Saturday, June 2, 2012

Achieving Member Retention

By Ivan Nickel


Member retention has become one area that has been getting a lot of attention from health insurance companies looking to improve their numbers and the income potential . Member retention refers to the amount of plan members that decide on continuing or extending their health insurance plan for another year, or plan period. The numbers associated with member retention says a lot about the insurance company and how they handle issues such as customer service, and member satisfaction.

A lot of health insurance plans will put focus on the overall satisfaction of their members, not as many look at the links that can be found between member satisfaction and the member retention rates. It is the goal of any health insurance company to have retention rates of 100% with none of their members looking elsewhere to buy different insurance from another company. Unfortunately for the insurance companies,, that is rarely the actual case when it comes to member retention numbers.

Member retention is focused on by insurance companies for a number of different reasons. First and foremost, gaining a new plan member costs a good more than keeping an existing member. In general, it takes between two and three years of membership for the initial investment into the plan member to pay for itself. If a member decides not to continue, drops, or de-enrolls after the first year or two of commitment, then the insurance company loses a good amount of the investment they made on that individual as a new member.

It is necessary for health insurance plans to have a number of strategies in place to increase their member retention rates. It is first important to look at those individuals who have decided to drop their plan and investigate and analyze the reasons that this happened. This is a way to find the weaknesses of the company and fix them to improve retention. It is also beneficial for companies to increase the amount of access members have to service and health information, as well as open communication between the company and the plan members.

Communication plays a large role in member retention. Member retention is increased when the communication and relationship between the members and the health insurance company is improved. Work on developing relationships with plan members through communication campaigns, and through the use of insurance agents on a personal level. As there are more available insurance companies to choose from, the importance of member retention will increase a good amount. This will place even more importance on health insurance companies to focus on establishing relationships and improving the overall function of the company.




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