Whether you are an experienced or new broker, you probably know Major Medical sales offer you a large potential income from commissions. What you may not know is the opportunity for added income available by selling Ancillary products like employer-sponsored and voluntary Dental, Vision, and other products.
Ancillary is a great way for you to help your clients expand their benefits, while also helping them attract and maintain top talent.
Many Word & Brown brokers sell Ancillary – through one of our many carrier partners or through the ChoiceBuilder Ancillary Exchange offered by CHOICE Administrators.
What Are Ancillary Benefits?
Ancillary offerings include Dental, Vision, Life, Chiropractic, Acupuncture, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) services, and Disability as well as Worksite Voluntary benefits such as Hospital Indemnity, Cancer, Accident, and Critical Illness Insurance. Word & Brown offers Worksite Voluntary products through Aflac and Colonial Life.
Groups Want Ancillary
The non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation says more than two-thirds (67%) of small firms offer Dental and nearly half (47%) offer Vision. If you focus on small businesses, there is a lot of opportunity for new sales available to you by offering Ancillary lines.
You can expand your clients’ benefits without driving up their costs. That’s because many Ancillary lines can be offered as voluntary, which means the benefits are 100 percent paid for by employees. Voluntary benefits give employees access to affordable coverage they might not have available if they were shopping for it in the individual market.
Don’t Risk Losing Out to Another Broker
If you fail to talk with your clients about Ancillary, you risk losing out on the sale to another broker. Be sure your clients know what their options are, so they don’t turn elsewhere when considering new coverage to help them compete more effectively in today’s increasingly competitive talent marketplace.
The more you can offer, the greater the convenience for your clients. Moreover, Ancillary and Worksite Voluntary products offer you an easy way to boost your income. While Ancillary premiums are typically lower than Medical, commissions are higher. For more information on what you can earn, refer to Word & Brown’s Product Commission Summary.
Talk With Your Clients
Make sure your clients know their Ancillary options. If they don’t currently offer Ancillary and Voluntary benefits, review their options with them. Their current Medical plan may offer a bundling discount if they add Dental, Vision, or other coverage.
Don’t forget, too, Ancillary and Voluntary coverage can be offered on or off your group’s renewal date.
You might also consider Ancillary as a prospecting tool. When approaching a new group, if the company’s current broker is not actively talking about Ancillary and Voluntary, you may be able to use them as a door opener to earn new business. If your prospect is not interested in making a change in their Medical plan, you may be able to offer Ancillary and still earn a sale.
Tax Advantages, Too
Ancillary benefits when employer sponsored can also deliver tax advantages to your clients – and their employees. When offered in conjunction with a Section 125 Premium Only Plan (POP), employees’ premiums are deducted on a pre-tax basis, which lowers taxable income for employees and reduces payroll taxes for the employer.
A Partner to Help Expand
You can depend upon Word & Brown to help you expand your Medical, Ancillary, and Worksite Voluntary benefit sales. We offer a broad range of top carriers, accurate quoting, presentation assistance (including bilingual enrollment specialists), Underwriting experts to get your cases approved quickly, online enrollment and benefits management technology, and much more – in addition to our legendary Service of Unequalled Excellence, before, during, and after the sale.
To get started, download our customizable flyer to promote Ancillary and Worksite Voluntary sales. You can add your agency info and begin your outreach to clients and prospects immediately. If you have questions, contact your nearest Word & Brown regional office, or call 800.869.6989.
