Effective health insurance agents and brokers in selling health savings accounts and high deductible health plans focus on educationg clients on the financial incentives they present.
A key component of that education is focusing on tax savings and financial flexibility offered by HSAs. These plans and savings mechanisms offer triple tax advantages and help clients save for health care and other expenses in retirement. The key is to transform clients perspective on health insurance to change to health financing.
As HSs have grown in popularity (now enrolled more than 10 million Americans) more and more brokers have come to believe that HSAs are a very appealing benefits option- especially for their more financially astute clients who think financially forward.
At their outset, HSAs were a difficult topic for agents to engage clients on. This made them hesitant to introduce HSAs as a solution; the majority just were not comfortable with such a different product.
Since HSAs were introduced on a widespread basis in 2004, plan enrollment has continued to expand steadily. Moreover, a recent National Business Group on Health survey of large companies found that "61 percent of employers are offering consumer-directed health plans in 2011, and 20 percent," according to Summit Business Media, have plans to make the consumer-directed health plan the only choice offered to their employees.
The growth this year is particularly impressive when you consider that it has taken place in a volatile environment. But it seems that business owners realize if health care reform isn't sustaied by the courts, health savings accounts appear to be a likely alternative. Indeed, HSAs are the standard basic coverage defined in the essential benfits package and serve as the basis of the plans offered in the poroposed health insurance exchange.
Looking back prior to the passage of health care reform legislation, there were questions about new limitations that might be imposed on HSAs, and even whether the products would continue to exist at all. Now they appear to have a strong foothold in the industry, at least as far as federal health reform legislation. That provides legitimacy and the market has responded in building on that base.
To be sure, some of the growth in HSA plans stems from the fact that more employers are offering them as an option to help them control the costs of providing health care benefits. But brokers who sell individual coverage are also doing their part to show their clients that HSAs can be the right solution for them and can help their families control their health care spending. When consumers see HSAs as a long-term finacial structure to build family health care on that does provide peace of mind in a strategic planning type of way for a family.
Nefouse tols Summit Media that about 90 percent of his sales come from HSAs, and Steffen estimates that 85 percent of his clients have purchased HSA plans. In addition, Steffen and Nefouse use their websites as ongoing educational tools to help educate clients and prospects about HSAs. In this way, clients have an ongoing resource when they have questions and this too provides essential peace of mind.
With more and more consumers looking for savings on their health insurance premiums, educating consumers about the value of HSAs is definitely a winning solution for the broker and the client.
