Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts and commentary related to health insurance agents generally in California, commissions, carriers, service, Covered California.
Insurance agents are uniting to bash and defeat Prop. 45, the California ballot initiative that would give the Insurance Commission the power to deny excessive health insurance premium rate increases. The latest campaign rhetoric by agents makes Prop. 45 sound worse than the Affordable Care Act. This organized opposition to Prop. 45 only serves to […]
With Covered California moving forward on the Navigator grant program consumers will have to contend with even more and potentially confusing marketing for ACA health plans this fall during open enrollment. The new Navigator program will allow non-profit organizations that receive grant money to create radio and TV commercials along with opening store fronts to […]
Agents and brokers drove in 39% of the enrollments for Covered California during the 2013-14 ACA open enrollment period with the least amount of training and resources of any group submitting applications. As Covered California starts their budget process allocating money for 2014 training, I had to speak publicly at a Board meeting and plead […]
Did you get your Covered California agent survey and how did you respond? It was a pleasant surprise that a survey from Covered California showed up in my email in-box. Does this survey represent a new chapter in communications between agents and the California exchange or will Covered California continue business as usual with the […]
Covered California’s Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) announced on May 7th that agent commissions will once again be delayed. This comes on the heels of last months announcement that SHOP hoped to pay commissions at the end of April. SHOP has had to completely move all billing data for the small groups enrolled onto […]
Aside from the enumerable website issues of both Healthcare.gov and Covered California, perhaps the largest problem of the ACA open enrollment centered around accessible and reliable information concerning how to enroll for the new ACA health plans. California health agents and brokers, who were handling hundreds of client enrollments each, bore the brunt of this […]
Consumers who were unable to create an online account or start their online application because of technical difficulties can contact a Covered California Certified Insurance Agent to explain that they attempted to get through on March 31 and experienced difficulties. Those consumers will have until 11:59 p.m. April 15 to work with the Certified Insurance Agent to complete their application and choose a plan.
Blue Shield of California sent notices to their appointed insurance agents that the agent’s Social Security number had been displayed during the course of member’s online payment. The letter from Blue Shield, dated February 18, notifying agents of the breach to their private personal information does not mention how many agents had their Social Security number’s compromised. While I was not shocked to receive the letter informing me that my personal information was displayed, I was angry that Blue Shield let this happen.
One of the strategies for enrolling hundreds of thousands of California residents in new Covered California health plans was to have an army of in-person Certified Enrollment Counselors. While these folks are trained on how to fill out the Covered California application, they don’t necessarily have any background in health insurance or how it works. Are the Certified Enrollment Counselors (CEC) qualified to answer simple to complex questions about health insurance and will they be there next month when their client has issue?
Health Net notified all their California agents by a letter dated January 29th, that effective March 1, 2014, they will slash the sales commission by over 50% on four of their five individual and family plans offered in California. This further reduction in compensation for agents since the ACA was passed continues to make customer service oriented health insurance agents a “family of dinosaurs” who will quickly become extinct.
