an anomaly at this point and not a concern for panic with regard to the other health related products out there. Should we ignore what is happening to commissions in this group, certainly not. As a prudent business person, we all have to stay sharp to market trends, carrier actions and regulatory concerns. At this point, the carriers need the individual producer as much as the producer needs them. Very few of these carriers have a direct to consumer mentality or a mechanism to take their overall business straight to the consumer. So for the short term, insurance advisors are still needed by the carriers, the consumers and the families they support. If you have sold in this environment and it affected you financially, let the carrier and the regulators know this. The only way that they are going to know what effect this is having on your livelihood is if you speak up. Marketing Long Term Care, Disability Income Protection, Short term care and other individual products may be the solution to the shrinking compensation that the carriers imposed on the ACA. Let’s remain strong in the other individual product lines and demonstrate that our profession is truly needed. Reach out to Financial Brokerage at 800-397-9999 for additional information on this subject.
Life Insurance
The Eight Elements of Extended Care Riders – Finding…
Presented by Brian Leising Finding the right formula for each client Not all extended care riders on life insurance policies are created equally. Do you know the differences? Different combinations will appeal to different clients more than others. Here are eight of the major distinguishing features among insurance companies offering extended care riders. All include some combination of the eight elements. This allows you to find the right formula for each client.| Premium Payments | Benefit Qualification | Benefit Amount |
| Pf Payment Frequency | Pa Payment Amount | |
| Lg Lapse Guarantee | Tc Tax Code | Pm Payment Method |
| Wp Waiver of Premium | Ep Elimination Period | If Inflation |
Long Term Care and Disability Insurance
Have you considered a High-Deductible Medicare Supplement Plan F?
Presented by Tim Dreher Do your healthy senior clients ever express to you their frustration about paying high monthly premiums for their Medicare Supplement policies and then rarely using them? Are they tired of getting “the letter” every year from their insurance company announcing yet another round of rate increases? There is an alternative that you and your clients might want to consider. Maybe you should be talking to those clients about switching to a High-Deductible Medicare Supplement Plan F. If your clients are willing to pay out of pocket for certain health care costs then maybe a high-deductible plan is the answer for them. A high-deductible Medigap plan can help your clients save on premium costs while still getting dependable coverage for their healthcare needs. Premiums for a high-deductible Medicare Supplement Plan F typically run about one third to one fourth of what you would normally pay for a regular Medicare Supplement Plan F. Like any other Medicare Supplement policy, high-deductible plans still have the largest nationwide network of doctors and hospitals because they have the same network as original Medicare. Let’s take a look at how these plans work. A high-deductible Medicare Supplement Plan F pays the same benefits as a regular Medicare Supplement Plan F but only after the policyholder has satisfied a calendar year deductible. For 2016 that deductible amount is $2,180. In other words, the deductible amount represents the annual out-of-pocket expenses that the policyholder must pay before the plan starts paying benefits. Out-of-pocket expenses attributed to this deductible are those Medicare approved expenses that would ordinarily be paid by the policy. It is important to remember that the deductible is only applied to the Medicare Supplement portion. Medicare will still pay approximately 80% of any approved service and the Medicare beneficiary is responsible for the remaining 20%, which is then picked up by the Medicare Supplement policy. For example, one of your Medicare eligible clients has a medical procedure that costs $5,000. Typically, Medicare would cover $4,000 of the bill and the individual’s Medicare Supplement policy would pick up the remaining $1,000. If your client owned a high-deductible plan then he or she would pay the $1,000 out of pocket that would be applied toward the deductible. Once the deductible is met the Plan would pay the same as a regular Plan F. I would imagine that many of your senior clients would be open to the ideas of a high-deductible plan since most are used to paying higher deductibles with their pre-age 65 health plans. A high-deductible Plan F is certainly not for everyone. But for those healthy clients of yours that like the idea of paying a much lower premium and are comfortable knowing that the trade-off would be paying some expenses out-of pocket before the plan begins paying, the High-Deductible Medicare Supplement Plan F might be a great fit.
Long Term Care and Disability Insurance