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, May 9, 2012

Do I use a quoting engine or quote from the carrier?

This is a response from Aprils' question.  I really like the Norvax product for quoting 4 options with accident and critical illnesses on one email to the client.  What I usually do is have a 5k, 3k, 2k, and 1k option with more ancillary features on the higher deductibles.  This client applied for 5 different plans.  So I made about $1400 off that client the first year.  I then extracted contact information and put him into my www.mojosells.com CRM and will keep him posted on the underwriting.  You can view more about Norvax's multiple carrier quoting at http://norvax.com/products/howitworks-quoteengine.html.

Alternative Medicine With Insurance Sales

It is no secret that the health insurance industry has been slowly figuring out ways to decrease commissions long term.  The last few years the insurance companies have put together some nice bonus plans if you meet a certain level of sales.  Less than half of all policies are kept longer than a year because of change of employment or rate increases.  The self employed family is where you'll see most of your residuals.  It would be smart to focus on those types of families.

One of the more frustrating parts of this industry is that medications don't solve most medical problems.  If you've had clients around for more than a few years you'll notice that they're on the same medications they've been on years ago.  I'm not knocking prescriptions because they are what they are.  They can help you cope with medical issues but how many medications actually solve health issues.  How many people have you seen that have taken cholesterol medication ever come off of it?  How many Bi-Polar clients are freed from Bi-Polar?  Pain medication does take away the pain but at what cost to other organs?  All too often we see commercials of prescriptions that have a long list of possible side affects.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't ever go to a doctor or ever get a prescription.  I'm saying that maybe there are alternative methods of healing that are more cost effective and just as good or better at healing.

Yesterday I contacted a client that had been on an individual policy for 3 years and was getting another rate increase.  I convinced him that maybe we should apply to another carrier because of the rate increase and the exclusion to 3 of his wifes' health conditions.  We had done the application and they were on the phone with the underwriter.  The underwriter told them that they needed to order medical records at the clients expense and that they were probably going to exclude 4 health conditions.  My client told the underwriter to not bother with the rest of the underwriting because they weren't going to go through all of that.  So once again my client is stuck paying about $600 a month with NO relief for current health issues!  Am I the only one that gets frustrated with these scenarios?

About 4 years ago one of my friends approached me as a founder of a Essential Oils company named DoTerra .  We used the product for years but my income was so high and everything was going great for us at that time.  Now he has 7000 customers every month and earns over a half million a year.

I've always believed that you can take your two biggest problems and they can solve each other.  So I started using essential oils with my insurance business to increase residuals and help my clients get some help with health problems.  I have been really happy that over 78% of clients that tried the products noticed a difference within a few days and were interested in purchasing these products.  You can go to www.mydoterra.com/reliableinsurances to view the products and pay structure.  To watch or listen to product webinars go to www.builddoterra.com and click on education. 

I realize that this is a totally out of the box strategy.  It does work and once someone uses the product and as long as they like it they continue to make more and purchases for LIFE!  If you got into the health insurance industry for residuals you'll notice that it probably isn't what you had anticipated.

Selling health insurance is a great short term opportunity.  I have been selling health insurance for about 8 years and there has only been about 1 or 2 years that I haven't made well over $100,000 a year.  It provides a lot of flexibility and if you're good enough you can keep clients around for a long time and get referrals.  If you are looking for something to retire you keep looking.  I believe that through DoTerra I will continue to build up my residual income enough to someday be able to retire!  Until then......I pound out the phones every day with little security if illness or need for retirement comes sooner than later. 

Data plan with a dialer

Terrance asked if I would use a data plan with a dialer.  I'll tell you how I use my dialer and that is with my Cricket phone.  I use www.makemycalls.com and I have unlimited phone calls across the country for $10 a month with Cricket.  I loved having a land line for years but have found that the phone companies keep jacking up the rates forcing me to go with Cricket.  I like the www.makemycalls.com aka www.mojosells.com dialer because it is now my CRM and also it can dial 3 numbers at the same time.