Medicare Frequently Asked Questions

Medicare Advantage are private-sector health insurance plans that take the place of Original Medicare.

The number of people with Medicare Advantage plans has doubled from 10.5 million in 2019 to 22 million in 2019.

Medicare Advantage “rearranges” Original Medicare benefits in a way that may better suit its policyholders. For example, Medicare Advantage policyholders enjoy low monthly premiums, low co-pays, low prescription costs, and strong physician networks.

At Elite Life Agency, we target the “Special Election Period” market. This market consists of low-income seniors who qualify switching out their Medicare Advantage plans at any time during the year, given they qualify due to a special election.

Our target market for Medicare sales is the Senior Citizen/Baby Boomer demographic.Roughly, this refers to people 50 and older who have low to moderate levels of income.

The vast majority of our market is either:

• Disabled and cannot work, or,

• Retired and chooses not to work.

We love this demographic because of its long-term fundamental strengths, and believe there exists decades of sales opportunity for agents who commit to it.

Some benefits of the Senior Citizen/Baby Boomer market include:

11,000 people turn 65 each DAY between 2020 and 2030.

The 65 and older population will increase 50% from 2020 to 2040 (from approximately 50 million to 75 million).

Social Security pays our prospects no matter what the economy does, providing sales opportunities to prospects with less income sensitivity compared to working people.

Medicare supplemental insurance companies invest millions upon millions of dollars to promote purchasing Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement policies, which conditions Medicare recipients into thinking buying an additional Medicare policy is a must-have purchase.

Social Security and Medicare are political third rails. Few politicians will risk their careers attempting to reform either program as voters in older age brackets will vote them out if either program is even threatened.

We believe this is an under-served, highly lucrative market, of which we use our proprietary sales and marketing system to target.

Since ELA is an independent broker, we offer a variety of insurance carriers for agents to select from.

Most agents start with:

• Humana

• Aetna

• Cigna

• United Healthcare

However, we have access to dozens more national and regional Medicare providers, and have the capability to contract them with you.

Elite Life Agency is unique relative to other Medicare sales opportunities for the following reasons:

1. Belief In The Independent Model Of Insurance Sales

We teach agents to sell multiple insurance carriers as opposed to a single carrier.

More carriers means more options, providing us better opportunities to help our clients with better quality of coverage.

2. Producer-Oriented, Not Recruitment-OrientedBottom line, ELA is NOT an insurance MLM.

Our passion is in training you on the craft of SELLING Medicare policies, and not recruiting agents.

Not to say we do not support agents recruiting (we do, agents need experience selling first), but our focus is on developing you into an insurance sales machine above all else.

3. Designed For The Entrepreneurial Agent

Elite Agency is not right for everyone.

To succeed, you must possess higher levels of self-responsibility and self-discipline than the average agent.

You MUST be a self-starter. This is NOT a babysitting, micromanaging agency.

You truly run your own insurance sales business and are treated as an independent business owner.

4. Top Commissions

Since ELA is not an MLM agency with 10 people between you and the top of the company feeding off your production,

ELA is able to extend more commission to its agents than the vast majority of its competition with these aggressive lead programs.

This means agents are actually paid VERY good commissions relative to most agencies with the ability to grow commission rates with production history.

5. Top Quality Leads

ELA has relationships with top-quality Medicare lead vendors, connecting you to lead providers already proven to work.

Our preference are for vendors that sell you EXCLUSIVE and FRESH leads, not old and resold.

This means fresher leads with more interest in buying.

6. A Fair And Balanced Agent-Agency Relationship

ELA founder Mark knows exactly what it’s like as an agent. And the last thing he wants is to screw you over like so many other agencies do.

As an agent with ELA, we promise to do the following:

• Release upon request as long as you do not owe chargeback money.

• Fully committed 100% from the first day. We will support you in every way that we can to make sure you want to stay as part of the Elite Life family.

• You are paid on time and generously through our aggressive leads provided program.

7. Support For BOTH Face-To-Face And Telesales Agents

Whether you want to sell Medicare face-to-face or over the phone, Elite Life Agency can help!

We have many agents successfully selling in both and can teach you the inner workings of which ever you choose is best-suited for your goals.

Do you Medicare Advantage carriers you want to move to Elite Life Agency?

If so, there’s two ways you can do so:

Request a release from your current Medicare Advantage agency (this is the easiest and quickest method).

If the agency will NOT release you, you will have to request a home office release. 

Please read through our instructions on how to do that for the major carriers here.

The standard on-boarding process for agents new to Medicare involves the following:

If you have not already, test for both your life and health insurance license. 

This takes 2-3 weeks for the average person to complete.

Study and take your federally-required AHIP test to compliantly represent Medicare Advantage carriers. This takes 1-2 weeks to complete. Please click here purchase the AHIP testing and to get a $50 discount off a checkout.

Request appointments through ELA for our recommended Medicare Advantage carriers and become sales-ready. This takes 1 to 2 weeks to complete.

All in all, you’re looking at a 4 to 6 week onboarding process from getting licensed to being sales ready. Having your insurance licenses or AHIP significantly cuts down on this process. After you’re Medicare contracts are approved, you’ll have access to every imaginable resource to help you learn the craft of selling insurance, including classroom modules designed by our best Medicare producers and trainers, 2 live ZOOM-based conferences weekly, detailed sales and prospecting scripts, leads, and more.

How do you get PAID?

Medicare commission varies by what type of product you sell, either Medicare Advantage or Medicare supplements.

Since most of our work in the Medicare sales and marketing space centers around the Medicare Advantage sale, we’re going to spend more time discussing how Medicare Advantage commission works in detail, while also briefly describing how Medicare supplement commission works.

Also, we’ll explain both the agent commission levels, as well as the agency commissions too.

Medicare Advantage Commissions FAQ

Medicare Advantage commission levels are set by CMS, which regulates Medicare and commissions for Medicare Advantage agents. We offer the maximal allowable amount of commissions that the government approves of to each of our agents who enroll, no matter what kind of lead programs they do.

You’ll see a full detailed analysis of Medicare Advantage commission if you scroll down further. Medicare pays an upfront commission, as well as a lifetime renewal for Medicare Advantage. For Medicare renewals for Medicare Advantage first year commissions on replacements, you will be paid a prorated commission based off of the renewal rate that you would receive.

For aspiring agency owners, total agency production plus agent recruitment drives the ability to increase commission levels.For the sake of protecting the information the carriers require us of, we’ve not revealed specific commission levels and production requirements for each specific carrier, but we’re happy to disclose those over a conversation.

Medicare Supplement Commissions FAQ

Generally speaking, Medicare supplements pay a residual in the 18 to 20% commission range years one through six of the policy. This comes around 250 to $300 a year for six years. Keep in mind, however, that certain states don’t pay this six year residual stream, with some states paying higher or some states paying lower. Again, because our focus is on Medicare Advantage, we’re not going to write too many Medicare supplements with probably one out of every 10 to 20 deals closed in the Medicare space being Medicare Supplement.

Lastly, we do have Medicare Supplement agency contracts available too to support you if your aspirations are to build an agency.

Click Here to see commission levels(update spreadsheet)

NOTE: Make sure to click the tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet that mentions Medicare to find the appropriate commission levels for Medicare Advantage & Supplement carriers.

Yes! You do need to get licensed to sell insurance.

Here’s a breakdown on what’s necessary for each type of product we offer:

• First, you need a health and accident license. We recommend also testing for the life license, too.

• Second, you’ll need to take the AHIP Medicare Training test to sell Medicare Advantage products.

Click this link to get more specific directions on how to get your insurance license, and where to get pre-licensing started.

NOTE: Get $150 off of your pre-licensing exam for life and health here.Expect this process of licensing to take 2 to 3 weeks for the average person.

Need AHIP? Please click the link here to enroll and save $50 at checkout.

What Are The Expected Costs Of Licensing?

Expect to invest somewhere between $200 to $400 to become a licensed insurance agent. This number consists of paying for pre-licensing, testing, finger-printing, and background checking.

We hate to say it, but understand most insurance agents fail within their first 12 months of getting started. So average incomes aren’t that great.

However, for those that follow our system and work hard, we believe a first-year income of $50,000 to $75,000 is possible selling Medicare, with the definite possibility of earning $100,000 to $200,000 in income between the third and fifth year of selling Medicare.

For Medicare sales, since the product is renewal-driven, the first few years pays less income than other products like final expense. However, with consistent sales for the first 5 years, many times Medicare commissions far exceed final expense commissions.

For example, it is conceivable for an agent to have 1,000 Medicare Advantage clients in 3 to 5 years, which would pay $270,000 each year FOR LIFE, as long as the clients stay on the books.

Medicare Advantage policies – our primary Medicare plan sold – pays lifetime residual income, as long as the policy remains effective.

For example, if you have 1000 policies in effect, your annual renewal income for life is $301,000! And that would pay out that much EACH year!

Of course, prospects die and switch plans, but you’ll continue to receive referrals and find new business. Plus, in Medicare, you want to spend time really taking care of your clients, so they stick around for a long time =)

We want you working as much as possible. Selling our products is primarily a game of numbers, meaning the more time in the field with prospects, the more likely you’ll make sales.

Nevertheless, this is YOUR insurance sales business, so you have full discretion over how many hours daily and days weekly you want to work.

Our recommendations are for full-time agents new to Medicare to work 5 to 6 days with a few of those days late nights, and part-time agents to work multiple days during the week and all-day Saturday.

If you're already licensed, we have support to get you released or onboard you if you're a free agent. Even if you're not licensed, we have all the training and support to help get you licensed and ready to sell insurance with ELA!

Click the button below to apply and join our team!