- Hi, I'm Sylvia Gordon.
- Hey, and I'm Rebecca Gordon.
- Stay tuned this week when we talk
about all the things fascinating in insurance
that happened last week.
(rock music)
- Starting with...
- The Life and Annuity Expo
which is coming up on March 5.
But don't listen to us.
Listen to Randy Pearson.
- I've got Jack Broyles coming in.
Now if you've never seen Jack speak,
you're in for a treat.
Jack is gonna teach agents
how to use annuity and life insurance products
to solve one of the most distressing epidemics
in America today and that's Alzheimer's.
Lastly, our keynote speaker is Van Mueller.
He's a sales and marketing coach
who's gonna help you, the agent,
solve the age-old problem...
[Sylvia and Rebecca] How to get in front of more prospects!
- Woohoo!
- We have our perennially-favorite Speed Dating.
I've got 20 carriers who have custom designed sales ideas
that'll help take your sales in 2020
to the next level.
In addition, we've got over 35 carriers and vendors
in the Life and Annuity space
that are gonna show you what's new and what's hot
and how to take your business to the next level.
- Boom.
- Boom, drop the mic!
So, look, if you've never been
to one of our Life and Annuity Expos
and you're currently writing Life and Annuity,
we want to earn your business.
So if this is hitting on a string of yours
and you're like "Man, I really wanna see
what this is all about"...
- Call Rebecca.
- Call me.
My extension is 314 or my email is listed below.
We'd love to get you out here.
- If you want a free ride out here or accommodations
or something to entice you to come check us out,
kick the tires on our Life and Annuity department,
call Rebecca.
She controls the purse on that.
And we have so many people that we just fly out
just to interview us.
- Right 'cause it's all about relationships.
In addition to that, if you are coming,
and you didn't know, - While you are here.
one of the really cool things that we do
that really kinda sets us apart
is our video marketing packages that we have created.
- So one of the things that every agent needs
is he needs his own branding.
She needs her own logo and a lot of people don't have it.
Or they did it themselves
and so if you need professional graphic design,
we have a fantastic team here
and it's really cheap.
This is not the right flyer for graphic design.
To get your logo designed, okay,
and then to take the high res and for us to put it
on your website.
- [Rebecca] Easy.
- And help you put it into social media.
Another thing we do is we do social media
for the Medicare market.
So a lot of people wanna be in social media
but they can't keep up with it.
You have to feed the machine.
You don't just post when you feel like it.
You have to post with regularity.
- Yes.
- To feed the algorithm.
So if you want us to do your posting,
it's 50 bucks a month.
And that's something you can talk to us about
when you're out here or you can call your marketer.
Another thing that we do is website design.
So, I asked some of our really hotshot agents,
"Do you have a good website?", and they all said, "Yes".
And I said "Well let's just pull it up".
I about fell out of my chair
with one of the first ones that came up.
It was a like an analog website
from the eighties or something
and I was kinda like tried to be gentle.
I tried to pull up my inner Rebecca and say
"Who designed this?".
- Oh, this looks very nice.
- They're like "Oh, my son designed this" or
"Oh, I designed this" or "My dad does this".
I got that from three different people and it's like
"Okay, well you need to get it done correctly".
There's a difference between having a website
and having a website that people can find
that can work for you.
Most agents are really falling down on this.
And I had one agency, they're like
"We just spent 10 grand. Ours is sharp.
Pull ours up".
So we pulled theirs up and right away,
one of the very simple metadata things,
very first thing, was wrong.
And the problem with the websites
is people make a pretty website.
It's like an FMO.
Don't pick an FMO just 'cause she's pretty.
- But you can pick us.
- Pick 'em because they're smart.
The websites gotta be smart.
It can't just look good.
It's has to work for you.
- Functionality.
- It won't work for you if the search engines can find it.
That's the very bottom level.
Plus we help people with their Google My Business,
with the search engine optimization,
there's so many things that we can do on the back end
and you guys gotta ask your marketer
so we can get you in the queue.
We only take so many clients a year on the videos,
but if people coming to the Life Expo
want to film videos on our video package,
we still have two spots or three spots left,
depending on if you come a day early or not
where we can bring you in, sit down to develop your channel,
give you the vision, and actually film some videos,
so that you leave here and things are gonna happen.
- Execution.
- So, talk to your marketer if you're interested
in logo, branding, social media, or web design.
- It's that whole other marketing arm
that you have to do.
Let's talk about Aetna PDP.
- Where's my money?
So, Aetna bought WellCare and we're getting a lot of calls
"Where's my money?".
It's going to be on your WellCare statement.
That's not nice.
- Aetna didn't buy WellCare.
The question of the day is: Who did buy?
- That's what my notes say.
- Aetna didn't buy WellCare.
- Aetna sold WellCare.
- Sold their Part D to WellCare.
- Aetna PDP sold WellCare. - Don't feel bad.
- Don't feel bad that you're confused
'cause everybody's confused.
- Hey you better edit that out.
- Everybody's confused.
Aetna Part D went to WellCare, their Legacy Part D,
and now people are all calling in asking what?
- "Where's my money?".
- So where is their money?
- It's on their WellCare statements.
- It's on their WellCare statement.
Your Legacy Aetna Part D is on your WellCare statement.
Look for it 'cause people are like
"I'm not getting it".
No, you're getting it.
Look on your WellCare statement.
- Look on your other statement.
Look, if we're gonna have
this many mergers and acquisitions.
- Nothing's easy.
- Nobody better hold that against me.
I can't keep this crap straight.
- Okay, Telehealth is something
that most agents don't get very excited about.
It doesn't raise my pulse.
- So, I totally am there with you.
I was never hot on Telehealth
until like everybody I talked to is like
"Oh, I love Teleheath.
I love the Teladoc, Teladoc".
So now Telehealth is in the Advantage plans
and they're really thinking that
with more promotion of this,
it's gonna help clients in the rural areas.
- It's gonna help plans.
- But what is really...
- It's gonna help plans in the rural areas.
- Screwed up about this...
- Is it gonna help the client?
- Is what are they wanting clients to call a teladoc for?
- Okay, so one of the things that they're expanding
to meet network adequacy requirements
is they're expanding psychiatry.
- On the phone.
- And just a little aside,
but we both had to practice saying that word
like five times to get it right.
- Psychiatry.
- And I nailed it the first time.
- You did, nice job.
- Psychiatry.
- She can't see me.
- Specialists and cardiology.
Okay?
So they're saying if we include teladocs in that network,
we'll meet the requirements that CMS puts on a plan.
So Rebecca and I are like "What?".
Who wants to go to a cardiologist over the phone?
- On the phone.
I don't think I'm doing that.
- I'm envisioning that I go to my family doctor
and he does the scan and the EKG and all the labs
and sends it to the cardiologist
who clearly is not in my network
but is available in the Mayo Clinic, I don't know, whatever.
And then he's gonna call me on the phone
and then talk to me about my result.
I mean, I assume that's how it's gonna have to work.
- All that I picture is that my mom is having chest pains
and she's calling a doctor on the phone.
- Right.
- A cardiologist saying "What should I do?".
- And I assume most, especially the senior market,
they don't want to talk to somebody on the phone.
They want to sit in front of a specialist.
- Sounds very weird.
- So, that was a workaround for the carriers
to meet their network requirements
was to do psychiatry and cardiology.
- Cardiology.
- I said psychiatry right, though.
- You did.
- Via telemedicine.
So be looking for the pushback from your clients on that.
- 'Cause that's kinda weird.
- And the network, that always hits the agent hardest.
I got hit really hard one year
when there were no ophthalmologists at all,
in network, in one of my carrier plans in my home network.
There was none.
There was none within an hour and a half drive.
Yeah, so this is a challenge.
We started off 2020.
We started off in the rainforest.
I don't know.
Who was the person that got that right?
- Who, did anybody get it?
- We were in Iquitos
in Peru at the mouth of the Amazon
in our last video,
if you wondered where we were getting rained on.
And we're lucky we didn't die
'cause we were in a metal boat in a
lightning storm. - Lightning storm.
That was pretty cool.
And nobody knew where we were.
- Yes, our kids didn't know where we were.
- Nowhere.
- It was pretty awesome.
- Anyway.
So we started 2020 with price increases
on 400 brand name drugs.
And the price increase was between 5.1 and 5.3 percent
according to FierceHealthPayer.
And I know Sierra loves it when I cite my sources.
And I kinda feel like
are these companies completely tone deaf
to the conversation we're having in America
'cause the President keeps talking
about getting these prices down
and then, boom, we start the year with a 5.3 price increase
on 400 of the most popular brand name drugs.
Including price increases by Bristol-Myers Squibb,
Pfizer, and Gilead and others.
So, if your clients are complaining,
it's not something that you can control
and this is not something that insurance product
that they bought is controlling.
This is what's happening in the market.
- Hey, why don't I finish up
with one of our compelling questions?
- Hit me.
All right, look, so we ask a compelling question.
We want you to hit us back in the comments
with your answers
and then we send out a really cool prize
to the one with the best answer
or something like that.
What can an insurance company do
to turn you off immediately?
- I don't even want to answer that
but put it in the comments.
Let us know what, as an agent, what hits you.
- Keep it clean.
- I'll tell you, as an FMO, if you email me privately,
I will tell you what they do to me
that makes me cray-cray.
- Cray-cray.
- So thank you, guys, for joining us.
Please tune in next week.
If you have questions or topics you'd like for us to cover,
please continue to email, text us, DM us,
hit us wherever you want on social media
so that we can bring you the news that you wanna know.
- See ya!
- [Sylvia] You didn't say happy selling.
- [Rebecca] Happy selling!
- [Sylvia] Dang it.
- [Rebecca] I do always say that.
- [Sylvia] You always say that.
- [Rebecca] I'm selling.