Exploring the Future of Medicare Supplements with Mutual of Omaha

In this episode of Insurance 360, Bob and Rob engage in an in-depth discussion with Jon Enenbach, Vice President for Senior Health Brokerage Sales at Mutual of Omaha, and Jeff Ganow, Senior Vice President for Senior Health at Mutual of Omaha. The conversation sheds light on the current state of the Medicare Supplement (MedSup) market, its challenges, and the regulatory landscape. Discover the impact of COVID-19 on claim trends and how companies like Mutual of Omaha are addressing fraud, waste, and abuse in the sector. The episode also highlights the industry's response to recent legislative changes like the Inflation Reduction Act and the birthday rules affecting MedSup policies. Stay tuned for exciting news about Mutual of Omaha’s upcoming entry into the Hospital Indemnity market and how they aim to ensure a smooth experience for brokers and clients alike.

This podcast is intended for producer use only. Not intended for use with the general public.

Transcript

 Alright, welcome everybody, another episode of Insurance360 with my blue friend, Mr. Rob Valencius. It's Rob! Cheers, Bob. Keepin it going. Another Water. quick episode. Water, unfortunately. It's Friday, but I wish it was vodka. Yeah, well  We're on the job. It's been It has been one of those days where it could very well be vodka, and I don't think anybody would complain about it.

In my head, it's vodka. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, you know, we've been doing a lot during the OEP stuff, and We've been talking about ancillary products, and  I was at a meeting last week, Rob, and When weren't you at a meeting, by the way? Yeah, well, I think I should be more specific  than that. I was at a really well done meeting about Medicare supplement and the industry last week with one of the leaders in the industry, and it didn't take me more than about five seconds after the meeting was over saying, like, listen,  Um, all this stuff we talked about here, we got to talk about, let our agents know what's going on in the industry because MedSup, I feel like it's taking a little bit of a backseat to Medicare Advantage in a way. 

I mean, look, it's, it's, it's held its rules and regulations, which for us, I mean, I'll take that all day, every day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is true. This is, this is true. There's not quite the changes, um, that come along with Medicare Advantage space, but, uh, still a lot of going on in the MedSup space. So. I was able to drag two, two new good friends of mine from, from mutual of Omaha onto the, uh, uh, call here today, uh, our podcast, and I got Jon Enenbach and Jeff Ganow, Both with Mutual of Omaha.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming out and joining us here today. What's up guys? Thanks for having us. And I know he's caffeinated up. I saw a C4 over there. Yeah, I know. 

That's what we needed probably. Oh yeah, more than alcohol. We probably needed to go C4 today. That would have been helpful. We need to be pretty jacked up for this.  Yeah, exactly. So John, you're the VP, you run all the sales and the brokerage channel over at Mutual of Omaha, and then Jeff. You're, you could take right after me.

You're an actuary by trade over there, right? You love numbers. You like equations Right give it all the gory details. I am I am You know, I give all the gory details what it is is i'm gonna lull everybody to sleep. John's gonna wake him up 

Well, you're, you're all the details and John's all the sizzle, right? Everybody, you know, that's the way it is. We sell on the sizzle. We just got to make sure that you, the stuff's, stuff's looking good. We call that the shake and bake. Yeah. The shake and bake. Lightning and thunder. I don't know who's what. 

Before we get going though, I mean, that stuff doesn't take a backseat to anyone. I'll tell you that.  We agree. We agree here at Pinnacle. Shots fired. Yeah. Well, a hundred percent. And that's why we were, I said, I said, we talk about ancillary, we talk about the MA so much, but the MedSup market is still so strong.

I mean, we do a ton of MedSup. We train all of our agents on both of them. I mean, in our philosophy, an insurance agent selling Medicare should have both in their bag.  Talk to a client about what's best for them, what are their goals, what are their pain points, what's important, and make a decision for that individual at the time of sale, not going in and just, you know, putting some drugs into a system and saying, okay, here's the best one, kicking it out without doing that extra bit of, Personalization.

I mean that makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean look when we train people here It's on that scope of appointment. You're checking off every box. Oh, yeah included that but that box is always checked 24 7 because you never know where the conversation is gonna lead. Oh a hundred percent hundred percent and Unlike ma we talked a little bit about meds up being Not quite as, you know, CMS doesn't quite they trying to get their fingers in a little bit.

I know probably John can talk a little bit about how they they want to, you know, maybe try and get involved a little bit, maybe a little pushback on that from the industry, hopefully is happening, but Um, you know, there is some definite stuff going on in the Metsup market that's a little bit new for this year.

I mean, some stuff we haven't seen before, um, or we haven't seen maybe to the extent we're seeing it these days. Yeah. Uh, first off, Mutual Velma, you guys have seen it all. So when, when I say maybe stuff I haven't seen, you guys have probably seen the ups, the downs. The sideways, you know, the industry shifts, um, you know, plan f macro, you know, going back a couple years.

I mean, there's been a lot that's happened, right? A lot that's happened. Yeah. We mean, you know, mutual model has been doing Medicare supplements since 1966, right? So 59 years,  uh, you're about to see some stuff, right? Um, even in the nineties, you know, our, uh, mutual Omaha was instrumental in drafting standardization legislation at the time.

Um, so, uh, yeah, we've, we've been doing this a long time. We know what we're doing. Hey, you kind of got to go back. I mean,  when Medicare first started, mutual home at that time was the largest health insurance company in the country. So the government came to us and said, Hey, how can we get this thing off the ground?

They've been coming to us. ever since the beginning to kind of consult us, uh, consult on how to make Medicare better. And we continue to do that to, to this day. Yeah. And that's, it's a great point. You know, it was very interesting. And I go back to the meeting I was just at. Um, I always think of the decisions that are getting made, um, not only at the state level, but federal level, you know,  do they actually reach out to an insurance company like Mutual of Omaha with all your expertise and industry knowledge and say, Hey, listen, We may be doing this.

What do you think? What is the impact going to be? Right. Does that happen? I mean, we, I would hope it does, but doesn't mean that it does oftentimes, you know, with just the lobbying power and things these days out in DC, you know, there's a lot of association groups that are out. Right. And so I would say that oftentimes they're working through these lobbyists and these trade associations and not necessarily necessarily.

a lot directly with the insurance company. Now, that being said, you know, mutual law, we we we've had more of a presence out there just getting out there and telling our story, talking about the importance of, um, consumer choice in the market and how to protect seniors. And, um,  you know, I, I would say that, you know, we get varying levels of engagement.

Um, I, you know, sometimes we're,  you know, marking up the wrong tree, but there's, there's some times where absolutely. We get good engagement. We get some proactive reach out. Um, we actually, uh, just spoke to some folks, uh, with, with, uh, CMS, the OIG a couple days ago, um, on a reach out on something we had sent over their way.

So it's, it's, uh, it's good to get that kind of engagement. I think it's getting better.  Even more so, your team is actively working with state departments of insurance, right? Medicare being really more, or Medicare Supplement being mostly at the state level. That's where a lot of the work your team does.

Yes. It's literally going directly to them and having conversations about the state of, uh, Medicare and mutual loan law's opinion on it. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, a lot of times people your backyard, it's in Nebraska. I'm like, well, actually, you know, Nebraska is just a small piece. Of our Medicare supplement, you know, most of our, we, we sell nationally.

Um, and, uh, you know, while, yeah, we were at the Nebraska State Insurance Department last week, a couple weeks we'll be in Kansas. Uh, we, we, we've been talking with the state of Texas, so we, we deal with every state, um, and have a lot of conversations around the state of Medicare supplement. Oh, makes sense.

And when you look at the Medicare supplement, I mean, I mean, listen, you're looking at. loss ratios, but it's not, it's not just like what happened last year. I mean, it really is a, you go a couple of years back, you know, we can even go back as far as COVID, right? And I hate even talking about it anymore. I mean, it's like we, I don't know about you guys.

We were in the office like June, 2020 and I couldn't work from home. I just wasn't equipped for it. And I was in my office by myself with the, with the door closed and I was trying to get things done. But, I mean, the one thing that was definitely not happening is people weren't getting a lot of surgeries and other things done.

So I think as an industry, you guys can speak to this, but I mean, you anticipated what 2021 2022, everybody was going to start rolling out there again, and there was going to be a greater than normal. You know hit on you guys as far as the claim exposure out there, right? I mean that that that probably had to sneak up on On a lot of companies if they weren't preparing for that and it's funny because um, you know, like you said, uh We certainly wish we could get away from covet too, right?

Like that's a period You know, I would say we had never seen before. I don't think any of us here had ever seen before, and I sure hope we never see again. Um, you know, if you go back in that time machine, right? Five years ago,  and you remember what happened during covid. And there was a point in time.  I remember looking at the data where on a claims basis.

Claims were down about 50%, right? Half of what we would typically see on a daily basis. You know, we, we process 125, 000 claims a day. We do a lot of, a lot of claims. And, uh, so when you see those outliers, you definitely see something happening. And, you know, our first thought was,  well, this is going to be a problem if this drags on too long.

Because there's going to be the consequences of everybody that's delaying care.  Um, and, you know, you can go back to that time of 2020, and 2020, you remember the Delta variant, and, um, there was a time there where there was a nursing, nursing, uh, shortages because they were burnt out and, A lot of these elective type procedures and  care was not getting done. 

And yes, we said these claims are going to come roaring back. We expected it to come roaring back in 2021, 2022. And what I would say is  we didn't really see it come back heavy until the end of 2022 going into 2023. And that's what we saw. Like, this is what we've been waiting for. Now that we're on that side of it,  you know, we're seeing far more utilization of outpatient procedures, outpatient elective procedures, which, you know, our populations, a lot of knee and hip and shoulder replacements, you know, things like that.

Um, we've seen a rise in cancer claims and, uh,  you know, interestingly enough, like during covid, you would expect things like cancers and er visits and stuff like that to be steady. But it wasn't. Everything was down. Um, whether or not that's people not getting the preventative treatment they needed or getting the diagnostic care that they needed. 

Um, and on top of that, you know, drug costs are going up and, and so on. So, um, we're living while I want to get away from COVID and never talk about it. We're still living with the effects of it. Um, right. We were, uh, you know, a country of, you know, however many hundred million, uh, people that are kind of going through a real time case study.

And, uh, it's interesting.  So what you're saying is, is I should have invested. In outpatient and surgical facilities, uh, like 2019, I get to look, there's a lot of crazy stuff happening now too, with, I mean, you got the bird flu, pneumonia is going around like crazy and it's much easier to get into those outpatient and, and urgent facilities.

It is getting into a hospital, which is.  Yeah, you know, you look at things like, um, and it's interesting to kind of see what's out there right now. You got the measles. I mean, when's the last time people talk about me? It's true. Um, yeah. And, uh, you know, flu, the, the flu deaths, um, that were, if you guys have seen are up this year.

Um, and flu deaths are up, vaccine rates are down, and, um, you know, coming out of COVID, um, you know, that's one of the effects we're seeing is vaccine rates are down. Um, is, whether or not that's correlation or causation, I don't know. Um, but at the same time, again, we're just, we're just looking at this, and these effects are still coming through in real time.

Yeah, no, that's, that's crazy. Now, I would also anticipate, just like anything in the health industry, you're probably seeing some. case studies going on. Maybe that, um, some what's the buzzword now? The fraud, waste and abuse you hear like every day with doge. So throw some of the some of that experience in there where all of a sudden you're seeing these spikes in certain types of procedures and certain types of claims coming in that maybe doesn't quite meet the smell test a little bit.

And you got to dig into that a little bit, right? Exactly. And you know, as you look at yeah. Look, we talk about loss ratio and stuff all the time, which is, which is really a, a nerdy insurance industry term, right? You know, claims over premiums and, um, you know, in Medicare, in Medicare supplement, one of the things that a lot of people, especially the lawmakers don't understand,  uh, in CMS is that when it comes to Medicare supplement, All premiums are paid for by the customer paper by the scene, right?

And Medicare Advantage, the revenues that insurance companies get is coming from the federal government.  Um, and so Medicare summit 100 percent paid by a customer. And so when claims are up, you have to collect more money from the customer.  But what we try to do at Mutual Omaha, we try to also have an intense focus on the numerator that the claims component.

We say, look, we want to pay customers claims. That's why we exist. But we don't want to pay the claims that we're not supposed to. And that gets into that fraud, waste, and abuse. And I know we talk about that with doge. It's a, it's a buzzword. I'm not sure we're talking the same language, by the way. Like, I don't know. 

Same terms, maybe different definitions. But what we see, um, and this actually materialized about, gosh, I'm trying to think, was it about 2023? 2022? Um, anyway, uh, we started seeing a whole bunch of catheter claims. Like, how weird is that? People just ordering, uh, catheters  and  it, you know, you call customers and you go, did you actually order these?

And they're like, thousands, thousands, thousands of them.  Oh, everybody needs a thousand.  Yeah. Well, sure. That's, they're like, I'm pretty sure I would know if I was using these. But, um, so anyway,  no, it turns out that these weren't actually being ordered by the customers. They're never receiving these things.

Um, and, you know, this is a situation where, you know, somehow, some way, somebody got a hold of somebody's Medicare number.  and was fraudulently billing for these things. And, uh, we were able to start just identifying, uh,  these fake service providers, um, that were issuing these things. And we were able to shut them down, right?

Catch it, not pay the claim. Um, and we actually were sending the information to the DOJ saying, look, this is, this is what's going on.  Somebody help us stop these things. Um, because while it worked for us to not pay those. Medicare, according to our data, was paying it.  So, um, our check Oh, that, right, right. So, they're, they're, they're getting it as well as you guys are getting it, and they're not catching it, but you guys are catching it.

Yeah, so the way it works is in supplement, Medicare pays first, and then it comes to us. And so, we can tell if it goes to Medicare, it gets paid, it comes to us as a Medicare approved claim.  It came to us that way. We, as far as we know, they paid it. Now, whether or not anything went back, or they went to these fraudulent people and said, Hey, give us our money back.

And they started writing checks. which I highly doubt. Um, you know, but anyway, so we continue to dig into that. And what we, what we see is several instances where, um, you know, customers are either getting billed for something they didn't actually receive. And, and, um, there are things like continuous glucose monitors and things like this, right.

And it's, it's a population, uh, that's, I wouldn't, I don't want to say easy to take advantage of, but, you know, Medicare, um, it's complex and, uh, you know, stuff can slip through the cracks. Um, we see durable medical equipment, um, while, you know, it's great customers need it and they're most providers are really, really good.

We see situations where providers will be like, oh, you have supplemental coverage. Oh yeah, this is a 50, 000 wheelchair. It's like, no, that's a, that's a Tesla. Like, you know, we, we, we try to work with lawmakers and, and, uh, everything on, on this as well. And we actually.  You know, we're continuing to see, uh, really big numbers on something else.

And I won't talk about it right now, um, just because we're still digging into things. We think this is a big investigation that we're currently working on. Um, we're doing everything we can to protect our customers. And. That means, you know, making sure that, look, when we had these, some of these customers that we found the catheter things and we're calling saying, Hey, this, and they then comes to find out they found we, they found out from us that their identity had been stolen.

Um, you know, they thank us for that. And, uh, you know, I was very happy to be able to just. Just even think about the whole impact. I mean obviously the loss ratios This is a big part of what goes into the premiums and what are the rate increases? So if you got all this fraudulent claims going on that's just going to impact the entire block that impacts everybody Um, you've got enough going on with with what's going on with uh, the covid and the and and the claims there Um, let alone some of this other stuff happening And then you've got, you know, I want to at least touch on it a little bit.

So I'm sure this is something really very, um, positive for, uh, claims ratio, but the birthday rules, let's talk a little bit about how that's impacting because There's always been a couple of states that have had this going on. Yeah. What are we up to 13 15 now and Probably going to be more  Yeah, this birthday rule um,  I I use this analogy right the birthday rule is a symptom of  Lawmakers seeing a problem  and then thinking they can solve it with the birthday rule, right?

So like oh people are stuck and paying these high premiums um, let's Let's fix it by letting them switch into a birthday rule. Um, and what we find is for the states that switch to birthday rule,  the premium differential between a birthday rule and a non birthday rule state, when you make that switch, it's 30 to 40 percent increase in premiums for new business. 

Wow. It's a big number. And so we educate, um, the states on that when it comes out. Now it's up to them whether or not they want to listen. And.  When we see these things,  what the states don't want  is to take away choice from consumers.  And when Medicare supplement prices go up 30 40 percent because of birthday rule, what you find is Medicare Advantage enrollment starts to disproportionately spike, uh, because it makes Medicare Advantage just look that much more attractive.

And Washington is a great example, right? It's a state that has open enrollment.  They don't allow you to charge by age. So a 65 year old pays way more for Medicare supplement than they do. And, you know, say like Texas and they also have level lifetime comp. You can't, you can't, uh, you know, do the heat comp for the first six years.

And Washington has huge Medicare advantage enrollment. And then Washington this past year was also the state with the most MA plan terminations. So  when Medicare advantage plans aren't making money. They just terminate,  they'll go find coverage when Medicare, Medicare supplements guaranteed renewable for life.

As long as you pay your premiums, you're, you have coverage, we can't terminate you. Um, so, you know, again, there's pros and cons of both of these coverages. Um, but making sure that, as you guys said, you have every tool, make sure that scope of appointment has every tool out there to make sure that they get put in the right coverage. 

But like the premiums though too, I mean, when you look at a state like, like New York. Right. It's, it's the same thing. Guarantee issue state for MedSupps. It also limits what carriers are going to go in there. Because at the end of the day, they're not going to stay in a state where They're going to have high claim numbers and the premiums are going to be super high, right?

I mean, you look at a New York, you only have two or three options that are affordable. So it also limits their choice in picking a carrier, you know, no one's here's not going to go in there and be like, Oh, that's a profitable state. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. The loss ratios for New York must be, you know, guaranteed issue and, and everything else that comes along with it.

Yeah. Well, it's funny is the loss ratios in New York are actually fine for us. Yeah, but the premiums are outrageous. Premium premiums are  . Well, right. You, you figured out the premiums. Yeah. Yeah. You figure out the premium and there's, it's, it's, you used the word affordable. That's the problem, is it's, it's affordable coverage. 

And, uh, you know, that's, that's what we're really focused on, is making sure that we're providing drugs. And then, and then you look at it, you know, Jeff and John, you guys are probably seeing this. You've got the Inflation Reduction Act come out. You've got now the impact on the Part D. So, obviously, you've got an Advantage Plan.

Usually, you've got the prescription drug built into it. Now, you've got the med subclients.  If the rates are being impacted because of what's going on with the Part D plans, it's, that's, that's a, they're, they're buying both. If they're buying a METSUP, they're buying the Part D. So now only you're having larger increases, you know, we're seeing more double digit increases from everybody across the board because of what we're talking about here on the METSUP side.

But then also you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, you've got the Uh, changes with, uh, the insulin, you've got the 2, 000 max, you've, you know, you've got all these things going on in the Part D space, um, that certainly doesn't help when it comes to Medicare supplement business. Yeah, but Mutual was smart.

They, they got rid of their PDP ahead of time  and just licensed it out to WellCare, right? Yeah, well, well, no, we, we exited and No, no, no, that was the advantage. That was the advantage. Yeah. In the Part D space, right? With the Inflation Reduction Act, right? It's not just about that. They made these changes, the insulins, the 2, 000 max out of pocket.

Like those are on the surface, they're good things for consumers, right? And this comes down to  lawmakers looking at something and saying, I have a solution without looking at what are the unintended consequences of this solution. And when that 2, 000 out of pocket max went into effect, and it's not only that, so beyond that.

Some of the dollar shifted around and so before when you got in that catastrophic phase The plan sponsor or the insurance company was on the hook for some the manufacturer was on the hook for some the government was on the hook for some And in the Inflation Reduction Act, they said, well, we should just make the insurance company pay more. 

I think the  drug companies had better lobbyists or something when they figured out that pie. Like, I'm not really sure how that broke out that way, but  it's a whole other conversation. So when that happened, um, you know, Part D bids are due the first week of June, the first Monday of June. And, um, when those bids were submitted,  As far as we can tell, the data that we showed said the average national bid went up  180%. 

And so that's, you know, nearly a tripling of your premium.  And we were, we were screaming about that here in the office, like, listen, everybody get ready. Months, months. This, the 99 cent plan, that's, that's not happening this, this year. I mean, it's, it's going away. And then all of a sudden. What was it? When did the stabilization, the, the, the, the party stabilization demonstration program say that three times real quick. 

They launched that out in july or august and it just said, okay. Look, we realize everybody's now their premiums went up. We're going to step in and help. So we're gonna  subsidize your downside risk and the government that is right the government comes in and says well Maybe we don't want all the clients the beneficiaries to have a hundred and fifty dollar monthly Part D premium.

Eh, we gotta figure something out there. So the government found a few billion that they could throw out and kind of save the program for now. Um, and that'll be a,  you know, a three year program. Um, so we kind of kicked the can down the road for, you know, a couple more years. Um, it's not over yet. We still got to see how this is going to shake out.

Um, but this, this is Can, can that change? What do you, what do you think? I mean, new administration. They're trying to save money. They come across this program and they're like, wait a minute. What are we doing here? We're We're throwing this money at, you know, the Part D. Haven't seen much of Dr. Oz. You know, I thought he'd be a little bit more, uh, you know, like, behind Trump.

I haven't seen him once. Yeah. You know, and he hasn't been confirmed yet, right? I don't think he has.  Uh, but anyway, you know, it's, look, there's opposing forces at play here, guys.  You have the effort to cut costs,  but you also have the efforts to make sure you don't make seniors upset who vote in droves, right?

And, um, look,  one of those forces is going to overpower the other, and we'll have to see how this plays out. Um, but I tell you now, you know, if, if Part D premiums go up, um, you know, that triple, uh, in the next couple years, that's going to be very difficult for anybody who's currently sitting in Congress.

We were saying it and we were telling the agents, and then, you know, they, it,  it kind of like appeared and nobody really knew what happened. And the, then the plan stuff started coming out and they were like, ah, you were wrong. They didn't, they didn't change them. I'm like, no, wait a minute. Well, it wasn't that we were wrong.

Here's what I see. The backend. Here's, here's what, here's what happened. Right? Yeah. There's, this is, yeah. But then you have, uh, you know, an an unnamed company who decided to, uh, just cut agents out Totally. And kept their zero premium plans. And then, you know, they noticed that they weren't selling anything.

So when you cut the guy out, that's normally what happens. You mentioned, you know, we, we got out of it and we got out of it way before.  We knew that with the inflation reduction act, we were not going to be able to deliver a product  that met our standards for our customers as a mutual company. We are driven to deliver a holistic, affordable Medicare solutions to, to our customers.

And we just knew that based on our scale, um, and the new rules that we weren't going to be able to do that. Um, and you know, that's why we, we stepped away from it so we could focus even more on Medicare supplement and other supplemental products that, 2025. So being a mutual company allows us to take. 

That long term approach, um, with both our rates, um, and our overall strategy. Um, and it's beneficial to have that for our customers because. They know that we're going to be. Look, I sold your PDP, man. You guys had great, you had a great formulary. So it's not like your product was good, you know, so it was, it was smart.

It just wasn't going to live up to what we expected with the new rules. We weren't going to be able to deliver that with, with, with the new rules. And that's why we kind of had to step away from it. Yeah. You know, some of these big guys, they own their own PDX and they, you know, they have more scale in that space.

And it gets back to what John just said.  We, we ain't. So isn't there, isn't there being some push, isn't there some pushback now with, with owning your own, um.  Yeah. PBM, uh, as far as the insurance companies go, I know, I know there's, uh, probably some changes going to happen there too. I it's like, you got to keep track of this.

There is there's, there's some pushback and  with the regulations and the pushback and the changes that we see, you know, in, in DC, there's, there's a lot of it. I wish I had a crystal ball to tell you guys what's going to happen. But right now I'd say just, just keep, get your popcorn ready and keep watching.

So, uh,  Yeah, but, but I think the bottom line is, is, you know, it's still  A great plan. I mean, when you look at the claims, you say, like, Medicare paid it, we pay it. Like, when you look at the claims being done with Medicare supplement, I mean, it is tried and true. You know, for you guys, I mean, you guys are an industry leader, you know, you're standard bearers for the Medicare supplement market.

Um, I mean, you've been through a lot of turmoil and, and those kind of things. I mean, this market is still  primed to grow. I think if anything, there's a maybe more shakeup, maybe coming in the advantage space. It doesn't mean that, you know, that's not going to still be a viable product, obviously, but um, I still think there's a lot of room to grow in the med subspace for sure.

Absolutely. You know, when you look at  it, I'm going to go on a little bit of commercial here for you. When you look at the customer satisfaction. scores of a Medicare supplement market versus the Medicare Advantage market. The customer satisfaction of Medicare supplements is actually quite a bit higher, right?

We're 90 plus percent customer satisfaction. And the reason why Is because you don't have to worry about losing your doctor, you don't have to worry about, you know, if you go and have an ambulance in or out of network, um, it's just you go get the care you need. You can travel, you can see who you need.

And you also have that peace of mind knowing that we're gonna pretty much cover everything Medicare doesn't. Um, it's kind of that set it, forget it. Now, the piece of that, of course, the affordability and making sure that in a period we're in right now, Where claim costs continue to rise, you know, we, we, you guys have seen what's going on with inflation and everything in the broader macroeconomic environment and healthcare costs is no different, right?

Healthcare costs have risen significantly and unfortunately, Medicare supplement premiums are moving as well. Um, but I will say this,  we are dedicated to the Medicare supplement space. We're dedicated to providing the best broker experience in the industry. Um, you know, you had mentioned the unnamed carrier, uh, cutting the agent out.

That's, that's, again, that's not something mutual Omaha does. We pride ourselves on having that. Excellent. Uh.  Relationship with the broker and being able to provide that service because the broker is our conduit to the customer Um that that's absolutely I mean, we've we've always heard that. I mean we've of all the companies that we've got over 100 companies I mean mutual has never been one.

We've had I can think of anybody complaining About anything. I mean listen if anything You guys are on the meds up side, you know, what your e app, what is it like an hour it gets issued in? I mean you just kind of put it into the app and it's sort of issued and kind of done I mean, it's it's pretty seamless.

Our data shows that 70 percent of Underwritten apps that come in get a decision within three minutes.  Yeah, we know that a broker. That's ridiculous We know a broker needs to spend time on revenue producing activity and sitting there  Watching your email waiting for a decision to come is not where their money comes from It's From being in front of, uh, more people and serving more customers.

So, I mean, over the last several years, Jeff and his team have just continued to invest in what we call the exceptional broker experience. And the EF is one of those main things and all the pipes associated with it, which is the underwriting, the claims, everything about it. Um, even though, you know, claims continue to, to go up, we are investing in the business to continue to get more Medicare supplement and to have more brokers sell, sell Mutual Beaumont.

We are, as you can tell, we're  advocates for the industry, but we're advocates for the brokers as well, because we know how important they are and we know how many people that they, they help. Absolutely. We, you know, we listen to the brokers, right? You said you haven't heard any complaints. By the way, we get complaints.

So you're wrong, but we listen, like, well, listen, everybody complains about something, but you know, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's levels of the complaints, right? And what they're complaining about. So, Um, and you know what? If you get something issued in three minutes, I think I could even sell a dental vision hearing plan with that extra time I had.

Like you're already issued the meds up. Now we can talk about the dental vision hearing plan, right? And just add that on, which is guaranteed issue in its own right. I mean, you could just kind of do it real quick, right? No problem. Yep. And in our e app, you can literally check the box and  it'll, it'll Add it right on.

Add it right on. And we might as well. I mean, this is a huge audience. This is really the most public setting we will ever say this in, but we're going to add one more thing to our E App platform. We're going to add Wait, wait, wait! Very good.  Very official.  Mutual Boom Hub will be entering the Hostile and Demony market, um, at the That's huge!

Powered AAP this year, Mutual Boom Hub will have a hit product.  It is our intent to be incredibly competitive and deliver a high quality product.  Got some competition out there, guys. I'm interested to see what you, what you pull out of the, uh, the woodwork. Yeah, that's, that's great. Brokers say this is a growing market and it fits a need.

Um, and so we said, look, we'll, we'll meet you where, where you need it. And we're going to roll that out. And, um, again, we're going to make sure that that's. It provides the best possible experience for the customer. And the beauty is everybody that's already working with Mutual Contract, it's going to get it automatically added to their contract, right?

We don't, no new paperwork. I mean, it'll be seamless. The day that's available, you turn on your e app, there it is the, there it is the sub. Yeah, that's going to be great. Yeah, that's, that's. Big news for us. Yeah. Yeah. So even if they do sell an Advantage plan, it had a hospital indemnity on it, right? Right there.

Yeah, and all the ACA that we're doing, I mean, I haven't even seen the ages yet, but we could probably, uh, probably tag on some, some hospital indemnity with that as well. Absolutely, and we're actually finding that through our own research, uh, that there's a lot of people who have Medicare supplements that purchase hip coverage as well.

For all the different things that, you know, maybe Medicare doesn't cover, like, Maybe you have to come in from out of town and a spouse has to stay at a hotel. It's an indemnity plan. You're just getting the money. You can spend it however you want. Right. And I'm not going to, you know, kind of spoil the surprise of all the riders, but all the riders that we have are going to go right hand in hand with Medicare supplement.

So a customer really have quality coverage with both a plan plan G and a hip. They're definitely going to get it, but we also think it can be easily put together with a high deductible plan G as well and really have an affordable solution for a customer.  That's awesome. Yeah, you heard it here. Contract with Mutual. 

Now. Now. They're not already contracted. Pinnacle's got, do we have the exclusive on that? We have, we'll talk about that later. 

Shaking his head there.  That's awesome. Yeah. No, that's great news. I mean, it's a huge product, a huge market for us. I know our agents are selling a ton of the ancillary  program, so it's a great fit for, for what we're doing and you can't beat the Mutual name. Everybody knows  I love when you guys are at the events.

I mean, cause you usually have some, you know, the, the wildlife safari animals there. I've got some pictures with like, uh, you know, different stuff that you guys have brought to some of the conventions, uh, which is always pretty cool. The, uh,  what is it? Mutual of Omaha. Wild Kingdom.  Wild Kingdom. While I'm blanking out on that.

I used to watch it. It was like every Sunday or something when I was a kid. It'd be on like seven o'clock at night or something. It's on every Saturday morning at,  yeah, ten o'clock, ten o'clock central. So that's been around forever. That's great. Brand new episode.  I mean, a lot of great info. I mean, I really appreciate you guys.

jumping on with us. I mean, there's so much going on in, in our space just in general. Um, definitely think the Medicare supplement is, is something all the agents should have in their bag. If they're selling Medicare, if they're working with, with beneficiaries, there's just that segment of population that's, that, that's the right fit for them.

Right. And regardless of all this other noise going on, I mean, we talk in some of this stuff going on, it's still a great product. uh, affordable and makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. So, um, any last words, Jeff, John, any, anything else that I missed before we run? I'll just say thank you.  We appreciate all that you and your team does and all the brokers that you support.

We can't exist without you in the bridge community and we appreciate all  that you do. Yeah, very much.  You know, anytime we, we, we love, we love this business. We're passionate about it. Um, we're passionate about, you know, educating and helping our brokers. And, uh, anything you guys need, feel free to reach out.

Yep. Sounds great. Thanks. Really appreciate it. Thank you again for joining us. And Rob, I think that's going to be it for today. Jump out. Cheers. Boys. All right. Thank you again. Cheers. Cheers.