Published by Carolyn Portanova

It's the new year, and it's the perfect time to implement new strategies to grow your insurance business. It's also important to keep your existing business. Client retention strategies that are practical and easy to implement are one way to ensure your clients don't go elsewhere. Below we'll discuss six easy strategies that you can put into place today.

Initially when you turn a lead into a client, it's important to set the bar high and treat that new client with care. Providing exceptional service will benefit you in the long run. Treating a client as a transaction is doing yourself and your client a great disservice. Networking and referrals are an excellent way to grow your business, and when you provide your clients with amazing service, they will not soon forget! Your happy clients will share the news with friends and family that you're a top notch agent!

A big part of providing exceptional service is listening, following up and ensuring your clients understand their new policies. New clients may have a plethora of questions, so it's important to acknowledge them. If you don't have the answer, that's when you let them know you'll get back to them with the answer. 

Exceptional service is what will set you apart.

Setting up regular communication with your clients is incredibly important. Whether it's a monthly newsletter or weekly email campaign - your clients will appreciate the contact. Remembering their birthdays and policy anniversary dates is also another great way to show you're thinking about your clients. It can be a quick call, a text or an email. 

If you need ideas for a weekly email or monthly newsletter, look to sharing industry news combined with personal ways you've assisted clients. Sharing stories about how you help your clients can spur your readers into thinking about other ways you can help them. For example, if you share how you helped a client save on his monthly Medicare Supplement premium, that can invite calls and questions from other clients or Medicare eligibles. If you share how you helped a young couple with a Whole Life insurance policy after the birth of their new daughter, that can elicit a response from other clients who need to think about Life insurance.

​Story telling is a great way to keep clients connected, and it showcases your expertise.

Clients who come to you for insurance are doing so because you are the expert. They don't know what type of policy they need and that's why your recommendation is so important. And with that comes a great deal of responsibility. Being the expert means you need to ask those probing questions to make sure you're getting the full picture before recommending a certain type of policy. Allowing your clients to communicate with you about their lifestyle and health is how you can draw from your vast knowledge, and put together a complete solution. Here's a scenario: perhaps a client reaches out about a Medicare Supplement plan, but after speaking with them you discover they don't have Dental, Vision & Hearing coverage. By recommending a DVH plan, they'll be covered and there will be no surprises the next time they go to the dentist or get an eye exam.

Providing a complete solution for your clients is what sets the bar higher.

Everyone likes to feel heard, respected and appreciated. Your clients are no different. It's important to recognize your clients and show them that you appreciate them. Little things such as a birthday email, a gift card or hosting a small client appreciation gathering can go a long way.

Everyone loves to be recognized and remembered.

Leveraging technology can assist you when it comes to retaining clients. When you have your clients information stored in a CRM and all their data is at your fingertips, you have everything you need. You can quickly look up policies, medications, pharmacies, doctors, health issues, birthdays, anniversaries and important notes you've stored about your clients. You can also use automated marketing tools to send out emails and texts to your clients. Tech adoption is critical in order to be a successful insurance agent these days. If you're looking for a robust solution, we offer our IntegrityCONNECT platform which is free to our agents. 

Technology is your friend.

Policy management and reviews are important when it comes to retaining clients. Being proactive and reaching out to your clients before their policy is up for renewal shows them you're looking out for their well-being. Policy reviews can potentially save your clients money and provide for greater benefits. They'll certainly appreciate the fact that you take the time to go over their current benefits and answer any questions they may have.

Proactiveness is the key to success.

Retention strategies don't have to be difficult when you put the right tools into place. Keeping the mindset that your clients are like family can go a long way in retaining them for years to come. Remember, they just want to be heard, treated fairly and respected. They can always go elsewhere for great service, so it's up to you to make sure they don't.

If you have questions or need help with strategies or tools discussed in this blog post, feel free to reach out. We're always here to help.

Published by Carolyn Portanova

IntegrityCONNECT is a brand new, unique platform that encompasses more than quoting and enrollment capabilities. It's a robust platform that allows insurance agents to actually manage and grow their businesses effectively...from anywhere. Stick around, and we'll go over the endless capabilities this platform can provide if you're in the market for more than a CRM and want to actually scale your insurance business.

Let's begin. With IntegrityCONNECT you get a user-friendly experience from the moment you login to the platform with a single sign-on. You're presented with a dashboard that displays your clients, your downline (if you have one), your personal production, marketing and learning. You're also presented with a client snapshot and the ability to run a quick quote. Additionally, you have the ability to contact support, access a live chat feature and use Ask Integrity, the AI assistant. There is no shortage of support features that ensures you will get the most out of IntegrityCONNECT. As you explore the dashboard you'll also find the ability to use other quoting systems, including CSG App, iPipeline and the ability to access leads with the integrated IntegrityCONNECT leads platform.​

As a registered user, which is free to our contracted agents, you will receive a personalized phone number and website. These are essential for any insurance agent who's dedicated to growing their business and presenting themselves in the most professional manner. If you're an agency, you'll also have the capability to toggle a switch that allows you to view your downline's production. This gives you the power to see your business as a whole. This platform has been designed and engineered to think of everything an insurance professional would need to manage their book of business.​

The nuts and bolts of IntegrityCONNECT are what allows you to easily manage your clients and leads....and of course gives you the ability to quote and enroll clients into Health (Medicare Advantage, Prescription Drug Plans, Medicare Supplement (coming soon) and Life (Final Expense, Simplified Issue Term, Indexed Universal Life and Simplified Indexed Universal Life) plans.  And to make managing your business even easier, the functionality of the IntegrityCONNECT platform works on any device allowing you to work on the go. The Integrity for Agents mobile app is available for download in both the App Store and the Google Play Store.

No matter how big your book of business is, importing client records directly into IntegrityCONNECT is made easy with the batch import feature. And you can always create a new client on the fly with just an e-mail address or phone number. As we dig deeper, dynamic tagging allows you to filter and sort your clients and leads by plan type, recommendations or any other important attribute. 

Ask Integrity AI is available to help you work as efficiently as possible. Get all the client information you need by utilizing the built-in, voice activated AI prompts. Ask Integrity Shoppers assists you with carrier data and alerts you to clients who have a higher likelihood of shopping and may need to change their coverage. Ask Integrity can also give you product recommendations as well as call summaries and important details about your clients.

Call recording capabilities include​​ seamlessly recording all your inbound and outbound client calls. You're able to easily link calls to both new and existing client contact records. IntegrityCONNECT stores your recordings automatically and securely for the full 10-year period required by CMS. Need to download your calls? Not a problem, you can do so at anytime from wherever you're working.

Policy Snapshot gives you an 'at-a-glance' status view of your applications and enrollments. While the task list shows you the next steps to take with clients and leads. The notes, reminders and scheduling features allow you to stay organized and efficient.

Client Connect makes it a breeze to send compliant marketing messages to your clients; from addressing policy changes and gathering client information to simply wishing them a happy birthday. You're able to track client status with the activity stream and even send text messages directly from a client record. And the Client Sync feature allows your clients to input their own information (from your personal website) which keeps their details about doctors, pharmacies and medications current and up to date.

​IntegrityCONNECT leads allows you to set up lead campaigns and enable real-time lead acquisition through data or call leads. With the flip of a switch, toggle your status to “online” to begin receiving your leads directly into your CRM in IntegrityCONNECT. Or use the lead mapping feature to find and purchase leads anywhere in the country...choose from Internet, Direct Mail and Social Media leads.

If you have questions or are ready to get access to this remarkable platform, we invite you to reach out us or visit our IntegrityCONNECT page where you can begin the registration process. We know you'll find IntegrityCONNECT to be everything and more. It's an exciting time to work in the insurance industry and with technology that works hard for you, it guarantees you'll be successful. 

Published by Carolyn Portanova

2026 Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug commissions are taking a big leap which is great news for insurance agents who sell these products. Below are the new maximum commission schedules from CMS.

2026 Medicare Advantage Commissions
National
$694/member - up from $626 in 2025.
​Renewal commissions: $347 - up from $313/member.

CT, DC and PA
$781/member - up from $705 in 2025.
Renewal commissions: $391 - up from $353/member.

CA, and NJ
$864/member - up from $780 in 2025.
Renewal commissions: $432 - up from $390/member.

PR and USVI
$474/member - up from $428 in 2025.
Renewal commissions: $237 - up from $214/member.

2026 Prescription Drug Plan Commissions
National
$114/member - up from $109 in 2025.
Renewal commissions: $57 - up from $55/member.

We encourage you to visit our Annual Enrollment page to view more information about offering MAPD products and to view carrier resources.

If you're looking to get appointed with any of our carriers to offer these products and have questions, please reach out to Derick Monaco. ​