5 Reasons You Need an Agency Management System This Open Enrollment Season

How an Agency Management System Streamlines Enrollment Season for Health & Life Insurance Agencies

Enrollment season is a busy time for health insurance advisors, group benefits brokers, and Medicare agencies. Between completing continuing education requirements, getting certified with different carriers and plan types, selling new clients, and servicing existing clients, agencies and agents are swamped.

However, there is one thing that can make your processes and preparations easier: technology.

In this blog, we’ll cover the 5 main reasons health and life insurance agencies are making the move to an industry-specific agency management system (AMS) or platform. Plus, we’ll cover how partnering with the right system streamlines your enrollment season and eases your workload. 

For more ideas, check out our guide: Tools to Ease Your Workload This Open Enrollment Season.

1. An Industry-Specific Agency Management System Promotes Organization

Organization is essential during enrollment season. 

An agency management system provides your team the peace of mind knowing that your data is secure, up-to-date, and reliable. With AgencyBloc, your team stays organized with quick access to information like:

• Client notes, paperwork (like a signed consent to contact or SOA), call recordings, etc.
• Client coverage information
• Prospect information
• Lead information (including lead source and distribution)
• Where leads/opportunities are in your sales process
• Projected incoming sales revenue for each month
• Carrier information (including portal links and passwords)
• Group enrollment and elections
• Relationships (individual to individual, individual to policy, individual to group, policy to carrier, etc.)

Image Source | AgencyBloc

Having this information in one centralized location is crucial to breaking down data silos and ensuring efficiencies for your team.

"I looked at several agency management systems and selected AgencyBloc because of the price, it's industry-specific, it's easy to use. I can access my data anywhere, do business anywhere, and the system keeps things fast and in order for me."
—George D., Danielhealth

Some significant benefits that come from using an industry-specific AMS, like AgencyBloc, over generic CRM software or a homegrown solution are:

• Everything is built specifically for your industry; therefore, you have fewer workarounds and don’t have to dedicate significant time and budget to extensive customizations.
• It’s a one-system approach when the AMS is part of a complete platform. You can track policies, clients, prospects, leads, sales, agents, carriers, and commissions all in one localized system instead of running a CRM parallel to a commission-specific tracker or sales enablement tool.
• It helps you work smarter. With built-in capabilities like workflow automation and industry-specific reporting, you can automate daily, repetitive tasks and better analyze your overall book of business for a smarter, more informed approach to business management. 
• Everyone can have access. Some homegrown solutions and generic CRMs aren’t built for your entire team and their specific roles. Most industry-specific AMS solutions can be leveraged for any position within your agency. Learn more in our blog, How to Integrate Your AMS into Every Role at Your Agency.

2. An Agency Management System Streamlines Policy Renewal Communications

Renewal time is a busy one, and automation can help ensure everything runs smoothly and no renewal is missed. 

With AgencyBloc’s workflow automation tool, your team can set up automation that triggers when a policy’s renewal date is approaching. Once the trigger is met, create actions that send:

• An assigned task (an Activity in AgencyBloc) to the agent of record
• An email to the agent of record
• An email to the policyholder

Here is how that communication schedule could look:

• 120 days before expiration: Email the policyholder
• 110 days before expiration: Assign an Activity (task) to the agent of record
• 90 days before expiration: Email the policyholder
• 80 days before expiration: Assign an Activity to the agent of record
• 30 days before expiration: Email the policyholder
• 25 days before expiration: Assign an Activity to the agent of record
• 14 days before expiration: Email the policyholder
• 10 days before expiration: Assign an Activity to the agent of record

Use automation to create your own timeline of when and what you want to communicate. Get more ideas on how to use automation to send policy-related communications to your clients with our free templates: Policy-Related Email Templates for Agents & Advisors.

3. An Agency Management System Simplifies Carrier & Policy Communications

If there are carrier or coverage type changes that affect your clients, let them know ahead of time so you can make a plan. With an AMS like AgencyBloc, run a quick search to see which clients will be affected.

Then, make a plan for contacting them. Tools like AgencyBloc’s Email Campaign builder allow your team to send a segmented mass email that informs the client of the changes and their action items. Take it a step further and use variable data to personalize the message. 

For example, instead of saying:

“Your policy will be affected by upcoming changes. Here is my plan…”

You can instead say: 

“Hi [Client Name], your policy [Policy Number] with [Carrier] will be affected by these upcoming changes (link to them here). Here are the options for your next steps.”

Communicating about the upcoming changes and using personalization help clients understand what is happening, how they are being affected, and what you can do to help. These tactics allow your team to build deeper relationships with your clients and can improve chances of retention in the future.

4. An Agency Management System Identifies Cross-Sell Opportunities

Enrollment season is a great time to review a client’s coverage profile and identify gaps. Provide more value to your clients by running a cross-sell report in your AMS that identifies clients with X-coverage but not Y-coverage. 

Image Source | AgencyBloc

Take it a step further and send a mass email to all those you’ve identified in your report. Not sure what to say? Download our free Cross-Sell Email Templates for Agents & Advisors.

5. An Agency Management System Improves Sales Enablement Results

In sales, speed-to-contact is essential. 

• If you follow up with web leads within 5 minutes, you’re 9 times more likely to convert them
• 50% of sales go to the first salesperson to contact the prospect

However, with all of the other stuff happening during enrollment season (quoting, enrolling, meeting with current clients, renewals, answering calls, servicing, finding a moment to eat lunch, etc.), it can be challenging to nurture new leads effectively—let alone have time to follow up with new leads immediately. 

This is where an agency management platform with workflow automation and sales enablement tools can help.

Build a customizable lead form. There are two major benefits when connecting your lead form to your AMS:

1. As soon as the form is submitted, that data populates in your AMS automatically, so your team doesn’t have to manually enter the information.
2. You can utilize workflow automation to send a thank you email immediately and alert your team to the new lead.

Then, build out more automation to create an entire lead nurturing process. It’s been proven that 80% of sales require 5+ touchpoints (emails and calls), so build in multiple touchpoints to ensure your leads convert. For more ideas on how to leverage AgencyBloc’s sales enablement tools, read The 5 Steps to Taking Your Lead From Interested to Invested.

How to Choose the Right Platform for Your Agency

Using the right technology, you can have your most productive and profitable enrollment season to date. It allows you to streamline your client communications, improve lead distribution to your agents, create consistency in your sales process, be more organized, and, most importantly, help you work smarter.

"We were losing prospects and losing business. There is never going to be a good time to change your CRM. It was the beginning of Medicare OEP and our busiest time, but it was the best decision I've made for this agency. Our last Open Enrollment was up 400% over the prior year."
—April H., Hartloff Benefit Solutions, LLC

This blog was originally posted on August 21, 2018, and has been most recently updated and republished on August 22, 2023.

Posted by Allison Babberl on Tuesday, August 22, 2023 in Customer & Policy Management

1. open enrollment
2. productivity