We find that successful health insurance agents are continuously seeking out ways to improve their business, taking advantage of opportunities to grow their agency and help more clients find the right protection. It’s not easy these days operating in the field without the day-to-day interaction with like-minded agents we were used to years ago. But, one strategy that continues to propel agents to the leader boards year after year is by partnering with a Field Marketing Organization, or FMO.
We are publishing a series of articles about why top agents work with FMOs as well as what you should expect from your FMO in exchange for your affiliation. Our hope is that these words will help you find some new ways that we can help increase your efficiency, save you time, expand your product offerings, and grow your income.
Whether you work with AHCP, short for America’s Health Care Plans, or any other FMO, we want to make sure you’re aware of the many services you should expect, and are taking advantage of, that can contribute to your success.
This week, we’ll highlight reason number one that you should work with an FMO like AHCP:
FMOs research and vet carriers and products for the agent
Imagine if you were opening a department store. First, you’d have to decide which departments to include—women’s clothing, men’s clothing, children’s clothing, home décor, and furniture, for instance. Then, within each department, you’d want to offer multiple categories of products—shirts, pants, belts, and shoes, for example. Then, within each category, you’d need to figure out which brands to sell. There would be a million decisions to make, and it would take a team of dedicated and hard-working people to make the venture a success.
Starting an insurance agency isn’t all that different. Your license allows you to sell to numerous different audiences, like individual, group, and Medicare. Think of these as the various departments. Within each, there are multiple lines of coverage, such has health, dental, vision, life, disability, and supplemental products. Think of these as the various categories. And, within each category, there are a number of carriers competing for your attention and for your clients’ business. Think of these as the different brands.
The problem, of course, is that you may not have a huge team of people to help you find the different “brands” that you want to include in your portfolio. That’s where an FMO can help.
At AHCP, we have over 500 products with almost 50 carriers in every state across the country, many of which offer multiple product lines in your area. That means we can serve as a one stop shop for brokers who are trying to determine what solutions to offer to their clients.
Over the past fifteen years, we’ve gained a lot of knowledge and experience with more than 100 carriers, vetting them for your benefit. And we continue to research new carriers to ensure they meet our rigorous standards. Our carrier partners entrust us to manage close relationships with thousands of hard-working agents in the field, to handle carrier appointments, license verifications, training, commission processing, compliance, and numerous other administrative requirements to lighten the load on them. It’s also a huge time saver for busy agents.
AHCP also provides exclusive access to proprietary accident, critical illness and short-term medical insurance products you won’t find anywhere else. That can give you an edge over your competition.
Once you’re appointed, we can get you up to speed so that you’ll understand the benefits each carrier offers and what differentiates them from the competition. This is critical since your job as an agent is to find the best solutions for your clients. The carrier education we can provide will help you determine when the solution is a good fit and when it is not.
This product education comes in a few different forms. Of course, every FMO will be different, but at AHCP we’re very proud of the various learning opportunities we offer. We host regular Live Sales Training sessions for our agents and also offer replays of Product Training webinars from numerous carrier partners that you can watch on your own time. Our training team is also available to answer any questions you may have.
Last but certainly not least, many of our carrier partners offer short-term sales incentives and bonus programs. While generally agents don’t make product recommendations based on how they will be compensated, these bonus programs can provide the extra motivation agents need to beat the bushes a little bit harder and find clients for whom the solution might be a good fit.
Our appointed agents can log in to the AHCP website and learn about the current incentive programs in their area.
In addition to any short-term bonus programs, our strategic partnerships with industry leading carriers allow us to extend top commissions directly to you. It pays to work with AHCP!
If you take a look at the solutions offered in your state, chances are you don’t already work with every single carrier. So if you’d like to go ahead and get appointed with the ones you’re missing, reach out to our team and complete the producer agreement here: https://www.ahcpsales.com/join-the-team/
And if you’d like to expand into some other product lines, we can help with that as well. You may want to take a look at our pre-recorded training videos to learn about the various product lines, or give us a call at 877-228-8773 if you’d like to chat about your options.
Be on the lookout for future posts, in which we’ll highlight other big benefits of working with an FMO.