Multiple income streams from insurance commissions, advertising, and book sales helped make 2022 a comfortable year for this old insurance agent. My gross revenue increased by approximately $7,000 to $87,345. After expenses, my net revenue for 2022 will be in the neighborhood of $76,425.
Income Streams: Insurance, Google, Book Sales
My 2022 revenue streams remained the same as 2021: insurance commissions, Google advertising revenue, and book sales. Virtually all of the revenue increase for 2022 were from commissions from health insurance enrollments. As far as I can discern, the increased insurance revenue was not from adding clients, but a small increase in the commissions paid by the carriers such as Anthem Blue Cross and Kaiser.
Both Blue Cross and Kaiser increased their per member per month commission for individual and family enrollments. Since the majority of my book of business is from enrollments for individuals and families through Covered California, small increases in the commission structure can greatly impact my gross revenue. Insurance commissions comprised 95 percent of my income for 2022.
Individual and Family Commission Income
For the first time, I attempted to segregate my insurance revenue into the different categories of individual and family, vision and dental, Medicare, and small group. Individual and family enrollment commissions made up 85 percent of the revenue. Enrollments in vision and dental plans comprised 4 percent of my income. Medicare Supplements, Medicare Advantage, and Part D prescription drug plan enrollments totaled 8 percent of my income. Small group commissions came in at 3 percent.
Google and YouTube Advertising Revenue
Another revenue stream for Kevin Knauss is advertising revenue on my website. I use Google Adsense to display advertising on my website. The revenue from advertising was essentially static from 2021 to 2022. What did change was that I started generating a little bit of advertising revenue from my YouTube channel. (Because YouTube is a subsidiary of Alphabet, like Google Adsense, I combine the revenue in one category.) Consequently, the Google revenue was a modest 4 percent of my income.
History Book Sales
The smallest contribution to my income – just 1 percent – was from book sales. Sales of my history books was down in 2022. While I published my biography of Amos Catlin in 2022, sales were not very good. However, there is a direct correlation between books sales and speaking engagements. I had fewer speaking events in 2022, which translates into fewer book sales.
Home Office Expenses
Since I work out of my home, my expenses are fairly low. For 2022, I only had $10,920 in expenses to reduce my gross revenue. I may trip across a few minor expenses when I do my taxes, but it will not amount to much. My quarterly self-employment tax payment will hover around $15,000 for 2022.
I don’t forecast too much change for 2023. I think the revenue mix will closely track that of 2022. The small group commissions will decrease as I talked one of my small groups into terminating their employer group plan. After crunching the numbers, the employees paid less for health insurance if they went through Covered California and received the tax credit subsidies. Medicare revenue will possibly increase as my individual and family clients age into Medicare at 65 years of age.
