If you’re an experienced health insurance agent looking to grow your business, selling solely Medicare Advantage plans and/or Medicare Supplements will only get you so far.
You know better than to “put all of your eggs in one basket” regarding your stock portfolio. The same logic applies to your portfolio of health insurance products.
To attract more clients and generate additional commissions, you must consider “investing in” ancillary products to cross-sell.
What is the definition of ancillary products? These insurance plans provide beneficiaries coverage that supplements their major medical coverage. There are several different types, such as:
- Hospital indemnity plans
- Critical illness plans
- Dental, vision, and hearing
Want to know how to grow your business fast? Try offering these “extras” to your clients.
Reasons to Sell Ancillary Products to Medicare Beneficiaries
Why even sell ancillary products to your Medicare clients? Keep reading to find out!
Make Prospecting a Breeze
By contracting to sell ancillary benefits, you can expand your client base more easily.
When you exclusively sell Medicare Advantage or Medicare Supplement plans, only a certain subset of seniors will find your services attractive. Those who want to change their major medical coverage. However, when you offer ancillary products, your services also become appealing to anyone who needs additional coverage.
By offering ancillary products, your services become appealing to anyone who needs additional coverage.
Original Medicare and Medicare Supplements don’t provide much coverage for dental, vision, and hearing services and long-term or short-term care.
Dental, vision, and hearing plans are widely needed among Medicare beneficiaries. By promoting products that can fill in coverage gaps and lessen out-of-pocket expenses, you can catch more prospects’ attention.
Offering ancillary products also can differentiate you from your competition. While a large portion of senior market agents sell Medicare Advantage or Medicare Supplement plans, not all of them sell dental or critical illness plans. Supporting these product lines can set your business apart from the masses, giving you the upper hand.
Further, offering ancillary benefits allows you to connect with more clients and ultimately provides you with your “bread and butter” sales. With ancillary products, you can sell year-round to individuals both over and under 65. Plus, writing a dental plan is an easy way to get your foot in the door.
Once your prospect becomes your client, you can develop that relationship and discuss their primary coverage when the time’s right.
Bolster Your Current Book of Business
Putting ancillary services in your portfolio can also help you make the most out of your current book of business.
Your existing clients can be the best leads possible; they’re free and already comfortable with you as their advisor. Products such as hospital indemnity plans can be an easy cross-sale to cover Medicare Advantage hospital copays.
While you’re discussing your clients’ inpatient hospital benefits, you can naturally bring these plans into the conversation.
Marketing coverage for ancillary services also allows you to meet more of your clients’ needs and build client loyalty. Many people like the convenience and ease of doing all their health insurance business through one person.
By selling ancillary plans, you could better serve as their one-stop shop. Additionally, clients with multiple policies through you have less need to shop elsewhere. Therefore, offering ancillary products could also improve your client retention.
Marketing coverage for ancillary services allows you to meet clients’ needs and build client loyalty.
Tips for Cross-Selling
How do you successfully cross-sell ancillary with Medicare? There’re a few things to keep in mind.
Know Your Products
This may seem too simple to be a tip, but how can you sell a product you don’t understand? You may be trying to cross-sell, but what happens when your client asks about annuities or long-term care and you’re only prepared for Medicare? If you’re not prepared, you may lose a sale.
How can you sell something you don’t understand? Know your products!
Stock your portfolio with great products and then take the time to understand how they relate to your other offerings and your customers’ needs.
Pave Your Path to Success
Health insurance is a risky business (pun intended). Branching out and promoting multiple product lines is essential for agents to secure a steady flow of income during the on and off seasons of their major products.
The demand for ancillary products and the diverse and advantageous nature of their benefits make them an excellent complement to your senior market products.
Whether you want to improve your business a lot or a little, adding coverage for ancillary services to your portfolio could just be one of your best decisions yet.
Have a Plan
Cross-selling insurance takes some forethought. If you try to wing it, you may not find success. You may even alienate some of your clients. So be sure to have a well-thought-out strategy for offering products.
Think ahead of time about which products and carriers you want to offer, how those products relate to each other, and how they relate to each individual client.
Read about what ancillary insurance products to cross-sell
Cross-selling takes some forethought. If you try to wing it, you may not find success.
Don’t go into it blind. Practice your pitches in the mirror to make them more natural and test them against other agents who are successful at cross-selling. Then, try our other tips to improve your sales pitches.
Read Your Client’s Needs
If you don’t take the time to understand your client, you won’t be able to pitch them products they may go for. Instead of just shooting in the dark, take the time to develop a relationship with your client, listen to their story, and pick out the important details. These may be key to offering coverage that your client needs or wants. Not only that, offering relevant products alongside establishing rapport is a surefire way to get recommendations and referrals.
Go the Extra Mile
The best way to sell a second product is to sell the first one well. If your client understands you’re a knowledgeable professional who cares about them, they’re going to be more open to hearing the second pitch. Make sure your service really benefits your clients the first time around and prove you’ll go the extra mile to take care of them.
Try things like setting up their first doctor’s appointment or giving them clear explanations about how their policy will work in real-world scenarios. Always answer questions in detail and be available to answer their questions and help file claims.
The best way to sell a second product is to sell the first one well.
When you’re in sales, you aren’t just selling coverage or a product. You’re selling the solution to a problem. The more effectively you solve your clients’ problems, the more likely they will come to you repeatedly to solve their next one. If you keep that and the rest of our tips in mind, cross-selling will be a cinch.
With Ritter by your side, you’ll have even more access to resources, tips, tricks, support, and tools to aid you as you continue to build up your business. Register with Ritter for free to use everything we have at our disposal!
Not affiliated with or endorsed by Medicare or any government agency.
Share Post