MGA+: Shifting the MGA marketplace

Advisors love to sell. It’s a kind of euphoria that is difficult to explain to someone that hasn’t made a living doing it. But how much of your day is actually spent growing your business and celebrating those wins?

Most advisors would concede that success is predicated on opportunity volume. If your metrics indicate that for every ten people you speak to, you generate three meetings and one sale, you’re going to sell more if you speak to one hundred people than if you speak to twenty.

Doing more of what you love means identifying and addressing the barriers that are holding you back. And for most advisors, the biggest barrier is time. If you had more of it, how would it change your business? How would it change your life?

The MGA model saves time

Managing General Agencies (MGAs) have been around for decades. For individual insurance and investment business, they’re ingrained in the fabric of the advisor community, and for good reason.

There are a number of advantages to working with an individual MGA:

• Streamlines the quoting process
• Assists with binding coverage
• Helps to settle claims
• Provides scale that an individual advisor is unlikely to achieve on their own
• Provides access to the most competitive product solutions in the market

Group MGAs provide equal value with the same premise – instead of working in your business, work on your business. A group MGA functions as an extension of the advisor’s team and can assist with quote submission, renewal negotiations, managing escalated billing and administration issues, amendment processing, and general support. A group MGA can give the advisor back their most valuable asset – time.

Not all MGAs are created equal

With MGA+, People Corporation has created a unique product that combines outsourced back-office administration, account management, exclusive third party administration (TPA) solutions, embedded products and services, and a robust technology platform that ties everything together. Advisors now have access to a group MGA product that reshapes how benefits are being delivered to clients:

Technology

• End-to-end digital enrolment means no more hand-written paper enrolment forms
• Advisor-branded plan sponsor and plan member portal that syncs with Canada’s leading insurance providers, allowing the advisor to control the increasingly-important digital relationships with clients
• An advisor portal that functions as a practice management tool, giving advisors direct access to client information, status of implementations, renewal schedules and other important metrics
• No more late applicant situations
• Automated notification when one of the plan administrators leaves the company so that you can get ahead of it before the new administrator engages an existing relationship
• Notification to the plan member when student dependent coverage is terminating
• Elimination of cumbersome change management requirements for plan sponsors when changing carriers

Administration

• A dedicated account manager who supports on client onboarding, escalated billing and administration issues, general inquiries, commission or contracting inquiries, pricing and processing of amendments, etc.
• RFP submission and consolidation of data into one advisor-branded, client-ready marketing report
• Renewal negotiation/marketing and consolidation of data into one advisor-branded, client ready renewal report
• Review of contracts and booklets for accuracy prior to client delivery
• Quarterly and/or semi-annual claims reporting

Consulting

• A dedicated Director of Partner Relations who provides consulting support and market concierge service, regardless of carrier
• Access to exclusive TPA solutions which put more tools in the advisor toolbox
• Embedded product solutions for all the advisor’s clients, which remain consistent regardless of carrier
• Access to industry benchmarking and employee needs and interests surveys at no cost

With MGA+ the client and plan member experience is carrier agnostic and your brand is always front and centre. You have spent years building it and you own the client relationship. When a plan member is asked “who are your benefits with?” why aren’t they responding with the name of your firm? With MGA+, they will. Insurers come and go but the advisor relationship is more permanent.

So, what is your time worth? If you had more of it, how would this change your business? How would this change your life? Many advisors work with a group MGA but not all of them have the +. Do you?

Written by Jeff Bremner, Director, Partner Relations – Benefit Solutions at People Corporation.