Thanks for dropping by............

Hi Insurance Agents,

Welcome to my Blog. I'm excited to be offering tips and ideas that have helped me through the years selling insurance. Here you will find articles, strategies and recommendations on increasing your productivity in the insurance industry.



In the eight years I have worked in the Insurance industry, I have been fortunate to work with many top producers that have shared successful ideas from which I have been able to form some practical strategies.



The tips that I will offer here will keep you increasing productivity and income.



Please check back weekly, as I will be adding articles and tips to increase your bottom line.

Cheers,

Ethan Selph


Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Which package should you start out with on Norvax and Mojo?

Ethan,

After reading all your blog posts and watching your interview, I'm very seriously considering obtaining Mojo and Norvax.

From what I understand, MoJo within weeks will modify their product to have a CRM system as well as automatic lead call and connect. First, is this correct?

If so, then which product from Norvax would you recommend? (answer for a starter agent on a lower budget and keeping in line with your training, "don't borrow or spend more than you earn" The choices are Basic, Professional, Prem, and Elite.
For AIO agents: Are there any discounts available you know of? I don't see any in the AIO site.

Thanks.. I'll watch your blog for a post response. Truly appreciate your help and training.


Joe,  FL

Dear Joe,

Anytime I purchase a new technology product there is always a learning curve to making the product work.  As a rule of thumb, because I am the worst at learning new technology, I always start at the most basic package you can purchase with that company that gets the job done.  My recommendations would be.

Norvax:  Start out with just the quote engine.  Once you have put in all the insurance companies and you know that product like the back of your hand you can look at the auto responders and some other stuff.  There are  3 major components of the Norvax System.  They are..............

1.  Quote Engine-  Basically just gives quotes so that consumers can compare plans and apply right there.  This also has a simple contact manager that you can use.

2.  Auto Responders - Lead Miner- This automatically sends out a link so that the client can view plans right there.  It also notifies you when a client views your proposals.

3.  Website - This is a custom built website (template) that you can market and prospects can get a quote and sign up for the plan online.  This works great for consumers that can't speak English very well.

Mojo - Makemycalls.com, Mojosells.com:  I would just start with the basic package.  I only recommend the auto dialer if you have hundreds or thousands of contacts to call.  It doesn't make sense to purchase an auto dialer if you only have 100 people to call.  You can call over 100 people in an hour because it calls 3 people at a time.  The new feature that has auto responders should be great but I would learn the ropes before starting out with the whole package.  My policy is "Invest a little, get a return on your investment, and then invest more where you see a profit."  The auto dialer is very complex.  You could have your brain fried after a few hours of  tutorials on this product.  As with any new feature there are going to be bugs as well so give it a month or two.  I don't even do BETA tests with new products anymore just because I end up being the Guinea pig. 

As for the AIO (American Insurance Organization) discount.  With both of these products there are none.  There used to be and if you had them before you are "grandfathered" into them.  If you are with AIO you can ask John Pequeno to see if he is willing to renegotiate the discounts.  Daniel Christoffers is awesome to work with over at Norvax

Interim Rules for Health Care Reform Effective September 23, 2010

White House Issues Interim Final Rules on Provisions Effective Sept. 23


Interim final rules were issued Tuesday by the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and Treasury concerning implementation of the pre-existing condition exclusions, lifetime and annual dollar limits on benefits, rescissions, and patient protections provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) .

Grandfathered Plans

Last week Interim Final Regulations were issued from the Departments of HHS, Labor, and Treasury around “grandfathered plans” under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA). Health benefit plans in effect on March 23, 2010, are considered grandfathered health plans, which will not be subject to certain PPACA provisions.

The new regulations allow insurers and their customers to make only certain types of changes to their existing health plans while maintaining their grandfathered status. However, if an employer, member or insurer wants to make any changes to their plan beyond those defined in the regulations, they would lose their grandfathered status and have to follow the new rules identified by PPACA.

HHS included in its rules clarification that grandfathered plans:

Cannot significantly cut or reduce benefits

Cannot raise coinsurance charges

Cannot significantly raise copayment charges

Cannot significantly raise deductibles

Cannot significantly lower employer contributions

Cannot add or tighten an annual limit on what the insurer pays

Cannot change insurance companies

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

How will health care reform affect your commissions?

The word on the street about comissions could drastically change the way most insurance agents sell policies.  Most clients only stay on the same plan for 1-2 years because of rate increases.  For the next few years the rates are going to stay pretty low and the commission structures are going to reflect most other types of insurances.  Some insurance companies have already stated that they are going to an "as earned" type of pay structure with lower comissions like automobile insurance.  Most insurance companies are going to "beef up" the comissions on ancillary products such as life insurance, accident riders, dental, vision, and disability to make up for the drop in income for agents. 

As I get more information on these changes I will post this information.  I believe it is more important than ever to keep a reserve around to allow you to stay in the insurance industry long term. 

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

How to calculate earnings from advances on your insurance business

About one third of insurance companies offer advances now.  It is very hard for a new insurance agent to make it without getting some start of advances to get going.  Unless you have a large loan most insurance agents wouldn't be able to support their families without an advance. 

The key to becoming profitable while getting advances is to save up enough money so that you have enough cash on hand to cover your debt to the insurance company.  Until you have saved up this much money you are not "making money" in this business because you are living off loans.  Most agencies that insurance agents work for don't really care about the bottom line of the agents or really understand how to maximize each agents earnings.  To fully understand how to increase profitability for your insurance business you need to have all of your accounts in a program like Quickbooks that can help you measure profitability. 

About 95% of insurance agents don't really treat their insurance business like a business.  They treat it like a hobby.  You can tell a true business owner that really has intentions on making money because they have records that show money made and money lost.  If you had to hire a 3rd party to view your books would they be able to see what's going on with your company and make recommendations?  You should have your entire book of business located in a central location so that you can have available documents to share with others that might be able to help you.

I would strongly encourage each insurance agent to start entering information into Quickbooks and consult with a financial advisor that is trained in financial analysis at least every quarter.  I am convinced that really anyone can make a living in this business if they have the tools to make informed decisions.  In the future we will have some tutorials on this blog that should only take you about 5 hours a week to to input it yourself.  Most bookkeepers will do it for less than $16 an hour so if you make more than that an hour you should probably hire someone to do it for you.  The point is that you want to get it started so that you can make more accurate decisions about your business. 

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Using Quickbooks for your health insurance business

Can I just tell you how much I have enjoyed using the new Premier Quickbooks for my health insurance business?!  With one click I can see income expense trends, previous income comparisons, collection accounts, advances owed, highest paying customers, renewals, and expense breakdowns on one page.  I am slowly working this into my CRM.  It even has a auto responder through Intuit that you can use!


It synchronizes automatically from Outlook with all of the contacts and allows you to see the entire payment history of each client.  In the past if there was a billing issues I would have to research the problem with the client, call the Insurance company, and then call the client back again.  I am so glad that I can get off the phone with these insurance companies and be able to provide better customer service the way a business should be.

The Quickbook Premier is $349 for a 3 year license and you don't have to worry about monthly fees with quickbooks.  The only drawback is that it is a program that you install on your computer but they do have an online quickbooks that you can access anywhere.  I think that one is about $20-$30 a month.  We have used it about 4 years ago and never had a problem.  The premier definately has more features though.  I am putting my budgeting and forecasting stuff together as well as my business plan into Quickbooks Premier now. 

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Drip Email Marketing

Thanks for you help to those of us just starting on-line sales.

Are you still using Norvax , or are you using Mojo and some other drip mail co.?

I signed up with Mojo, and I am thinking of a drip e-mail co.

Any help you can offer would be grand, and thank you for your blog site!


Walter

Dear Walter, 

  I will tell you what I use and have used but the challenging part of running your own business is deciding which business model works for you.  Here is what I would prescribe based on the type of business most insurance agents are running.

1.  Buying internet leads and selling them.  I recommend using Mojo and Norvax for this.  The Norvax system is a totally different software than Mojo.  The Norvax system is a quoting system with very little interface to be considered a "great" CRM and doesn't hold a candle to the Mojo auto dialer for making calls.  If I were an agent buying leads I would have my leads go into the Mojo system automatically and call them real time.  I would use Norvax for the autoresponder emails and quoting.  This summer Mojo is going to be coming out with an email marketing function that emails every time you call if you want it to.  I believe this feature is going to be awesome!  As long as Mojo doesn't have a quoting software you would still probably need Norvax

2.  Working off renewals.  I use the Norvax system for quoting and the Mojo auto dialer for making calls.  Occasionally I will use Constant Contact for some email auto responders but mostly I am a call shop now because I like to talk to my current clients to get to know them better.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

This is my story on how I started selling online health insurance

I found this training online about me that I wanted to share with you.  This is my story and how I got introduced to online marketing through Norvax.



http://www.4shared.com/audio/yzUBs3GY/Norvax_U_-_8_Ethan_Selph_Top_P.html