Southern Style Insurance

How is technology reshaping the insurance landscape? We rarely need to meet our clients in persons anymore and we can grow our business in multiple states without having a brick and mortar presence.

What strategies are you using to enhance customer experience? Unless they can’t stop the bleeding or are in a life-threatening situation, we encourage our clients to call us if they have a medical situation. We are here to help make their healthcare journey less stressful and can receive the most benefit from their health insurance plan.

How do you manage risk in a constantly changing environment? We try to stay consistent in what we do and keep the client’s best interests at the center of our recommendations. If we do that, we minimize risk for all parties.

What trends are emerging in health/life/property insurance? We only play in the health insurance space so we can’t speak to the other fields. With that said, health costs continue to rise and no one seems to want to pay for them. The higher insurance premiums get, the less people will actually get insurance. Then we’re looking at people not paying for their medical bills, which puts the hospitals in a financial bind, so they raise their prices. That makes the insurance carriers raise their premiums and the cycle continues.

How do you address public misconceptions about insurance? Somewhere along the way, people started thinking that insurance carriers exist to provide health insurance coverage. The fact is, they exist, like every other business in the world, to make money. They just happen to use Health Insurance as the vehicle to make that happen. This is why the carriers want you to pay your premium for a while before they will pay for certain services, like a major surgery or why they don’t pay for expensive drugs when you only pay a couple hundred dollars a month for your premium. You would be surprised how many calls we get looking for insurance that is less than $200/month yet will cover a prescription drug that is over $1,000/month. When we explain that there is not a plan like that available, they tend not to believe us. Not sure where the disconnect is, but we try our best to educate where we can.

What role does data analytics play in your operations? We’re a small company, so we’ve haven’t dug too deeply into analytics at this point. We certainly pay attention to our Social Media and Website analytics and notice when certain strategies create an uptick in activity. That’s probably the extent at this stage of the game.

What advice do you have for people navigating insurance for the first time? Do not shop online and think you can do this on your own. It’s complicated and confusing. Captive agents are limited to just the plans that are offered by their carrier. They have to make you fit their plan. Find a trusted broker. Brokers have access to multiple carriers, so we can shop around and find the best fit for you.