The demand by employees and individuals for additonal information as a means of making better informed healthcare choices is growing.

Surveys by Regence Insurance, Information Strategies, Inc. (ISI) and others show a growing trend for individuals (and corporate leaders) to utilize additional information sources when shopping for and using healthcare insurance and services.

This shift does not only reflect greater usage of the Internet but also of other sources such as managers of other firms; friends and relatives; social networks; and professional organization-sponsored events.

Clearly, the Internet is having an impact.

But there are some indications that agent/brokers may be behind the curve in terms of client needs.  At the same time, other broker/agent competitors are using new marketing techniques to win clients.

Business leaders polled by ISI have shown a growing dissatisfaction with their agent/broker, this figure going from 7% in 2003 to 22% in 2007.

At the same time, these same surveys show a growing desire by employees for better information and advice from their companies.

On average, each yearly survey has included more than 3,000 respondents from firms ranging from two-person home-based businesses to Fortune 1000 corporations.

Their responses are in line with ISI data showing that there is a significant disparity in the role of the agent/broker in the decision process for consumer directed health insurance and other policies.

In its latest survey of industry leaders, agent/brokers were rated most influential just 34% of the time by companies with Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) versus 54% for those who had other, non-CDH offerings.

Concurrently, amongst users of all types of healthcare insurance programs, agent/brokers have steadily diminished as primary source of information over the past four years, going from 61% in 2003 to 49% in 2007.

The correspondent rise in Internet usage has gone from less than 10% in 2003 to more than 45% in 2007.

Concurrently, the influence of others, outside managers, friends and family, professional organizations and associations rose from an average 14% to almost 35%.

Taken together, these figures indicate that agent/brokers need to start rethinking their marketing efforts. Also, employer HR groups need to take a more comprehensive look at their own efforts, if they are to truly realize the savings available through consumer directed healthcare options.

Because, like politics, healthcare benefits selling is a local affair, the Internet and other factors may be making that channel more difficult to protect for sales groups, including the agent/broker as well as the healthcare insurance provider.

One of the strengths of agent/broker marketing has been their ability to utilize referral and personal contact as a means of building books of business.

If a new survey, by PQ Media, is to be believed, even that channel is being successfully attacked.

Programmed usage of directed word-of-mouth advertising is growing, with several insurance industry leaders utilizing this approach to win new clients for their agent/brokers.

To give you an idea of the importance of this new channel, spending on Word-of-Mouth (WoM) is expected to top $1 billion in 2007, making it one of the fastest growing alternative media segments.

Driving the growth is the continued consumer shift to alternative media and the marketer's need for increased brand engagement and ROI.

These are some of the findings of the first in-depth analysis of the emerging word-of-mouth (WoM) marketing industry.

PQ Media is an industry player who defines Word-of-Mouth (WoM) marketing as an alternative marketing strategy supported by research and technology that encourages consumers to dialogue about products and services.

Increasingly, social network members, mostly through online venues, are also advising on purchases.

Agent/brokers fulfill many roles within the healthcare industry, one of which is usage advisor and “honest broker” between user and insurance provider.

That role, which reinforces the client-agent/broker relationship is also under attack but in a much more subtle way.

A Regence insurance poll of 2,000 residents in the Far West shows a trend towards greater usage of Internet and other sources to determine when and how they will use their healthcare insurance.

The number of people inclined to comparison shop for medical services such as knee surgery could be much higher than previously thought.
Seven out of 10 consumers indicated they would seek out information such as price and quality for medical services, according to a recent survey of 2,000 people in the states Regence serves: Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Utah.

The continued success of eHealth and the proliferation of online competitors offer another clue as to the weakening of this bond.

In a still unpublished survey by a leading insurance provider, 29% of 2,500 respondents said they had utilized the Internet to check on their agent/broker’s proposal and more than half of them said the prices quoted online were less than those from their local provider.

Interestingly, more than three-out-of-four respondents said they went with their local agent/broker in the final decision.

At the same time, 22% of agent/brokers polled by ISI said they used Internet insurance sites to check their quotes against other insurance providers.

Taken together, all of these surveys and trends indicate that whereas insurance was primarily a locally-based industry, this may be changing.