SANTA CLARA, Calif.,
Sept. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/
-- With Medicare's Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) for 2021
coverage fast approaching, eHealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: EHTH)
(eHealth.com) announced today that it has met its internal sales
agent hiring goals and launched a new agent compensation model to
support the company's enrollment growth and customer retention
efforts.
"We're looking forward to another record enrollment season in
the fourth quarter," said eHealth CEO Scott
Flanders. "Achieving our internal agent hiring goals and
rolling out our new agent compensation model makes me even more
confident in our ability to meet and potentially surpass our sales
and retention targets this AEP."
eHealth significantly increases the number of its internal
agents
The company has achieved its internal sales agent
hiring goals for the upcoming enrollment period, including its
remote agent hiring goals, increasing the total number of its
full-time internal agents by more than 120% compared to last year.
The company continues to hire external vendor agents for its peak
volume period but is reducing its reliance on outsourced agents
overall. Internal agents are expected to constitute nearly 45% of
all agents scheduled to work this AEP, compared to approximately
30% last year.
"Our remote staffing model for internal agents, launched in
March, has given us greater flexibility and cost-effectiveness in
expanding our full-time agent force and allowed us to hire top
talent from around the country," Mr. Flanders said. "We're
currently on track with the hiring of our external agents as
well."
Agent compensation is now tied to enrollment
longevity
In July 2020, the
company made significant adjustments to its performance management
model, tying agent bonus compensation directly to the longevity of
agent-assisted enrollments. Agents are now generally compensated
significantly more for policies that remain in effect a specified
number of months. Previously, agent bonuses were not closely tied
to retention.
"This change effectively aligns our compensation model with our
retention goals," said Mr. Flanders. "Sales agents will be
encouraged to get to know our customers better and help them
identify and enroll in the plan that's best suited to their
coverage needs and budget over a longer period of time."
New agent tools and lead allocation model will support agent
efficiency
This AEP eHealth will be empowering agents (both
internal and external) to reach sales and retention goals with
improvements to agent-assisted online enrollment and back-office
tools designed to help them recommend plans to callers based on a
broader range of criteria and with higher accuracy than in previous
years. The company has also launched an enhanced telephonic lead
ranking and agent allocation system to better account for call
quality and agent skill, matching each caller with the best
available sales agent for the customer's situation.
"In our Q2 earnings call we said we expected agent efficiency to
increase 10% this year compared to last," said Mr. Flanders. "Our
new agent tools and new telephonic lead allocation model will place
us in a position to deliver on that commitment."
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains statements that are forward-looking
statements as defined within the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. These include statements regarding the
Company's enrollment and retention of customers, expectations for
this annual enrollment period, use and reliance of external vendor
agents, percentage of outsourced agents compared to internal
agents, agent compensation and goals, agent efficiency, and
improvements to online enrollment, back-office, and agent
management tools. These forward-looking statements are inherently
subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual
results to differ materially from the statements made, including
risks associated with our ability to enroll and retain new
customers, the execution of our plans to improve agent management
and tools, our ability to hire, train and retain licensed health
insurance agents, and other factors that could cause operating,
financial and other results to differ, which are described in
eHealth's most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q or Annual
Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission and available on the investor relations page of
eHealth's website at www.ehealthinsurance.com and on the Securities
and Exchange Commission's website at www.sec.gov. The
Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking
statement to conform to actual results or changes in intentions or
expectations.
About eHealth
eHealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: EHTH) operates a leading health insurance
marketplace at eHealth.com and eHealthMedicare.com with a
technology and service platform that provides consumer engagement,
education and health insurance enrollment solutions. Our mission is
to connect every person with the highest quality, most affordable
health insurance and Medicare plans for their life circumstances.
Our platform integrates proprietary and third-party developed
educational content regarding health insurance plans with decision
support tools to aid consumers in what has traditionally been a
confusing and opaque health insurance purchasing process, and to
help them obtain the health insurance products that meet their
individual health and economic needs. Our omni-channel consumer
engagement platform is designed to meet the consumer wherever they
prefer to engage with us, and enables consumers to use our services
online, through interactive chat, or by telephone with a licensed
insurance agent. We have created a marketplace that offers
consumers a broad choice of insurance products that include
thousands of Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement, Medicare Part
D prescription drug, individual and family, small business and
other ancillary health insurance products from over 180 health
insurance carriers across all fifty states and the District of Columbia.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Lara Sasken
Vice President, Corporate Communications
lara.sasken@ehealth.com
For investor inquiries, please contact:
Kate Sidorovich, CFA
Vice President, Investor Relations
650-210-3111
kate.sidorovich@ehealth.com
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SOURCE eHealth, Inc.