How to Save 100+ Hours This OEP/AEP Season

Learn how automation can help you stay efficient and effective during the busy enrollment season.

While automation is a great asset for your day-to-day work, it can also come in handy during the busy times of the year like Open Enrollment (OEP) and Annual Election Period (AEP). Automation helps you get more done with less effort. You can use it to:

• Efficiently manage tasks and leads
• Communicate more effectively internally and externally
• Monitor all of your activities
• Streamline client onboarding
• Manage your staff

By helping with the tasks above, automation frees up time for you to focus on more revenue-generating opportunities – or simply just staying afloat during the enrollment season madness. 

While automation sounds great, where do you start? Here are three different areas you can use automation during OEP and AEP to maximize productivity and efficiency (plus highlights from the software you can use to streamline it all).

Boost and Optimize Policy Renewals

It’s no secret that many agencies thrive based on their renewal income. That reality, along with the fact that you likely want to grow your agency, makes it clear that renewals are important to track and manage. Nevertheless, policy renewals can still be time-consuming. 

Thankfully, with Automated Workflow, agencies have found that they can save 50-100 hours every renewal period by sending out renewal reminders to their clients.

Set up a policy renewal workflow that alerts both you and your client – whether they have an individual or group policy – of their upcoming policy renewal date. We recommend starting to send these emails at least three months out to give both you and your client plenty of time to prepare, meet, and update the policy. 

To alert your clients about the upcoming enrollment season in general, set up an automated drip email campaign. You can organize these in a similar fashion where you alert all of your health insurance individuals of the upcoming enrollment season, dates, and the actions they need to take. Since many of your client’s renewals come during OEP and AEP, starting discussions ahead of enrollment season gives you time to service them well and can mitigate the stress of waiting until the last minute. 

In all of your emails, you want to give your clients clear instructions on what they need to do and their deadlines. For example, if OEP is coming up, schedule your first email to send a month prior to let all of your clients and prospects know that it’s just around the corner. Each successive email can include more information and increase in urgency to ensure they update their policy in the allotted time.

Streamline Forced Policy Change Communications

Unfortunately, not all of your clients will be able to continue with the coverage type or carrier they currently have. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) can make this difficult with different carriers entering and leaving every year and different plans being offered. Instead of calling every client individually, use automated emails to send a mass email that targets and notifies the affected individuals within your book of business. 

This ensures they receive this critical information and know what to do to rectify the situation  without taking too much of your time to manually notify every person affected.

Plus, communicating in a timely, specific manner works wonders for client retention. Not only will your clients be happy they had enough time to think through their policy options and ask questions, but you won’t need to scramble to serve them all right before the deadline.

Maximize Lead Generation and Conversion

Just like any other time of the year, growing your book of business is a priority. Thankfully, you can use the power of insurance automation during OEP and AEP with new leads, too. 

First, create your own custom lead form and place it on your website. Make sure it’s optimized for conversion to ensure you get the most leads possible. As leads come in, it’s your job to work them – and since time is of the essence with new leads, automation can immensely improve the likelihood of conversion. 

Use AgencyBloc’s Lead Form builder to connect your lead form to an Automated Workflow. Once a new lead comes in, an email is automatically sent to notify you and you’re assigned a task to follow up immediately. And if a lead isn’t ready to buy yet, our lead-tracking software and features can help you nurture them and get them to convert, too. 

Another benefit of having your lead form tied directly to your agency management system (AMS) is that all of your important client information is in one place. You can easily find all of their details and add notes and attachments as time goes on—including call recordings! This permanent, digital paper trail of all prospect communications allows you and your team to serve every prospect efficiently and effectively. 

"During Open Enrollment 3 years ago, AgencyBloc saved me 40 hours of time. I pulled 2 paper files during the whole OE period. Last year, we saved even more time. Honestly, I can't tell you when, in the last year and a half, I've pulled a paper file."
—Pam S., Redline Health

Get Your Agency Ready for OEP/AEP with AgencyBloc

With the busy nature of OEP and AEPs, you don’t want to be caught off guard and play catch-up all season long. It’s imperative you have a plan in place – and this includes making sure you have the right AMS before enrollment season hits. 

Thankfully, at AgencyBloc, we’re able to get many of our clients up and running with our AMS within weeks. Our industry-specific platform and suite of intuitive tools are designed to help you save time, maximize your ROI, and build your book of business all year long.

This blog was originally published on August 7, 2018, updated on July 30, 2019, and again on August 2, 2022. 

Posted by Allison Babberl on Tuesday, August 2, 2022 in Sales Enablement

1. data management
2. open enrollment
3. productivity
4. selling