Welcome to Medicare School Daily, where we help you understand Medicare, save money,
avoid mistakes, and above all else, get the most out of your Medicare benefits. I've been
doing a series called Avoiding Medicare Mistakes. None of us want to make a mistake, and there's
a variety of ways in which we can. But today's topic is this: working with an agent versus
a broker. Now, I understand that many of you are “do it yourselfers”. In fact, some
of you probably change your own oil. If you have a home repair that's needed, you probably
take care of that yourself. And you do that because you enjoy doing it and because you'll
save money. Well, usually when people go on Medicare, they don't like doing it themselves.
And I can assure you, you cannot save any money either. So there really is no benefit
to doing this by yourself. So you'll find that as you look at your different Medicare
options, you're going to have two different options for getting assistance. Only two.
And that is either to use an agent or broker. So I want to make sure that you understand the
differences between using agent versus a broker. First off, what is different? Well, an agent
is typically going to have limited knowledge, and a broker can be experienced. Now, I'm
not saying that all brokers are experienced, but there's plenty of them that are experienced.
But when it comes to agents, they are limited. And it's not because they're not capable of
having lots and lots of knowledge, it's because they work for one company and they represent
that company. Their job is to do one thing, and that is to sell plans that that company
writes. And so that's why the scope of their knowledge is very limited because they only worked
for one company and the aspects of that plan and the cost of those plans. That's really
all they know. When you work with a broker, you're going to see they’re experienced
because they have a vast amount of products available to them. And if they've been at
this awhile, they're going to understand the differences of those different plans. And
so that's the reason for the difference in knowledge. Now, secondly, you'll see that
if you work with an agent, you're definitely going to have limited plan options. In fact,
in most markets, if you work with a captive company, one agent who works for one company,
they may have maybe one or two different advantage plans, maybe two or three different drug plans,
and possibly a couple different supplemental plans, but very limited. In fact, when you
work with a captive agent, you're going to maybe be exposed to possibly 10 percent of
the market.
Well, when you work with a broker, they're going to have unlimited plan options because
they, like we, were contracted with all the carriers in that given market, so we can write
all the supplemental plans and all the prescription drug plans and all the advantage plans that
are available in that particular market. So, again, you have so many more options and those
brokers are well versed in the differences of those options. You see, I know for a fact
that one size does not fit all in the Medicare business. And that's why we and others like
us have chosen to be brokers so that we give our clients unlimited plan options. And then
thirdly, also limited services. When you work with an agent, really, folks, they're trained
to do one thing, and that is to write a plan and do so as quickly as possible so they can
get off the phone and get on to the next caller. Not so when you work with a broker. In fact,
with us, we help people set up their SSA.gov accounts, we help people who are not enrolled
into Medicare get enrolled in Medicare, we have people who want to start Social Security
at the same time, we have people who are high income and have to appeal the IRMA's. There's
lots going on in Medicare decisions and a well-trained broker is going to be able to
provide those services for you.
You get over here, and they're going to do one thing, and that is if you have a Medicare
claim number then they’ll enroll you in a plan. So very, very limited. All right? So those
are the differences. Now, there are also some things that are the same. Number one, whether
you use an agent or broker, you're going to see that the same costs for that plan is applicable,
meaning the premiums are the same; all the details of that plan. So there is no way to
save money. You're going to pay the same amount of money because the premiums that are charged
with those plans are not set by the agent or broker, it's the company that offers that
plan that sets the premium. So there really would be no difference in cost whatsoever.
Also, the coverage will be identical. In other words, you can't get a better plan with an
agent versus a broker because we write the same plans. And so that coverage will be identical.
You cannot improve your position, either way, there will be the same. And then lastly, there's
no fees. And the reason for that is because it's actually illegal for the agent or the
broker to charge any fees for the planning services. It’s illegal to do that.
And so the insurance company is going to pay the agent or the broker. So the cost is all
the same to you. There will be no difference whatsoever because there are no fees that
are charged for Medicare plans. All right? And so basically, here's what you have before.
You have many companies in a firm like us, we write for all these companies. So you have
to make the decision. Do you want to call all these companies and get on the phone and
be on hold for maybe 15, 20 minutes or 30 minutes or longer? Is that what you'd like
to do? Or would you rather work with a broker who represents all these companies? Because
each of these companies individually has agents and so you call each of them individually. You
can ask questions and get information or what you can do, you can work with someone like
us. An EnlightnU adviser represents all these carriers. We're familiar with all of
them in your particular market. And we can do all the shopping, all the comparing so
that whenever you work with us, you'll have all the information really at your fingertips
so you can make a well-informed decision. So we think it's really a mistake to work
with an agent. We think it's much better to work with a broker.