There’s a movement afoot, people are breaking away from group health care and setting out on their own to find individual policies. The reasons are varied, but the fact is people are leaving the group marketplace and they have to go somewhere for their health insurance needs.

As a result more and more carriers are beginning to offer individual health plans.

This is new territory for many health insurance agents and brokers. Recently, I attended a seminar given by a major insurance brokerage firm. And the speakers offered some ways to react to this boom in individual health.

Develop a strategy. Don’t just offer health insurance; offer people a three-year healthcare, or wellness, plan. Healthcare costs are rising. Offer them solutions to keep their expenses under control by educating them on preventative measures.

Differentiate. Become an expert in consumer driven health plans tax strategy. Become a wellness expert. Leverage online tools that set you apart from competitors.

Be consultative. There are many insurance agents to choose from. If you can offer your clients advice, you are offering something different. Listen more. Talk less.

In a changing industry, the best advice is to learn how to roll with the punches and take advantage by filling the holes that those changes will inevitably leave.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Are you as nervous as re-insurers about global climate change?

When the people who are paid to assess and manage risk start openly panicking about the perils of climate change, you know that the excrement isn’t far from hitting the air conditioning.

Reinsurers, the people who insure the insurance companies, are the folks who have the most on the line. And they’re starting to get nervous. "At Lloyds, we feel the effects of extreme weather more than most," Peter Levene, chairman of Lloyds of London, said in March. "We don't just live with risk -- we have to pick up the pieces afterwards." Lloyds predicts a hurricane will hit the US with twice the destructive price tag as Katrina and will thus bankrupt 40 insurers.

We’d do well to look at their anxiety as the canary in the coal mine. After all, reinsurers aren’t treehugging doomsday prophets.

Many have the vague feeling that maybe the weather is going to get flukier as the climate changes—and maybe even a little balmier. They think the climate, particularly something as innocuous as a 1 or 2 degree change in average temperature, doesn’t affect their lives. It reminds me of how people probably reacted to the stock market crash of 1929. “I don’t own stock, so what’s the big deal?”

The stakes really couldn’t be higher, particularly for you insurance agents. Take it from Lloyd: "The insurance industry must start actively adjusting in response to greenhouse gas trends if it is to survive."

If it is to survive. I hate to freak you out, Agent Blog reader, but we've got a pretty freaky situation on our hands.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Touch point branding means making sure every point of contact you have with your customers is positive, informative and memorable.

Make these common touch points work for you.

Voicemail. It’s been around for awhile. So unless the person calling has discovered a wormhole and time traveled 20 years, they probably know to leave a message after the beep. So what does your voicemail say about you?

I recently called my insurance agent, and here’s what his message said: “Hi you’ve reached Chris. I’m currently with a customer exceeding all of their expectations. What expectations do you have? I look forward to working with you.”

Email. You don’t just receive it on your desktop anymore. People check their mail on a whole slew of gadgets. So, think about technological advances. The new devices are smaller, so your email should be too. It’s all about multitasking, so your emails should be brief and make an impression in a matter of seconds.

Portfolio. It’s all about customized information. If you act as an advocate for the consumer, you are offering something few agents do. Insurance is confusing. Simplify it.

Your business card. Your lasting first impression. Do something different with it. Maybe a picture, bright colors an unforgettable quote. Just avoid the status quo.

As an insurance agent, you are your brand far more than the products you sell, so be a brand that is succinct, meaningful and unforgettable.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

What do a doctor with a framed medical school degree on his clinic wall and a peacock with tall, bright feathers have in common? Answer: Expensive plumage. To be more specific, they’ve both got expensive plumage that sends signals, or messages, to potential patients or mates that they are reliable, trustworthy and safe.

In the case of the doctor, the framed degree sends a signal to a patient that a lot of sweat, tuition money and all-nighters went toward earning the credentials to practice medicine. The patient spying the Johns Hopkins medical degree while nervously sitting on the butcher paper receives the comforting signal: I can trust this person to stick the needle in the right place, because they don’t hand out degrees like that to anyone on the street.

University of Washington biologist Carl T. Bergstrom explains the similar function of the peacock’s plumage:

Because the peahens cannot judge a male's genetic quality directly, they instead attend to signals that the males provide: peacocks advertise their quality via bright plumage and a long flamboyant tail. This advertisement is a handicap in the sense that it is energetically costly to produce and maintain, and it is possibly dangerously conspicuous as well …

In contrast, “a weak and sickly male can scarcely afford to divert energetic resources from basic upkeep to the production of ornaments.”

The concept of honest signaling has been around in the field of biology for a long time. In 1973, Stanford professor of economics Michael Spence applied signaling theory to economics, earning a Nobel Prize in the process.

Spence’s classic example of economic signaling involves the role of education in the job market. Consider two applicants to the same job, where applicant A is more qualified than applicant B. Without any signals, there’s no way for an employer to know which applicant is better. This situation benefits applicant B greatly.

What if, however, applicant A could point to a fancy degree in a related field? It would send a signal to an employer that she invested time and effort into a signal. And maybe the degree in itself doesn’t make her a more productive worker. (The peacock’s plumage doesn’t necessarily make him a better peacock—in fact, the plumage can be quite cumbersome.) But the fact that applicant A has the extra energy to invest in an expensive signal is signal enough.

Like the sickly peacock, applicant B doesn’t have the wherewithal to invest in the signal. And that’s the key—it’s more expensive for the bad applicant to get the plumage, so they don’t bother getting it.

Applicant A, with the shiny plumage, gets the job.

The question for you, insurance professional, is what (honest) signals can you send to your clients to assure them that you’re a good bet? If you’re licensed to sell insurance, you’ve already invested in an expensive signal, so you’d do well to show it off.

Keep in mind that signals must be somewhat expensive to work. If the sickly peacock could afford expensive plumage, it would no longer be an effective signal. Similarly, sending an effective signal is more than buying a spendy three-piece suit. The suit may set you back a week’s pay, but it’s still a cheap signal to a prospect.

Many people underestimate the value of signals because they may not make them better at their jobs. But they miss the point. The degree doesn’t make applicant A more productive. It does, however, show the employer that they were able-bodied or able-minded enough to get it. And that’s what the employer is looking for. That's what your prospect is looking for.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Are you Facebooked? LinkedIn? A closet MySpacer? If so, you've undoubtedly dealt with unsolicited "friend" requests which leave you wondering: Should I let this person into my network? What does she want with me?

Tim O'Reilly from O'Reilly Radar is calling for some manners when it comes to inviting people into your network:

Most of these [friend requests], relying solely on the boilerplate invitation text, go right into the trash. "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn." Sure. Who are you? What do you do? Why should I care? (Even if I've met you, I might need my mind jogged, especially if you might have the same name as other people I know.)

Instead of using the typical boilerplate invitations, O'Reilly suggests writing your own, explaining who you are and why you'd like to connect, like Janet here, who briefly explained why she'd like to connect with him:

So, the next time you try to befriend someone via the intarwebs, make sure you offer a little about yourself. Otherwise, your invite—and potential business relationship—might just end up in the trash.

[Previously]:
Beyond MySpace
Are You LinkedIn?
Is Your Netiquette Turning Customers Off?

[via]

Posted by Megan Mahan at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

It seems we’re into a new type of thematic blogging here at the Agent Blog. Last week’s posts dealt primarily with e-mail and this week’s with health care. This post will explore the concept of employer-linked health insurance.

Whenever I get to thinking about it, the less sense it makes. Why should people get health insurance through the workplace? They don’t get their car or homeowner’s insurance from their employer, and as far as I know, there is no one lobbying for this to change. It would be weird to get a new auto insurance policy every time you switched jobs. Yet there are passionate advocates out there for keeping the link between your health care and your paycheck. Why?

One argument is based on the high cost of care and the fact that group insurance is a better deal than individual insurance. Ok, I get that part. And there’s also the claim that companies, with their numbers and bargaining power, empower health care consumers and help them navigate the messy system. Makes sense.

But there are as many good arguments for breaking up the relationship. Young workers today are expected to have some ridiculous number of careers by the time they turn 40. It’s conceivable, then, that a lucky young worker today will enroll in separate health care policies for each of his successive jobs. Now consider that insurers’ administration costs play a large part in escalating health care costs. That administrative burden is exacerbated by an increasingly mobile workforce.

Many businesses, particularly the very small and the very large, have the most to gain from being released from their insurance obligations. Without having to pay health care costs for aging workers, they would have more cash on hand to compete with overseas companies, which have never had to provide coverage for their workers.

Proponents of keeping the link say that health insurance is an important way for companies to attract and retain their workforce. (In fact, that’s how it all started—in WWII, companies faced a labor shortage, and since there were wage controls in place, they started offering health insurance to lure workers.) This creates a winner-take-all situation in which small business get the shaft. They cannot afford to pay for insurance, and loose a lot of good workers as a result. And the large companies that could once afford to lure workers with health benefits now find themselves bogged down with aging workers who are draining the company funds. It’s a pyrrhic victory.

Additionally, employer-linked health insurance is a drag on upward mobility and personal growth. Consider the would-be Beethovens or Einsteins who are afraid to leave their jobs pushing paper clips or changing ink toner because they are scared to go without insurance.

By taking employers out of the equation, consumers would be forced to be better stewards of their health and more conservative in their health care spending. When your company is footing the bill, there is no such thing as care that is too expensive or perhaps unnecessary. The result? A country that spends way more on health care than most of the developed world.

Sever the connection, and you can also get rid of the employer tax deduction, which costs $200 billion a year. Why not give those billions directly to people and tell them to go buy insurance? Why give it to a middle man, the employer?

Ready, set, tear apart my argument.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
 

Thought-provoking health care tidbit du jour:

Make sure to leave your two cents via comments!

Posted by Megan Mahan at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
 

All of you agents selling health insurance can breathe a sigh of relief.

Because in the event that Hillary Clinton wins the nomination and then the presidency, her plan for overhauling America’s health care system has a place for you in it. A rather big place, in fact.

Yep, Clinton is back on the health care bandwagon, and she says she’s learned some big lessons from her failure, in 1993, to revamp the system. This new plan shares the ambition of covering every citizen, but it’s perhaps more pragmatic and less combative than the one she promoted as first lady.

Here is Clinton’s plan in a nutshell:

Let us know if you have anything to say about the plan by leaving a comment below.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
 

Google Analytics is a free program that generates comprehensive stats about the people who come to your web site. It's a cool program that we use here at InsureMe on our myriad sites to see who's stopping by, what they're looking at, how they found us, etc.

The factor I haven't considered when previously recommending Google Analytics is that it can be hard to know where to start—afterall, there's so much data! And what does it all mean? How do you use it to your advantage?

Seth Godin points us to a book (and blog) that helps us quickly and easily answer these questions. So if you're new to analytics programs, this is for you.

[Related]:
Grade Your Web Site (Without Fear of Detention)

Posted by Megan Mahan at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Since this week has taken on an e-mail theme, I figured I’d add my own couple of pennies the subject.

Before I add anything new, though, I’d like to say I heartily agree with everything Megan has written on the topic. Check out her posts here and here if this is your first visit to the blog this week.

“Inbox Zero”
Productivity maverick Merlin Mann popularized the concept of inbox zero, in which the goal is to leave your e-mail inbox as uncluttered as possible—to the point where there is nothing in there. Zero. Zippo. Zilch.

The idea is not to delete e-mails willy-nilly. Nor does it require responding to every message the moment you receive it. E-mail enslaves people who feel compelled to reply right away. Worse, as Mann says, “If you’re just doing meta-work inside of e-mail, you’re not getting stuff done.”

The point of inbox zero is to force you to “process” e-mails by deciding on a course of action or, in some cases, a course of inaction. Processing means doing one of five things:

Delete
Delegate
Respond
Differ
Do

So what?
The concept of inbox zero is guided by the fact that time is finite. The question, then, is this: is e-mail taking up too much of your time? Is this “meta-work” distracting you from the real work that could bring you success in your field?

Posted by Jeb Foster at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Okay; so I'm on an email kick this week. Go ahead and read way into this. I give you full permission to assume that email is driving me insane this week.

I'm not alone. Two weeks ago, BL Ochman of MarketingProfs declared war on email. Now she's getting reacquainted with her email client—keeping some steadfast rules in place.

Follow Ochman's lead and climb out of email purgatory by:

• Turning off email notification
• Not opening your email first thing in the morning—do something productive first. Return phone calls make your to-do list for the day, etc.
• Limiting the amount of time you spend on email
• Keeping IM clients open for the people colleagues you want/need to talk to
• Telling your friends to email you only if important
• Calling someone after the email has more than three messages in it
• Asking colleagues and peers to use descriptive subject lines
• Explain that you're likely to ignore 500+ word messages
• Worrying less about the whole situation

Of course, I understand that agents—especially those receiving leads via email—don't always have the luxury of employing some of these tips. If you buy leads from a vendor like InsureMe, look into other ways of receiving your leads. At InsureMe, we allow agents to receive leads in a variety of ways, including via their PDA or handheld.

We've also developed the Agent Connection, which is separate web/desktop application that interfaces with your account to notify you when you've received new leads. This way, you receive your leads all in one place rather than having to dig through and be distracted by your email.

You may also want to set up notifications in your email client to help you stay organized and inform senders that you won't be answering email right away. Ochman does exactly that, sending an auto-reply message that says:

Dear colleagues & friends: I am checking email only a couple of times a day because I am overwhelmed by the more than 700 emails I have been getting daily for the last several months. I simply cannot believe they are all necessary.

So, if something is pressing, please call me, or IM me.

If you send email, please understand that I may be back to you in hours rather than minutes.
Thank you!
B.L.

Minimize the email insanity! Pick a few of these tips to help you pare down the time you spend readying, replying and sighing heavily.

Posted by Megan Mahan at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

We Americans have paradoxical ideas when it comes to the role of luck.

In some ways, we’re more drawn to luck than many cultures—we love to gamble, for example. Maybe it’s a by-product of our optimistic nature.

Yet we also prefer to think of our successes as the result of hard work and savvy. (Think about the whole ‘up by the bootstraps’ paradigm.)

Excluding a few honest individuals, we don’t readily admit that luck plays large a role in our achievements. Perhaps it is because we don’t like the idea of our future being beholden to random events. Or because we prefer to think it was our dazzling performance that caused the big breakthrough.

We lionize the successful, but not for their luck. We read autobiographies by well-healed CEOs and search for clues that we can apply to our lives. We don’t read books by the random bloke who won Powerball. The CEO and the bloke were both lucky—the difference is that the CEO has developed an appealing (and self-serving) tale that downplays the luck part and emphasizes the ‘and then I did this awesome thing’ part.

If you accept the idea that success is largely predicated on random fortune, then what should you do? Wait for luck to strike?

As it happens, research suggests that people who believe they are lucky are more likely to benefit from the unexpected—meaning they are more likely to be lucky. If you think you will be lucky in the future, you will be lucky in the future.

If successful people share another trait, in addition to being fortunate, it is their ability to notice when they are presented with an opportunity. If people like Steve Jobs and Jack Welch deserve any credit—and they do—it’s for being able to see potential when potential rears its head.

According to British academic Richard Wiseman, an expert in the study of luck, those who see themselves as unlucky usually have more anxiety—and that anxiety clouds their vision. The eternally unlucky wouldn’t notice opportunity if it weighed 400 pounds, wore a red cape and arrived on a horse.

The good news is that luck is probably more evenly distributed than we think. What isn’t evenly distributed is the ability to spot it.

But fear not! Wiseman has these tips to improve your skills at spotting opportunity:

● Listen to your gut instincts - they are normally right
● Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine
● Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well
● Visualize yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call.
● Luck is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy

In closing, I'll leave you with a classic example of being blind to opportunity:

Posted by Jeb Foster at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

Email. We use it for business and pleasure with reckless abandon. But as this recent Wired article points out, we need to be more responsible with our e-communications—especially when it comes to requesting action or info from the recipient.

Wired reminds us to keep email quick and concise with these four tips:

1. Brevity
"Short emails rule." This is absolutely true. When we get long emails, we automatically start scanning, wonder if we can put it off until later, or forward it on to someone else to deal with. To keep your email brief but still include the important details, Wired recommends attaching supporting information to the email—but keeping it separate from the issue and what you want from the recipient.
Bonus tip: "If you're passing a thread along, trim what isn't needed."

2. Context
If the recipient doesn't know you by name, tell them how you came to come in contact with them. (i.e., "You recently shopped for health insurance quotes on InsureMe.com and we were matched...")

Furthermore, when asking someone a question, Wired says to "anticipate any missing details that could cause an extended back-and-forth" situation. Make your emails count the first time around.

"And for god's sake, have a subject line," says Wired. "One that makes sense." Match the email topic to the subject line. Even if the topic changes as the thread grows.

3. Something to act on
Is your goal to obtain information or action out of your email? Make your requests clear.

"Set your requests apart from the rest of the message by paring them down to one sentence, with white space before and after." You can also highlight your request by using bullets (or asterisks, if you don't have HTML email) to outline steps that need to be taken.

Try using closed-ended questions in email (versus the open-ended ones you use face-to-face with prospects) to keep the exchange from getting lengthy.

4. A deadline
It's happened to all of us—you finally get a response from your recipient and their answer is no longer relevant. If you're working with a time frame, let the recipient know up front. Deadlines can prompt a quick turnaround time, or at least give them the opportunity to "bow out" so you can focus your efforts elsewhere.

Check out the full Wired article here—and be sure to leave your suggestions for effective email via comments!

[Related posts]:
Is Your Netiquette Turning Customers Off?
What Does Your Email Font Say about You?
Do You Ignore Customer Emails?

Posted by Megan Mahan at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

This week, James of InsureMe Affiliate Blog fame, rehashed MarketingSherpa's tips for an improved homepage. I reviewed the list and it looks pretty good.

And because I know most of you web-savvy agents have been wondering how to get your insurance web sites up to snuff, I thought I'd rehash them here. So I guess I'm re-rehashing.

8 Steps to a Better Homepage

2. Move useful links to the 'small fold window.' You've heard it here before: Above the fold is valuable real estate. It's the part of the screen a user can see without having to scroll. But when we have multiple windows open, that real estate becomes drastically smaller. Put important links to contact info, quote applications, and account log-in even higher than the traditional fold line.

3. Rewrite navigation links to fit what people are searching for. By now you should have analytics on your web site. Go through your analytics report and see what search terms visitors are entering. Then mimic those keywords in the navigation links. Take a look at the top navigation bar on the InsureMe Agent homepage to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

4. Get rid of extra columns. Older homepages boast three or four columns. Marketing Sherpa recommends minimizing columns, using two short and one long. Again, take a look at the new InsureMe Agent homepage for visual reference.

5. Dump the external and banner-style ads. They're horrifically out of date and unprofessional. If you really want to make a little extra coin, put ads on your blog. Just keep 'em off your business web site.

6. Use a larger font. Anything below 10-point can be hard to read. I'd also like to add: Examine your font style. Dump the frilly, over-the-top fonts. Stick with clean and classic types, like Arial or Helvetica.

7. Make sure you have a fast-loading page. Web users have a short attention span. If your page takes too long to load, they'll be on to the next one faster than you can say World Wide Web.

8. Pay attention to where new users are going on your homepage. Dig out your analytics report to see what sections of your site new visitors are hitting up. If your About Us and FAQ pages are getting a lot of clicks, it's time to reexamine your homepage text. It could mean that users aren't finding the answers they need on your homepage.

Remember, your homepage should tell visitors who you are, what you do, and make it easy for them to get what they want. Check out the full MarketingSherpa article to learn more about these eight points, and peruse the following links for more on beefing up your web site.

[Related articles]:
Use Copywriters to Convert Customers
How to Make Web Visitors Run for the Hills
The Anatomy of Successful Web Sites | Part One | Part Two
Revamping Your Web Site: Part One | Part Two

Posted by Megan Mahan at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

The post sites the best practices from author Larry Fredericks:

Let's say you want to convince a colleague to stay late to work on an important presentation that will be given to a client tomorrow. If you just ask him, "Hey, can you stay after work for a few hours to work on a project with me?" The answer might very well be no.

Instead, pose this hypothetical question: "If you had a chance to retain an important client for the company, but it would require working late, would you stay a few hours to help get the job done?" In this case, he's likely going to say that he'd stay. Having him commit to the hypothetical situation moves you a lot closer to getting the answer you need.

Okay, see, if Jeb asked me that long-winded question, I'd be annoyed. What's wrong with being direct and just stating the facts?

Instead, Fredericks advises sales professionals to:

1. Describe a situation similar to the one that really exists.
2. Ask the person what he or she would do in that situation.
3. Once you've gotten the answer you want, tell the prospect that the reason you asked is because the situation actually exists. Then describe the details of the real situation.

I understand the strength of relating hypothetical experiences to real-life disasters. My main problem with it however—especially in the context of insurance— is that it seems bit patronizing, as if we can't understand the risks and rewards without being faced without a hypothetical situation.

What do you all think? Have you found more success being direct with prospects about risks and rewards, or does presenting a hypothetical situation work better for you?

[photo]

Posted by Megan Mahan at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
 

It's not the type of reportage you expect from a business magazine, but Bloomberg Markets' cover story for this month has this rather brazen headline: "The Insurance Hoax: Property insurers use secret tactics to cheat customers out of payments--as profits break records."

You might expect such a provocative headline from a left-leaning magazine like, say, The Nation or Harper's.

Indeed, the head of the Insurance Information Institute, Robert Hartwig, promptly wrote a long missive to the editor, taking issue with the story's tone and lambasting the authors' basic math skills.

"The malicious nature of this story is shocking ... I find it baffling that a sophisticated business-oriented magazine that is part of one of the most respected names in business information services chose to publish such a biased inaccurate and intellectually shabby story," Hartwig wrote.

Instead of rehashing the original story and the III's point-by-point refutation of it, I'll just leave you with links to both so you can decide for yourself: shoddy journalism or shady industry?

The Insurance Hoax
III's rebuttal

Posted by Jeb Foster at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)