So, as I've mentioned before, I'm often the recipient of referrals from other agents. Yesterday, I fielded a call from one such that still has me shaking my head.
The setup:
John is referred to me by a (his?) local State Farm agent for information on signing up for health insurance. Since Open Enrollment season is (finally) over, the first order of business is to determine whether or not he and his family are eligible to even buy a plan.
Turns out, none of the family (2 parents, 4 kids) has been insured for a while: the folks for over 20 years (!) and the kids for several (they had apparently been covered by Medicaid/SCHIP some years back). So, no obvious path there.
Turns out, though, that The Mrs has a job offer in another state, and they'll be moving there. She's been asked to determine the cost of a health insurance plan, to be included as part of the comp (she'd be a 1099 employee). So, John wanted to know how much a plan would cost.
Pause.
The good news, I explain, is that since they're moving to another state, they'll be eligible for a Special Open Enrollment. The bad news is that I'm not licensed in that state, don't know the market or the plans, nor do I know if he'd be subsidy eligible, so there's no way to know rates, let alone best options. I explain all this, and offer to hook him up with a local agent, but John's insistent, really wants to lock down a number. So I told him that it would likely range between $2,000 and $50,000 per year.
He didn't like that.
So I explain - again - why I can't just give him a number, and he abruptly hangs up on me. What to do?
Of course, "the sticker" provides a quick answer, so I hopped over to the NAABC site to find a few agents in the Austin, Texas area, and emailed those to him (along with the site for determining subsidy eligibility).
I do understand that he needs this information, but it really isn't as simple as he'd like to believe. And since he's essentially asking for me to provide my services for free, I'm not really clear on why he thought his attitude was going to be all that helpful.
Dumb.
The setup:
John is referred to me by a (his?) local State Farm agent for information on signing up for health insurance. Since Open Enrollment season is (finally) over, the first order of business is to determine whether or not he and his family are eligible to even buy a plan.
Turns out, none of the family (2 parents, 4 kids) has been insured for a while: the folks for over 20 years (!) and the kids for several (they had apparently been covered by Medicaid/SCHIP some years back). So, no obvious path there.
Turns out, though, that The Mrs has a job offer in another state, and they'll be moving there. She's been asked to determine the cost of a health insurance plan, to be included as part of the comp (she'd be a 1099 employee). So, John wanted to know how much a plan would cost.
Pause.
The good news, I explain, is that since they're moving to another state, they'll be eligible for a Special Open Enrollment. The bad news is that I'm not licensed in that state, don't know the market or the plans, nor do I know if he'd be subsidy eligible, so there's no way to know rates, let alone best options. I explain all this, and offer to hook him up with a local agent, but John's insistent, really wants to lock down a number. So I told him that it would likely range between $2,000 and $50,000 per year.
He didn't like that.
So I explain - again - why I can't just give him a number, and he abruptly hangs up on me. What to do?
Of course, "the sticker" provides a quick answer, so I hopped over to the NAABC site to find a few agents in the Austin, Texas area, and emailed those to him (along with the site for determining subsidy eligibility).
I do understand that he needs this information, but it really isn't as simple as he'd like to believe. And since he's essentially asking for me to provide my services for free, I'm not really clear on why he thought his attitude was going to be all that helpful.
Dumb.
Posts
