Where & How to Start Cross-Selling to Fill Insurance Coverage Gaps

No one wants a pizza with sauce and cheese on only half of the pie, just like no one wants insurance that only satisfies a portion of their needs. Cross-selling is an essential opportunity to complete your clients’ insurance coverage. Even first-rate plans can have coverage gaps.

Here’s where and how you can start cross-selling to boost your business and client satisfaction!

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Explore the Options

There are a number of different ancillary insurance options to choose from. The first step to cross-selling is deciding which products you’d like to offer your clients. Consider:

• Which products would best complement the Medicare or ACA plans already in my portfolio?
• Are there certain products my clients have mentioned or asked about?
• What products do I find value in and would consider purchasing for myself or selling to my loved ones?

Pick products you can truly stand behind.

If your heart is not in the sale, your clients will be able to tell. So, pick products you can truly stand behind and ones you think have the most selling potential for your specific client base and business.

Contract

The best time to contract with new Medicare carriers is before the rush of the busy season. This can also be true for contracting with new ancillary and life insurance products. It’s always a good idea to allow enough time for contract processing, as it can vary from carrier to carrier and time of year.

Ritter offers contracting with nearly 50 ancillary and life insurance carriers, and our fast and convenient online contracting system, Contract Now, makes accessing and successfully submitting contracting an easy task. Become a Ritter agent for free and speak with your sales specialist to unlock Contract Now!

Prepare

Get to know your ancillary and life products inside and out. You don’t want to lose a sale over a flimsy sales pitch. If you’re confident about the product, your client will sense that and likely feel confident in it too. And speaking of confidence, keep in mind that Medicare can be a foreign land for new clients. Bringing up coverage they are more familiar with, like dental, vision, and hearing insurance, can give your clients self-certainty like, “Hey, I understand this, and I can do it!”

If you’re confident about the product, your client can be too.

To help grow and strengthen your ancillary knowledge, Ritter’s More than Medicare offers comprehensive agent support and training. Knowledgeable sales and product specialists are just an email or phone call away for one-on-one assistance with running quotes and illustrations for potential clients, providing product comparisons, reviewing product details, and more. For on-demand product and carrier trainings, our Ritter Docs More than Medicare page is full of recorded videos you can watch at any time. Along with those videos, you’ll also find helpful sales tools and tips that can elevate your sales process.

And if you’re looking for even more cross-selling content, our library of free guides and eBooks offer a wealth of ancillary-related knowledge and selling tips and Knight School offers an array of educational modules covering cross-selling, the basics of Medicare, and more!

Seek Opportunity

Ancillary and life insurance products can be sold all year, so you aren’t pigeonholed into a specific enrollment period. This leaves seeking out the opportunity to sell these products up to you. Fact finding is a great strategy for cross-selling. You can’t fill coverage gaps or needs you don’t know exist. Follow-up appointments with both Medicare and ACA enrollees are a great opportunity to examine coverage and bring up the conversations that can lead to cross-sales.

Crossing-selling and timing can go hand in hand.

It’s beneficial to know which months highlight a specific ancillary-product-related awareness or association. By doing so, you can work in a pitch for the coverage in your outreach to clients. This gives a more sincere start to the conversation rather than, “Hey, I am contracted to sell dental, vision, and hearing insurance. Want to buy a plan?”

Here are some of the different month’s highlights:

February — American Heart Association Month
September — Life Insurance Awareness Month
October — National Critical Illness Awareness Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month
November — National Long-Term Care Awareness Month

Additionally, it’s important to remember the ancillary and life insurance plans tucked into your portfolio during AEP! Cross-selling and timing can go hand in hand. During initial Medicare sales, and policy reviews, you have clients as a captive audience, examining their insurance coverage needs and wants. If you notice a coverage gap or your client has mentioned an insurance need you can satisfy, compliantly switch gears, and present clients with all of their options.

Get the Conversation Started

Sometimes it can be awkward or daunting to start cross-selling conversations. To help, we’ve developed three call scripts you can utilize to help get the ball rolling! Use these verbatim or as a jumping off point.

Generic Coverage Review Cross-Selling Script

Hi, this is name. Do you have a brief moment to chat, or should I try to reach out some other time?

Yes — proceed with the script. No — Plan to call back and end call.

I hope you’ve been well. I was just looking over your current coverage and wanted to reach out to see how your Medicare or ACA plan is working for you.

I noticed you don’t have a coverage type plan. It’s important to me that you have all of the health insurance you want and need. Is coverage type something you are interested in having? If so, we can examine the plan options and your budget to make it happen.

Yes — proceed with the script. No — thank them for their time and end call.

Let’s schedule a time to meet. I’ll be sending you a Scope of Appointment to complete prior to our meeting. I can’t wait to connect with you on confirm meeting date, time, and location.

Focus Month Cross-Selling Script

Hi, this is name. Do you have a brief moment to chat, or should I try to reach out some other time?

Yes — proceed with the script. No — Plan to call back and end call.

I hope you’ve been well. I’m calling because it’s month highlight month. I was just looking over your current coverage and noticed you don’t have a month highlight coverage type plan.

It’s important to me that you have all of the health insurance you want and need. Is this type of coverage something you are interested in having? If so, we can examine the plan options and your budget to make it happen.

Yes — proceed with the script. No — thank them for their time and end call.

Let’s schedule a time to meet. I’ll be sending you a Scope of Appointment to complete prior to our meeting. I can’t wait to connect with you on confirm meeting date, time, and location.

AEP Cross-Selling Script

Hi, this is name. Do you have a brief moment to chat, or should I try to reach out some other time?

Yes — proceed with the script. No — Plan to call back and end call.

As I am sure you’re aware, we are in the Annual Enrollment Period. I am reaching out to see how your Medicare plan is working for you.

While I was reviewing your coverage, I noticed you don’t have a coverage type plan and your Medicare plan might not satisfy this coverage need to its fullest.

It’s important to me that you have all of the health insurance you want and need. If you’d be interested, we can set up a time to meet to examine some plan options and your budget.

Yes — proceed with the script. No — thank them for their time and end call.

I’ll be sending you a Scope of Appointment to complete prior to our meeting. I can’t wait to connect with you on confirm meeting date, time, and location.

Despite the fact that calls to check in or set up appointments with clients do not fall under the 2023 Final Rule call recording mandate from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, we still encourage you to record all calls with beneficiaries. This is to protect you should there be a member grievance at a later time or dispute about the appointment type or time.

MedicareCENTER’s Call Recording tool allows you to record, download and store both inbound and outbound sales call directly from your client’s profile using the call prompt. This will call the agent’s phone and the call will be recorded and stored in MedicareCENTER. You can access a transcript and recording of this call in MedicareCENTER for your records.

As always, before any appointment, collect a Scope of Appointment and remember the 48-rule has been reinstated under the 2024 Final Rule!

Cross-selling is not only a chance for added commissions, but also a way for you to take your career as an insurance agent a step further — show your clients you’re truly an advisor. It’s also a great chance to enhance your ability to secure additional leads and increase your tenacity with clients. Make sure you’re cross-selling to give your clients coverage that’s free of gaps and full of benefits!

Not a Ritter agent yet? Sign up right now for free to unlock cross-selling support from our MTM team and so much more!