Sales Update - October 2017

Hi there blog readers. 

It’s been a while (several months I think) since I last put up a post her talking about work with my current and prospective professional introducers. This has been largely down to the success of previous mailings and posts having made me so busy.

But in late 2017 I wanted to drop a note out there to my many introducers and friends (and subscribers to the blog) thanking them for their support and of course asking them to continue - I carry on receiving many excellent leads from my bank of professional introducers and together we are able to drive additional revenue for our mutual businesses but most importantly help their clients set up and maintain the right medical insurance plans for their families and businesses.

As we near the end of 2017 (and cannot believe that I just typed that - where does the time go ?) there are some important issues that I wanted to raise for my introducers which hopefully can help them target PMI business effectively for the rest of 2017 and into ’18

These are several key areas where I find (through working with various introducers and clients) that I can add value, drive more revenue and assist with preventing future problems for them and their clients. In particular some of these various issues have happened recently and whilst they're fresh in the mind I thought it was worth noting them down on the blog as well.

Here's the breakdown :

Dates of PMI renewals - most insurers will send renewals between four and six weeks prior to the renewal date. Don’t rely on insurers to automatically send these out though - always set up your own diary system. My experience is that for every 20 renewals one comes through either wrong or doesn't turn up at all and has to be chased from the insurance company. The one that turns up late or wrong though is always going to be THAT client - the one with the lowest tolerance for admin snafu's or the one that has had claims issues with the insurer that policy year. Incidentally there is often a relationship between lost/delayed/inaccurate renewals and live admin issues during the plan year - often when a plan is dealt with in a non-standard way it can fall away from the automated renewal process and is often late or mis-routed - one massive advantage of working with a specialist broker is that I'm very likely to be aware of and involved in those non-standard issues for the client and I keep a special watch out for their renewals as I'm far more likely to undertake a full review for them as well.

I've had introducers who've lost cases because an insurer mis-routes documents (two for one account in the last six months) - sometimes this is down to the ideosyncracies of the insurers systems, again something I can help with.

Direct sales - a couple of my introducers have recently lost business to clients going direct to the insurer. This is immensely frustrating as we all understand the value of independent advice for customers. In a PMI context I’m always happy to chat with your clients to reinforce the value of working with us both rather than with just one insurer. In the PMI arena independent advice is super important. The various insurers offer so many different variations and over time a clients needs will alter. I recently lost an international case where because the client went direct they ended up paying more than the other options I had put on the table. But they, the client, panicked and took the first offering from one insurer rather than waiting for the results of my report with nine insurers included. I could even have probably reduced the cost on the one they went with by giving them details of the market review but the client didn't come back to me until 11 days post renewal by which time it was too late..

This case also failed because of a late renewal going to the introducer - the case renewed on the 1st of October and I was first involved on the 28th of September. As I say we think the client panicked a little bit not realising we could backdate the switch of insurer even up to am month - hopefully we will pick them back up next year. I do expect though that if there are issues from the insurer for the client we will still get a call asking for help even though the client should just deal with the one insurer now.

Overall it is always better to look for independent advice - even if we recommend the one insurer you might have chosen yourself I am always there to assist with all aspects or admin and claims and of course, at renewal ensure the deal remains the correct one moving forwards.

It's really worth bearing in mind that one year an insurer product suits for the client but the following it may not. This is very prevalent in the small corporate market where insurers change pricing policy on (it sometimes seems) a monthly basis. In the personal arena I find that generally insurers set out their stalls to attract certain demographics of clients usually in terms of age or underwriting status.

For example, Freedom Health are competitive on younger (sub age 35 clients) whilst Aviva compete well for older people - say 50 plus. On the other hand AXA PPP have some blinding rates for switch clients at the moment - cheaper in most cases that their moratorium rates.

The up-shot is that IFA's and clients themselves are often in the dark as to which insurer on the face of it is going to suit and in particular if you obtain quotes now and take up cover direct with the insurer then you own't know in three years if the demographic price model still suits at renewal - guess what ? That's where an independent adviser comes in.

3) Filling in and returning forms - it still staggers me that clients forget to complete forms and then (despite constant chases) ring up to try and make claims - if you can help by putting an additional reminder in front of slow clients it’s always worth another voice telling them to return the application.

Sometimes clients change their minds about cover then change their minds again

The following actually happened last week. A company client asked to add an employee on the 1st of February. Then e-mailed me back on the 8th of the same month to tell me he'd changed his mind and now wanted removing.

Nothing was heard on this until last Friday - the same staff member tried to ring up the insurer and make a claim. He then called them again on Monday to try again - luckily I had the e-mail trail showing the addition and deletion (at his request) form February.

The staff member (genuinely I think) said he had forgotten he'd asked to be removed from cover. Regardless it really is an issue with lost or forgotten forms or something like this - clients can't claim if they've missed the relevant paperwork or indeed not paid their premiums.

Clients who’ve made claims - just because a client has made claims in the past doesn’t mean that (in either a personal cover or company paid context) we can’t potentially review the market for them and consider switching or making changes for them at renewal. Depending on exact circumstances (and I'm happy to spend some time with you or your clients fact-finding on these issues) there are things we can do to ensure clients don’t over-pay with an incumbent insurer - always refer a case to me if you think the client might want a switch especially if the plan hasn’t been reviewed for a year or two.

I have lost track of the number of cases I've written where the client has claimed in the last two or three years and is just renewing at exorbitant premiums with BUPA, AXA, Vitality or Aviva - there is a lot of legacy business out there that by virtue of being direct with insurers or with a non-specialist broker is just not getting properly service and we can make an enormous difference to peoples renewal costs for very little work on behalf of the introducer.

Also worth bearing in mind if the client is paying £ 400 or £ 500 per month on a legacy plan, if we switch them and even make a saving of £ 100 or £ 200 per month - it still is a very nice commission paying plan !

If you need assistance with any aspect of medical insurance marketing, sales or administration please feel free to get in touch. Even if we don’t end up working together on cases I am always delighted to help other industry professionals with their PMI queries.
If you would like to discuss any prospective cases with me or need general advice on medical insurance - just call or e-mail me.

Kind Regards

Phil

Phil Knight
Independent Healthcare Consultant
(Part of Premier Choice Group, FCA No. 312878)
T. 07792 075748
E. philknight@pch.uk.com
W. www.pch.uk.com/consultants/phil-d-knight/