This Blog Is Not About The Election

They start arriving in mailboxes around the end of August. By mid-September, they are the subject of almost every other TV commercial.  Before long, consumers are saying “enough already!”

No, I’m not referring to political advertising. I’m talking about advertising for Medicare plans. A torrent of Medicare plan advertising hits the marketplace every year around this time as insurers gear up for the annual open enrollment season, which begins Oct 15.

If Medicare plans are a part of your practice, you already know the amount of preparation that goes into that seven-and-a-half-week frenzy of open enrollment. How successful are you at keeping your current Medicare clients?  Many of you might even be wondering about the best way to retain those clients when enrollment time comes around.

I always love to publish advisors’ success stories in InsuranceNewsNet Magazine, and our October issue includes one such success story from a Medicare specialist, Elie Harriett, who describes how he lost only 0.4 percent of his clients to competitors last year. That’s right – he retained nearly 100 percent of his clients.

Harriett gives away the “secret sauce” to his success in this niche marketplace:

“When October comes around, we stop marketing. We begin calling all our clients back, and offer to take one more look at their coverage. We don’t try to sell them anything new; we just call our clients and try to determine whether the product we already sold them will meet their needs in the next year. And if it won’t, we fix it so that a new one will.”

But there’s more to the secret than we have room for here, so you’ll just have to read the rest of the article to get the details. Harriett said he not only was successful in retaining his current clients, but his referral rate continues to climb as well.

Client service and educating yourself are two of the keys to success in this market as well as any other market in which you specialize.

Do you have a success story that you would like to share with INN’s readers? Do you have the “secret sauce” that has led to happy clients and more referrals? Don’t be bashful – we would love to share the story with our audience and spread that success around.

Susan Rupe is managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at Susan.Rupe@innfeedback.com.

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