Medigap Agents More Likely to Sell Life and Indexed Annuities: Agent Link
Medicare Advantage agents are a little more likely to sell property & casualty products.
Agents who focus on selling Medicare supplement (Medigap) insurance policies seem to be a lot more likely to cross-sell many other life, health and annuity products.
(Related: More Medicare Advantage Enrollees Slide Away: Deft)
Stu Gramajo, market research director at Agent Link, has published data supporting that conclusion in a new summary of results from a survey of 1,200 licensed insurance agents.
The Clearwater, Florida-based insurance marketing firm provided ThinkAdvisor with special access to the summary. The summary is not currently available to members of the public.
Gramajo found that 29% of the agents surveyed are active in the market for products aimed at older consumers. About one-third of those agents sell Medigap policies, and about one-fifth sell Medicare Advantage coverage.
Both types of agents were equally to sell indexed universal life (IUL) policies: 27% of Medigap specialists and 27% of Medicare Advantage specialists sell IUL.
Medicare Advantage agents were more likely to sell property & casualty coverage; About 27% of them said they sell P&C coverage. Only 12% of Medigap agents said they sell P&C coverage.
But the Medigap agents were much more likely to report selling products such as permanent life insurance, term life, short-term medical insurance, long-term care insurance and variable annuities.
About 65% of Medigap agents sell permanent life and term life, for example, and 8% sell variable annuities.
Only 47% of Medicare Advantage specialists said they sell term life, and just 40% offer permanent life. The percentage of Medicare Advantage specialists who said they sell variable annuities was at or close to zero.
— Read MetLife Launches Australian Retirement Suite, on ThinkAdvisor.
— Connect with ThinkAdvisor Life/Health on LinkedIn and Twitter.