Complaint Review: United American

I'm a GA not a bitter x-agent. In my 17 years of insurance experience I have recently seen a drastic increase in the number of consumers and new agents who infact were, or at least feel they were misled. The only common thread to the vast majority of these cases I have personally encountered is they all involved United American. In my opinion this company is becoming very damaging to the insurance industry as a whole. Misleading selling and hiring practices are making both agents and clients more skeptical, and distrusting of all companies and their representatives.
If you are interested in the insurance business I can whole heartily say that is has been very financially rewarding to myself and many other successful individuals so don't be scared of it. But you must know the facts about any company you chose. To start, all of United Americans policies have by far the worst price to value ratio in the business. Another words for every premium dollar you send to the company you will receive far less insurance coverage in comparison to industry standards. The company really doesn't hide the fact that there policies offer no legitimate protection when they tell you "do not replace major medical insurance" and they try to save face with feel good expressions such as "we are catering policies to fit the needs of the public that cant afford or qualify for major medical" and my personal favorite "something is better than nothing" these happy go lucky company expressions are just smoke and mirrors. Here is the proof of what I have just stated. What is the purpose of insurance? Is it not to purchase a guarantee against an unaffordable loss in order to avoid a potential financially devastating situation. We don't buy insurance for things we can easily afford to replace like a light bulb, band aids, or a $20 dollar neck less, no, we only insure ourselves from things we cant afford to lose or replace like a house, a car, large medical bills, or our income due to death or disability. With that thought in mind would you buy or in good conscious sell a homeowners insurance policy that only covers a third of the houses replacement cost, would you buy car insurance that only covered the tires, or would you purchase protection for a priceless pearl necklace that only covered 2 of the pearls? No. In those cases while the policy may technically be "better than nothing", the end result would be the same as if you had no insurance at all, financial devastation. Lets get more specific. The most popular company policy "the Flex" has a outpatient nonsurgical benefit of $300 to $500, yet an emergency room visit can easily be 5 to 20 thousand dollars, and outpatient cancer treatments can easily total 50 to 250 thousand dollars over time . Who in their right mind would buy or expect any happy long term clients selling a policy that gives you 3 to 5 hundred dollars of protection for a 5 to 250 thousand dollars of potential liability. With there outpatient coverage in mind you would be better off putting your money in a bank or mattress than paying it to them , but lets go deeper. The inpatient coverage maxes out at 50, 75, or 100 thousand dollars, this may sound reasonable but you would have to be hospitalized for 40 day's (which is about as likely as winning the lotto) to receive the total benefit. In reality it pays 2,3,or 4 thousand per day for hospitalization, depending on which plan you unfortunately may have chosen, and as for the 100% up to $10,000 surgical schedule, it wouldn't adequately cover the cost at a animal hospital in the 1980s much less your average surgeons fees today. So back we go to the original point of insurance, (purchasing financial security) I ask you. If you got a hospital bill of 70 thousand dollars for a 5 day hospital stay, which is the national average with all normal associated fees included (considering a cost to length of stay ratio) would you breath a deep sigh of relief when your insurance policy pays at best 30 thousand of it (5days times 4k =20k plus 10k surgical= 30k). "O thank god for my insurance, now I only have 40 thousand of medical bills instead of 70 thousand," either way your screwed. And this example doesn't even address a catastrophic occurrence like a heart transplant which averages $250,000 not to mention the uncovered cost for follow up treatments, medications, physical therapy, or medical supplies that would follow. It would be like a fire fighter entering a burning building wearing only his fire proof boots, where the boots "better than nothing." I suppose so because they did saved his feet, but he still died so who cares. And add to this the little known fact that the policy only pays once per specific injury or illness, not per occurrence as it is usually misrepresented. Another words if you have two heart attacks it will only pay a couple bucks towards the first, if you get the flu twice it will only pay a benefit towards the first one, any necessary follow up Dr visits, second opinions, medications, or a recurrence will never be covered. This means if you get anything that requires multiple treatments, such as cancer, it will only pay 3 to 5 hundred dollars (a drop in the bucket) toward the first treatment and never cover that or any other related condition again. Please don't say "well you can give them the cancer or critical plans to make up for any holes in the policy" because those policies are very limited in the things they cover, and they only have a 50k max one time pay out, and are still way over priced compared to other companies. Besides if your client can afford and qualify for all those policies (flex, cancer and critical) than they could also qualify for and afford the very major medical that UA says you should get or keep in the first place.

For those of you interested in the the insurance business or new to it, ask your self. How many long term happy clients will you have with a company that doesn't have a single policy that offers the financial security of a stop loss? Will enough clients stay on the books to maintain a positive monthly balance? Why are all of Torchmark companies life insurance rates 3 to 4 times the cost of other reputable carriers? Do you think a real insurance company would pay its agents and managers more for recruiting than selling its products? How stable is a company where 80% of its sales force has less than 1 years experience, and 50% of its branch managers have been at their position for less than a year? Do you want to work for a company that requires 20 years of captive service before you can leave with a renewal? As for those who say you can make allot of money with UA, its unlikely but true just not for the long run.The captive commission structure is good but a fundamental flaw exists. UA wants you to only sell to the uninsured, there are plenty of them so on the surface this sounds like a good marketing plan. But why would someone be uninsured? In most cases they have no money, are truly un-insurable, or do not really value health insurance. If this is your target market how long do really expect your business to stay on the books, you may be able to get a few sales but you will find that your lapse, cancel, and decline rate will soon catch up with your charge back-able advances. Add this to the high loss of business due to the poor benefit structure and you have a recipe for short term success and long term charge backs. This is one of the reasons they make recruiting a main priority, because the fickle market of the uninsured and poor products prevent any agents from making long term income. In a very short period of time they realize they need to quite or move into management. To be a manager you must adopt the pyramid mindset and become a ruthless recruiting machine like the company itself, "were a recruiting company that happens to sell insurance" proudly said Senior Vice President John Gore "get 100 butts in the seats" says President Andy King, for a unrealistic, emotionally charged, AMWAY like recruiting seminar that dangles the elusive carrot of management "aka recruiter" to everyone regardless of qualifications, and the misleading income potential from hiring an endless number of agents. High number recruiting can produce a large income but it is short lived and impossible to maintain especially without a strong backbone based on quality products. Again, without quality products you can never build anything stronger than a house of cards no mater how many people you recruit. In fact this throw them on the wall and see what sticks way of business only drags United Americans already bad name deeper through the mud, which is probably why they are merging with Liberty National. Now to be fair every insurance company recruits, its a necessary part of the business in order to grow, and we all know not everyone will succeed, but it only becomes the primary focus of a company, its managers, and agents trying to become managers when the revolving door of agents and clients is spinning at a deadly pace.

Amazingly this whole system is deliberately fueled by UA's high paying recruiting bonuses, up to $500 just to hire someone whether they produce or not, and up to another $4,500 for every new hire that sells $834 in monthly premium. What do you think is going to happen when you get paid far more money to (1.hire someone and 2. get them just a few sales and move on to the next one), than to mentor and train them for long term success or wright personal business. Why are they structured this way? Because when you haphazardly hire everyone possible someone is bound to sell something somewhere, and when the agents inevitably quits the company no longer has to pay renewals to its x agents, making the company richer. In turn they now have to aggressively recruit to replenish its fleeing sales force, and the cycle continues, so that's exactly what they pay you to do. #1 Recruit, and #2 let the agent go and move on to the next one, isn't that 1. 2. punch also called "churn and burn" especially considering that the primary criteria for promotion is your ability to recruit, not your customer service skills, product and industry knowledge, or ability to properly sell a valueless product to begin with. ,(and even if you were happy working there you would have to be a agent for 20 years to be vested, which is 20 times longer than most companies).

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that UA doesn't uphold its contracts, because it does, and I'm also not saying all its agents and managers are Knowingly dishonest because many are honest. What I am stating is this, who would choose to buy from, or work for a company who's policy benefits are structured in a way that in most cases you would literally be better off putting your money in the bank than buying a policy. The fact is United Americans health insurance policies can offer no financial security and realistically the benefits could rarely even equal the premiums paid over a long period of time much less exceed them, which defies the very reason for buying and selling insurance in the first place. Think about this, and I mean really think about it. As a captive agent for United American, YOU CAN NEVER truly do whats best for your client, you can only do UA's best, which when compared to almost every other company means your clients are ALWAYS paying by far the poorest premium to benefit ratios in the insurance industry period, leaving your clients just as vulnerable as the uninsured they pay you to no longer be.

P.S. Please don't try to justify UA,s policies by saying they are for the otherwise un-insurable, because again insurance is for guaranteed financial security not the false sense of it. With health conditions you are just paying even more money for the same poor benefit structure, the rated preexisting is not covered for 6 months so no help there, and then when it is covered its only for one treatment and the already low benefits are reduced by 25%. This means statistically you are now even more likely never to get in benefits what you paid in premiums, so put your money in a real health insurance company or the bank. I know the policy is guaranteed renewable, why would the company cancel a policy they cant lose money on. I also know its issue age priced ( which does not mean you won't have rate increases, read the policy.) As for paying at any doc or hospital, this is because no matter how much any medical bill is there only going to pay a small scheduled indemnity benefit that is neither up to date on actual medical costs nor able to grow or adjust to the always increasing cost of new medical technology. Also, please don't say clients should have to research the company, and read it over themselves inorder to comprehend their policy, that is a disgusting excuse that only scam artists use, if all consumers have to do that to avoid being riped off than we don't need insurance agents and we're all unemployed. And finally, if its not good enough for you or your family you shouldn't be selling it ( UA's branch managers, directors, and upper management have a major medical group plan, paid for by the FLEXable crap they ask their inexperienced and ill-informed agents to buy and sell). Pun intended !

Ins guru
houston, Texas
U.S.A.