Practice and client management

Staying in touch. It's what we do with our family and friends ... the people we care most about. So wouldn't it make sense that we also stay in touch with our clients?

In the next several columns I will be putting on my benefit sales trainer hat, with a series of columns called, "If you want to sell, do this." These will be detailed selling techniques that producers in my firm's FutureOffice Network use every day with great success.

It's now February - the perfect time to take stock of where you are and where you are going.

Beginning in 2014 all employers with at least 50 employees must buy comprehensive heath insurance for all full-time employees or pay a penalty of $2,000 dollars per employee.

Some years ago, I was a researcher for a major employee benefits educational association. I learned that changes in federal legislation mean big business for advisers because of the demand they create for education. So here is my educated prediction for the new year: the equation in 2011 will be education equals sales.

With the new year in mind, I have a question for you: Are you working from a blueprint for success in 2011, or are you simply doing exactly what you did in 2010 and hoping for a different result?

Without a doubt, many of us working deep in the weeds of our organization's health plans are wary of the ever-mounting regulations surrounding health care reform. Recently, I attended a presentation that included a flowchart of implementation dates that looked sort of like a MapQuest depiction of lower Manhattan.

These are uncertain times for employee benefit brokers and consultants. "Obamacare" and the minions in the federal agencies are entrenching national health care with speed and design. Most recently, brokers found out that pay for the various services they provide employers will be placed on the administrative side of carriers' ledgers, making commissions subject to the law's medical loss ratio restrictions.

Boosting employees' take-home pay by providing voluntary benefits at significantly reduced premiums? That's a winner.

As predicted by producer organizations, the interim final rule on medical loss ratios issued Monday by the Department of Health and Human Services left agents and brokers on the administrative side of MLR calculations.

Sam Fleet, president of AmWINS Group Benefits, sees many opportunities to make up for the loss of commission revenue due to health care reform.

So, I promised that we’d get back to analyzing health care reform, and I am a woman of my word. We’re going to do things a little different today, though, and make today’s post a listen instead of a read.

Forgive me, pros. I’m a little bleary-eyed today, since I stayed up until after midnight to get the official vote tally (219-210, by the way) and real-time analysis of Sunday’s House vote on health care reform.

Selecting the right partner requires focused consideration of the attributes that make up the ideal partnering relationship