Is your agent independent?

When you’re looking for health insurance make an effort to seek out assistance from independent health insurance agents. The reason is fairly simple, if your agent is independent and not tied contractually to just one carrier, then they can really better represent you and your needs and not just the carriers’ needs.

You see; an agent that only represents one company, one carrier, will only represent that carrier’s products and plans. They will not be able to advise you correctly and weigh in all other insurance carriers and their different insurance products and benefits.

Remember this: carriers will vary in their underwriting criteria. This is important because you do not want to submit an application for health insurance and have that carrier reject you. You do not want to be rejected because this designation now raises red flags to other carriers and makes it more difficult to get accepted by another carrier. In many cases other carriers simply don’t accept rejected applicants.

Therefore, it is important to properly understand each carrier’s underwriting criteria and how they work.
Some health insurance companies will argue that their health insurance products are the best and that they only hire captive agents and so one and so forth.

Let consumers decide if your company is the best fit for them. Your insurance company is making it hard for the consumer to shop around because if they want to compare they have to go through more than one agent. Also, it is reasonable to expect that the health insurance agent working for your insurance company only will push your product that much harder. It is better when agents are independent and really assist consumers in finding the best carrier for them.