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There are a lot of reasons not to sell individual health.
The biggest one is:
They may not pay us next year.
Until and unless, I feel confident that individual health is likely to pay us 10 years from now, I'm focusing elsewhere.
How do you calculate LTV (lifetime value) of a client if you don't know if you'll ever get a renewal commission from their policy?
I used to be one of the top 10 or 20 agents in Connecticut for ACA, so it pained me to move away from it.
I had a ton of knowledge that I worked hard to acquire and was forced to learn something new. They didn't pay Connecticut agents for 2017.
But that might have been the best thing that happened to me in a while.
(I was pretty convinced that we were safe until at least 2018. The new president couldn't make changes that took effect in his or her inaugural year. He didn't. But I got blindsided by a state-level change. "The kick that knocks you out is the one you didn't see coming" according to my Kyoshi.)
They reinstated commissions for 2018 at 2/3 what it used to be. It's back to about 90% for 2019 but once burned...
Plus Medicare is more profitable. Higher commissions (in my state), less service work, more referrals and greater persistency. That translates into a greater LTV and more time with my family, in the pool, in the dojo and in the gym.
You gotta think long term! Think LTV not FYC!
It will take me three years to make the transition from supporting my lifestyle with my health insurance renewals to being able to do the same thing with my renewals from other lines. (One year to go.)
2019 will be the last year I'll need any ACA income. I still help my existing clients. I still write a few referrals. But I don't spend a dime marketing it and say "no" to new business that wasn't referred.
I want a stable business. I want a predictable base revenue.
If you're going to gamble, gamble on something that has a big potential payoff. Go for big life insurance sales, for example.
Why gamble on something that pays moderately if you win and pays nothing if you lose?
Nothing's guaranteed, but until things stabilize, individual health is not the foundation to build a business on.
The biggest one is:
They may not pay us next year.
Until and unless, I feel confident that individual health is likely to pay us 10 years from now, I'm focusing elsewhere.
How do you calculate LTV (lifetime value) of a client if you don't know if you'll ever get a renewal commission from their policy?
I used to be one of the top 10 or 20 agents in Connecticut for ACA, so it pained me to move away from it.
I had a ton of knowledge that I worked hard to acquire and was forced to learn something new. They didn't pay Connecticut agents for 2017.
But that might have been the best thing that happened to me in a while.
(I was pretty convinced that we were safe until at least 2018. The new president couldn't make changes that took effect in his or her inaugural year. He didn't. But I got blindsided by a state-level change. "The kick that knocks you out is the one you didn't see coming" according to my Kyoshi.)
They reinstated commissions for 2018 at 2/3 what it used to be. It's back to about 90% for 2019 but once burned...
Plus Medicare is more profitable. Higher commissions (in my state), less service work, more referrals and greater persistency. That translates into a greater LTV and more time with my family, in the pool, in the dojo and in the gym.
You gotta think long term! Think LTV not FYC!
It will take me three years to make the transition from supporting my lifestyle with my health insurance renewals to being able to do the same thing with my renewals from other lines. (One year to go.)
2019 will be the last year I'll need any ACA income. I still help my existing clients. I still write a few referrals. But I don't spend a dime marketing it and say "no" to new business that wasn't referred.
I want a stable business. I want a predictable base revenue.
If you're going to gamble, gamble on something that has a big potential payoff. Go for big life insurance sales, for example.
Why gamble on something that pays moderately if you win and pays nothing if you lose?
Nothing's guaranteed, but until things stabilize, individual health is not the foundation to build a business on.