The Relevance of Brokers in the Health Insurance Industry

Insurance brokers directly represent the buyer, prioritizing the buyers’ best interests in the event of conflicting opinions when purchasing health insurance plans. Because brokers represent buyers rather than insurers, they offer impartial recommendations.

In this blog post, we will be going over the relevance of brokers in the health insurance industry to ensure your health insurance plan selections have at least one second opinion regarding plan recommendations and premium negotiations.

What do Insurance Brokers do?

Insurance brokers act in the buyers’ best interests in hopes of helping them compare and secure health insurance plans that match both their comfortable budget and their unique healthcare needs.

Similar to insurance agents, brokers take commission from insurers for the insurance products sold and renewed. However, what separates insurance brokers from agents is that while brokers represent the buyers themselves, agents represent one or more insurers.

Additionally, insurance brokers can go the extra mile by offering impartial recommendations based on your, or your business’, unique health insurance needs and use their strong partnership with insurers to negotiate the best possible premiums.

Brokers can also offer other additional services such as claims processing assistance, current plan review, renewal support, and many others at no additional cost.

Insurance brokers also come in both small and large variations. Smaller brokers can do the basics by going over the best plans available and match buyers with the right plan that matches their needs and budget. Meanwhile, additional services are where larger brokers come in.

To learn more, check out our article on the key differences between the roles of insurance brokers and agents.

The Relevance of Brokers in the Health Insurance Industry

Now that we’ve covered what insurance brokers do, let’s now move onto what makes brokers’ roles significant in the health insurance industry. You may recognize some key benefits of working with brokers such as impartial recommendations and even premium negotiations with the insurer.

Below are the key benefits of working with insurance brokers.

Professional Impartial Advice and Recommendations

One of the most important qualities of health insurance brokers is their knowledge of the global health insurance market. This will allow brokers to help buyers compare and choose the right health insurance plan ranging from individual or family to corporate health insurance for businesses.

For instance, you may know some bigger insurers but there may be smaller, lesser-known insurers offering health insurance plans for excellent value that you may not have heard of before.

Thanks to their knowledge of the health insurance market, this is where insurance brokers come in to help name and compare multiple insurers to help you find the right health insurance plan that not only matches your unique healthcare needs but your budget as well.

Additional Client Support at No Additional Cost

Certain insurance brokers, such as Pacific Prime, also offer additional services like client support at no additional costs. Notable examples of additional client support offered by insurance brokers include current plan reviews and renewals, premium negotiations or claims processing assistance.

For instance, brokers can help you secure a comprehensive plan and suggest options for deductibles and copays to efficiently manage your premiums. Moreover, excellent customer service and additional customer support will benefit both the insurance companies and the customers themselves.

By offering additional client support, brokers can prioritize taking care of selling and maintaining customers while insurers can prioritize product development and improvements.

Saving Time and Money

If you’re doing health insurance plan research in preparation for plan comparisons on your own without help from an insurance broker, finding the right plan on your own can be very time consuming and the same thing can be said for the plan comparison process.

With a second opinion from an insurance broker, however, you will be able to save time thanks to the broker’s knowledge allowing them to name multiple possible insurers available, some featuring plans with even better value than others.

As mentioned before, additional support such as plan reviews and renewals and negotiations or claims processing assistance are offered by insurance brokers at no cost, allowing you to save money as well.

Conclusion

Whether you’re seeking individual, family, international, travel, or corporate health insurance, having a second opinion via an insurance broker will help you in the long run. Gone are the days of time-consuming research and decision making along with little room for premium negotiations.

By opting to work with an insurance broker, you not only get a second opinion thanks to their knowledge of the health insurance market allowing them to name and compare various insurers, but you also have more room for premium negotiations allowing you to save both time and money.

As a leading global health insurance broker and employee benefits specialist, Pacific Prime has over 20 years of matching both expats and locals to their health insurance plan of choice and offering guidance on employee benefits solutions.

If you have any questions regarding insurance or employee benefits solutions, please get in touch with us.