Inherent Trust
The Essential Building Block in Rethinking Your Business Model
By: Attorney Harley Gordon
Make no mistake … change is coming to the Medicare Supplement / Advantage industry. Whether it’s CMS basing compensation on consumer satisfaction surveys or manufacturers who are refusing to compensate agents for certain Supplement products, the industry has to adapt if it to prosper. The question simply is … does the industry see change as an impediment or an opportunity moving forward?
What has been hidden in plain sight is the simple truth that the Medicare Supplement Agent (hereinafter referred to as Professional) is often handed, by the client, their trust in the form of asking for their opinion on the proper Supplement or Advantage plan. This trust is referred to as inherent trust, and for the Professional willing to think differently about their future, that special relationship opens the opportunity to elevate their status and revenue, by offering advice on subjects that impact the client’s family and portfolio.
In working with professionals in the Medicare Supplement space, those subjects have been narrowed to three: IRMAA, Long-Term Care and Annuities. What follows are ideas that allow the Professional to both expand their practice and create a recurring stream of revenue working with their client’s Centers of Influence. The opportunity is created starting with a transition from the closing of a Medicare Supplement or Advantage sale to asking if the client has another moment to discuss subjects that they need to be made aware of. They are…
- IRMAA: The Income Related Monthly Adjusted Amount is a surtax (some refer to it as a penalty) on Medicare Parts B & D. The amount is based on Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) including items such as deductions taken for IRA contributions, taxable Social Security, student loan interest, self-employment taxes and tuition and their related expenses.
- Long-Term Care: There is perhaps no other subject that has the potential for causing serious if not irreversible consequences to both a family and portfolio than a need for care over an extended period of years.
- Annuities: Although there is a market for Advisors offering their advice on how to invest assets, there are many Medicare Supplement clients who do not use these professionals but choose to invest using their own opinions. For those in the latter group, the opportunity exists to discuss the returns they are receiving by asking a simple question:
Are you happy with the returns you are receiving on your investments?
The offering of advice creates one additional opportunity … to develop a reciprocal relationship with your clients Centers of Influence who now see you not as a salesperson selling a product, but rather in the same business they are in, the advice business.
The sale of a product? The professional will see you as one who creates a plan to mitigate the consequences of the subjects raised and the sale of a product as they do … as a funding source for that plan. And finally, that relationship with the Center of Influence creates the opportunity for referral business as their clients reach the age of 65.
“Innovation and success is the ability to see change
not as a threat, but an opportunity”
Steve Jobs
About the Author
Attorney Harley Gordon created the Certified in Long-Term Care professional designation. With over 30,000 graduates, CLTC has changed both the focus of the Long-Term Care conversation and how the consequences of the event are mitigated.
His current efforts have focused on creating 2 professional designations focusing on the Medicare Supplement & Medicare markets:
- The Certified Medicare Supplement Professional teaches the student to look at changes in the Medicare Supplement market as opportunities.
- The Medicare Masters program focuses on giving both Financial and Insurance professionals the tools needed to address Medicare confidently and competently while opening new opportunities to cross-sell products associated with IRMAA, Long-Term Care and Annuities
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the federal program that supervises the Medicare industry.
- A professional who is in the business of offering advice not products. That advice when given often creates a trust which leads not to the sale of a product but rather … the creating of a plan for which a product is suggested to fund that plan.
- Centers of Influence refer to individuals whose stock and trade is selling advice, not products. They include, Attorneys, Financial Advisors and CPAs.
