Meet John Pequeno, the Founder and President of Ideal Concepts, Inc.

Date: 07/01/18

Name: John Pequeno

State you live in: Pennsylvania

States you write in: All 50 states

Years in the insurance business: 13

How long have you been working with us? 2 years

Personal secret to success: I believe the true key to success is hard work and perseverance, a belief instilled in me by my father while growing up. Although skill, talent and education are extremely important, those alone won’t get you to your goal without hard work.

Favorite Quote: “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau

What tips would you offer a new broker interested in selling Affordable Care Act plans? I would encourage a new broker interested in selling Affordable Care Act plans to make sure they are extremely educated about all details of the law. Changes are constantly coming down from the government and, as a broker, education is an important part of your obligation to clients. The average American is not well-versed in ACA rules, regulations and changes. It’s your job to make sure you are aware of all aspects, in order to place them in the correct plan.

What do you like the best about the Ambetter plans? We are fans of Ambetter’s competitive pricing. Price point has become one of the biggest selling points as rates continue to rise, and Ambetter’s ability to keep costs low without sacrificing quality is admirable. In addition, Ambetter’s continually expanding footprint is great for brokers who sell in multiple states or nationally. We also like Ambetter’s website, which is both broker- and client-friendly. Your provider lookup feature is key to closing a sale!

What features of the Ambetter product offering best resonate with most with your clients: our My Health Pays™ program, our rates, our network? Something else? As mentioned, Ambetter’s competitive rates resonate with clients across the country. In addition, Ambetter’s 100 percent coinsurance plans are an attractive option for many clients because they are only responsible for the deductible.

How do you generate new leads? My insurance technology and marketing company, Ideal Concepts, Inc., has been in the lead generation business for 13 years. We rely mostly on self-generated online internet leads. We use those leads mostly in-house, providing captive brokers within American Insurance Organization with free marketing through our proprietary, cutting-edge CRM, SalesRadix.

How do you ensure your clients make their binder payment? Our brokers are taught to encourage clients to make a binder payment at the point of sale every single time. For the clients who choose not to, we have a marketing campaign featuring reminder emails.

What would you like to see more issuers do in the ACA market or add to the market for the next open enrollment season? We are always encouraged to see the top national ACA carriers expanding into new markets like Ambetter did this past season. Hopefully, we'll see even more Ambetter markets across the country this OEP! In addition, keeping compensation at a reasonable level is imperative to the stability of the entire individual health insurance business. This is especially true to an organization such as ourselves, where we provide free marketing to all of our captive brokers. It’s an expensive model, but we’ve been heartened to see a lot of ACA carriers return or increase commissions over the past year. We hope that trend continues into 2019.

Tell us what Better is for you! Better is: Consistently reaching more individuals across the country who need help acquiring individual health insurance year after year, despite the disruption in the market!