Danielle Roberts shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Danielle, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What do you think is misunderstood about your business?
In recent years there has been a great deal of Senate scrutiny of agents and brokers in the Medicare industry, and there seems to be the general assumption that agents will steer business to Medicare Advantage to earn higher commissions. In reality, once a client has been on a Medicare Advantage plan for the first time, the commission rate drops to 50% when the plan renews or when a client changes plans or joins any other plan in the future. There is therefore no motivation to churn business or rewrite clients on new policies. Also, most agents that I know want to build a long-term sustainable book of business, and that means treating your clients well, servicing the policy, helping them with appeals, drug exceptions, late penalties and miscoded bills. Just last week we had a client with Stage 4 cancer whose oncologist didn’t understand his coverage and turned him away for treatment, telling him he would need to wait 6 days for them to research the answer. Fortunately, the client called us and our service team got on the phone with his doctor’s office and resolved the situation in just a few minutes. The client emailed us to tell us that what we do here at Boomer Benefits is saving lives. As the owner of the agency, we live for these situations and take so much personal satisfaction in helping people. I don’t know a single agent who is in this business just for the money, and I wish more people understood that.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Danielle Roberts, a Founding Partner at Boomer Benefits, where we help baby boomers navigate their entry into Medicare in 49 states. We are not just people who help beneficiaries enroll in Medigap. My agency has a service team of over 80 highly trained agents who service ONLY our existing policyholders, helping them with all of them the ordinary hiccups, appeals, exceptions, late penalties and billing errors that occur with Medicare insurance, so that they are never alone in dealing with Medicare. I’ve written a best-selling book about Medicare titled 10 Costly Medicare Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make, and it has sold more than 60,000 copies. Our agency’s service model is legendary and as a result we have amassed over 1M social media followers.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who taught you the most about work?
Both my parents are incredibly hard workers. My Dad had an early influence on my brother and I in terms of entrepreneurship, as he himself owned several businesses. When I was four years old, he taught me how to earn money myself by collecting earthworms after a rainstorm and then selling them to the fisherman for 50 cents on their way to the lake. I’ve been a self starter ever since.
When you were sad or scared as a child, what helped?
My Mom is a strong Christian and my parents got me into Sunday school at a very young age. I can remember waking to a loud thunderstorm when I was very little and being scared at the noise and wind and my instinct was just to pray about it. That has never left me. There is something truly comforting about giving over your troubles to God.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Whom do you admire for their character, not their power?
I love American Revolutionary history and my favorite person in history is John Adams. Did you know he left his wife and children alone to travel to France at least three times to negotiate an alliance and then a peace treaty? He was sometimes gone for years. Can you imagine being Abigail Adams and watching him go and then not knowing if he even survived the trip across the Atlantic for months until she would receive his first letter? I cannot imagine the sacrifice of these incredible Americans, such selfless people giving up nearly everything so that all of us could live in the freedom that we do today. We owe them a debt that can never be repaid.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
That I had such a heart for older Americans and I thought about them night and day, always pondering what else I can do to make their access to healthcare services easier. I often wake up in the dead of night with ideas and processes to write down. I have to have a notepad and pen on my nightstand. I have traveled to D.C. over and over at my own expense to lobby legislators for things that I think would improve Medicare for them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://boomerbenefits.com
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