As the year comes to a close, health insurance agency owners face a critical time for reflection, planning, and execution. We all have had a heck of a year, or some may say rollercoaster ride!
The end of the year isn’t just about wrapping up; it’s about setting the stage for a strong start to the next year.
Whether you’re focused on maximizing sales during the Open Enrollment Period (OEP) or laying a foundation for long-term growth, I want to share some actionable tactics tailored to you and your leadership team.
Review Your Performance Metrics
Before you can plan for the future, you need to assess how your agency performed over the past year.
Actionable Tactics:
- Analyze KPIs: Focus on metrics such as volume of leads generated and conversion, client retention rates, policy renewals, and associated revenue growth.
- Survey Clients and Partners: Distribute surveys to gather insights on client satisfaction and partner relationships. I’m going to go ahead and say, focusing on the customer is no longer cliche, it’s actually cool again. You don’t want to lose this opportunity.
- Conduct Team Performance Reviews: Evaluate your agents’ performance against goals. Identify training or support needs and help them get outside of their comfort zone. You are their leader, this is what they expect from you.
This will help you establish a clear understanding of what worked, what didn’t, and opportunities for improvement.
Plan for the Upcoming Open Enrollment Period (OEP)
The OEP can significantly impact your agency’s success, especially this year. Use the end of the year to prepare for a seamless enrollment period.
Actionable Tactics:
- Update Systems and Processes: Ensure CRM systems, quoting tools, and enrollment platforms are up to date and functioning properly.
- Segment Client Lists: Prioritize outreach to clients whose policies need renewal or who are eligible for plan changes.
- Prepare Marketing Campaigns: Launch email, social media, and direct mail campaigns focused on educating clients about upcoming changes in health plans. There are many new great automation tools that can help you accomplish this, especially for agency owners who run fairly lean organizations from a staffing perspective.
- Host Informational Webinars: Engage existing and potential clients with Q&A sessions to simplify the enrollment process.
This will help with improved client retention and increase new enrollments.
Optimize Your Team’s Productivity
Your agents and support staff are your most valuable assets. Equip them with the tools and strategies they need to succeed and empower them. The biggest thing to remember here is you have to let each of them take ownership of their duties and it will never look or feel exactly the way you would do it. This is one of the hardest parts of managing a team, but we have faith you can do it! 🙂
Actionable Tactics:
- Offer End-of-Year Training: Focus on topics like closing techniques, compliance updates, and product knowledge and industry trends. Medicare Advantage pairs great with hospital indemnity and dental is an excellent pairing with Medicare supplements, leverage this opportunity!
- Set Clear Goals for Next Year: Involve your team in setting achievable, measurable targets that are paired with a stretch goal. You always need a stretch goal, otherwise nobody will ever stretch!
- Streamline Communication: Use project management tools like Slack or Trello to ensure clear and consistent communication if you aren’t already.n
- Recognize Top Performers: Motivate your team with awards or bonuses for hitting end-of-year targets. Also, consider the non-tangibles like most improved, best morale booster, or funniest agent. Tangible and non-tangible awards are best when paired together.
Your result should ultimately be a motivated, well-prepared team ready to tackle next year.
Strengthen Client Relationships
Happy clients are your best and most profitable lead sources. Use this time to deepen your connections with your client base. I hear so many people say there is no reason to send thank you cards or personalized communication, but they fail to forget that the need for human engagement is a natural instinct in most people. It’s easy, don’t forget about it.
Actionable Tactics:
- Send Personalized Holiday cards: A simple email or handwritten card can leave a lasting impression. When I say simple, you can use a blank note and write with blue ink and use a real stamp, you are going for personal experience more than anything else.
- Schedule Policy Reviews: Offer one-on-one meetings to ensure clients’ current coverage aligns with their needs. This is especially important coming out of an enrollment season like AEP and into OEP for the ACA. Review post enrollment can help ensure they are getting everything they need as well as a chance to follow up with them on supplementary solutions.
- Provide Value-Added Resources: Share guides, webinars, or newsletters that address common questions about health insurance.
Your desired outcome here should be higher client satisfaction and increased referrals (aka free leads).
Focus on Compliance and Risk Management
Staying compliant with state and federal regulations is essential, especially in the health insurance industry and especially coming off of a year with a lot of volatility from CMS.
Actionable Tactics:
- Audit Your Records: Ensure that all client and policy records are accurate and up to date. If you haven’t created a standardized naming convention for your electronic records, this is a great time to do it.
- Review Licensing and Appointments: Confirm that all agents are properly licensed and appointed with carriers. More carriers are adopting just in time contracting which can and will continue to cause some issues if you’re not aware of it.
- Update Privacy and Security Protocols: Protect sensitive client data by reviewing and updating cybersecurity measures.
Plan for Growth and Expansion
The end of the year is an excellent time to set growth-oriented goals and strategies for the next year.
Actionable Tactics:
- Identify New Markets: Research underserved regions or demographics where you can expand your services. I keep saying this, but a client centric, holistic sales process is no longer cliche, it’s become cool again! Take the opportunity to put it in action.
- Develop Partnerships: Forge relationships with doctors, clinics, or community organizations to generate referrals (aka free leads). If you don’t know how to do this, connect with your internal contact here at SMA and we’ll set up a training with you.
- Invest in Marketing: Allocate budget for digital marketing campaigns, google business optimization, and local advertising. I’m bullish about local optimization, insurance agencies have a great opportunity to improve their local visibility and add another level of marketing to help lower customer acquisition costs.
If you don’t do this, it must mean you don’t want increased revenue and market share. 🙂
Budget and Financial Planning
Strong financial planning ensures your agency remains resilient and prepared for unexpected challenges.
Actionable Tactics:
- Review Your P&L: Identify areas where you can cut costs or reinvest profits. Automation continues to flourish, I promise you have areas you can streamline and redeploy funds to line items with measurable ROI. If you’re considering an exit in the future, this is a great step to kick start your succession planning.
- Set a Budget for Next Year: Plan for expenses like marketing, technology upgrades, and hiring. Take your commissions and allocate percentages to your budget items and work through it until you can address each area while still hitting your gross margin targets.
- Create an Emergency Fund: Allocate resources for unforeseen events like carrier changes or regulatory shifts. We sure have had enough examples of these this year!
The outcome here is you’ll be doing what a fiscally responsible business owner should be doing, and that’s enough reason to not skip it! 🙂
Enhance Your Digital Presence
A strong online presence is critical for attracting and retaining clients, and it doesn’t have to kill your budget.
Actionable Tactics:
- Update Your Website: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly, up to date, has compressed images and optimized for SEO keywords. If you aren’t doing this currently, there are plenty of free tools you can find online that will allow you to become better than where you currently are. Or, you can pay for premium products too, the point here is it doesn’t need to be overly expensive to get the ball rolling.
- Leverage Google My Business: Update your profile with new services, client testimonials, and accurate contact information. Complete your profile in full, add photos and show google you value being visible in your local market.
- Increase Content Production: Publish articles, guides, or videos that answer client questions and boost your SEO rankings.
If you do this, you’ll increase your visibility and begin to generate more organic inbound calls and sales opportunities.
Final Thoughts
End-of-year planning is your opportunity to reflect, refine, and recharge your health insurance agency.
By focusing on performance metrics, team development, client relationships, and compliance, you can build a solid foundation for the year ahead. Implement these actionable tactics to ensure your agency is positioned for continued success.
Let’s make next year your agency’s best year yet!
