USHEALTH Advisors Review: Fair & Balanced
last updated on May 9, 2021
Most likely, you’re here as a possible new agent to US Health Advisors to learn more information about how the company works.
If so, you’ve found the right article!
Today, I will break down how USHealth Advisors works, what you can expect, and give you my opinion on the insurance sales opportunity as a licensed agent since 2011.
Let’s begin =).
Note: I have also done many other insurance sales job opportunity reviews here if you’re interested in looking at other possible matches.
NOTE: Are you an aspiring or new insurance agent looking for more insight on how the insurance sales industry works? Check out my free New Insurance Agent Resource Guide to help answer many of your questions (as well as ones you didn’t know you had!).
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Who is USHEALTH Advisors?
USHEALTH Advisors is a wholly-owned national sales and distribution subsidiary of USHEALTH Group, which is one of the largest employers of health insurance agents in the United States.
The company was established in January 2002. It is based in Grapevine, Texas, and is licensed in 35 states.
What does USHEALTH Advisors sell?
USHEALTH Advisors sells individual health coverage plans and a number of related supplementary products underwritten by The Freedom Life Insurance Company of America and National Foundation Life Insurance Company, both of which are wholly-owned subsidiaries of USHEALTH Group.
USHA specializes in marketing innovative and affordable health coverage plans. Instead of having to pay the high premiums typically associated with comprehensive health coverage, their customers can choose a plan that allows them to pay only for the coverage they need while they are healthy. They can add more coverage later on if they need to cover the increased medical costs related to a serious accident or illness, for example.
Who does USHEALTH Advisors sell to?
The company is focused on providing healthcare solutions to individuals and families, but also self-employed and small business owners. The USHA agents specialize in tailoring their products for this largely underserved market.
How do USHEALTH Advisors leads work?
USHEALTH Advisors owns a growing database of more than 4 million insurance leads for their insurance agents. The company funds the production of targeted, qualified leads from proven marketing channels.
For example, they work closely with local sales management to identify the most effective lead sources. USHEALTH Advisors continuously tests new insurance lead generation techniques for their agents.
In addition to being given company-generated leads, USHA agents have access to numerous tools and resources to help them effectively market their products.
For example, these include professionally designed print ads and direct mail pieces, templates to use in email campaigns, their own agent website, and other resources to help them get the most from their marketing efforts.
The company also manages an Online Dialer software that calls leads. Until they start producing, agents are asked to pay $75 a month for the Online Dialer, after which USHA takes over the payment.
How does USHEALTH Advisors training work?
USHEALTH Advisors offers comprehensive training opportunities for their insurance agents.
For example, all USHA agents are required to complete specific product training and meet certification standards before they can become authorized to represent and sell their products.
The company provides everything from national online webinars and web-based product certification to local insurance sales training in the field, so that the agents can gain all the necessary knowledge and skills for selling insurance.
The USHA training is done either online where agents can participate from their home office, in the classroom, or in the field where the sales professionals teach techniques that led them to success including cross-selling, referral networking, and benefit package sales.
In addition, agents regularly receive updates from the USHEALTH Advisors Home Office via emails and newsletters, as well as through the company’s informational meetings and webinars.
Is USHEALTH Advisors an MLM Or Scam?
USHEALTH Advisors is not a pyramid scheme multi-level marketing (insurance MLM) business opportunity.
In other words, it doesn’t have multiple layers of agents, mentors, and trainers and is not suitable for agents who are primarily looking to recruit.
Also, USHEALTH Advisors is not a scam. This is a legitimate company with an A+ BBB rating. With a mission of Helping Other People Everyday (HOPE), the company focuses on a highly positive experience for customers, agents, employees, and shareholders.
USHEALTH Advisors is the winner of numerous awards including the 2019 Insurance Company of the Year and Gold Stevie award.
How To Quit USHEALTH Advisors
There are many reasons you may want to quit USHEALTH Advisors, for example, you ran out of money to invest in leads, you ran out of prospects to sell to, or you simply found that the business of selling insurance wasn’t a good fit for you.
The good news is, quitting USHEALTH Advisors is easy.
Here’s how to do it.
First, start by doing your due diligence and find another insurance agency to work for. We recommend you review our Free Agent Resource Guide here for tips on finding a quality insurance agency to join.
Once you find a new agency or carrier to join, you can go ahead and switch your affiliations.
You should keep in mind that as an insurance agent, you are licensed by the state and not by the company. No insurance agency can prevent you from stopping your affiliation with it and doing business with another organization.
You may need to cancel the affiliation with USHEALTH Advisors. The termination usually needs to be filed within a 30 day window, however canceling affiliation is not always mandatory.
To become properly appointed with the new insurance carrier or agency, you simply complete contracting with the new insurance carrier.
Typically, the window for companies to process affiliations is very short, with most companies approving insurance agent carrier appointments within 1 to 2 weeks on average.
Bottom line, quitting USHEALTH Advisors is no big deal. Simply find another organization that’s better suited to your insurance sales career goals, submit contracting through the new organization, and within the next few weeks, you’re good to go and can stop doing business with USHEALTH Advisors.
Companies Like USHEALTH Advisors
Let’s take a look at some insurance agencies and companies similar to USHEALTH Advisors in case you’re interested in doing a comparison.
Symmetry
Symmetry Financial Group is an insurance marketing organization based out of Swannanoa, North Carolina.
SFG specializes in several life insurance markets, primarily the mortgage protection insurance market. The company also offers final expense insurance, a type of whole life insurance designed to cover medical bills and funeral expenses after the policyholder’s passing.
Bankers Life
Bankers Life was established in 1879 in Chicago, Illinois. The company is a subsidiary of CNO Financial Group.
Bankers Life offers life insurance, long-term care, annuities, Medicare (Supplements, Advantage Plans, Part D prescription drug coverage), critical illness insurance, as well as vision and dental plans. It targets the senior market, typically people age 60 and older who are near retirement.
People Helping People (PHP)
People Helping People as established in 2009 in Northridge, California. The company serves the middle markets for insurance-based financial planning. It focuses on term insurance, index universal life insurance, and fixed indexed annuities.
American Income Life (AIL)
American Income Life, a wholly owned subsidiary of Globe Life Insurance, is a major provider of supplemental life insurance. The company was founded in 1951 and is headquartered in Waco, Texas.
American Income Life’s core markets are labor unions, credit unions, and associations for insurance solicitation. Its insurance products include life insurance and supplemental health.
New York Life
New York Life, established in 1845, is the largest mutual life insurance company in the country. It offers premium life insurance, long-term care insurance, retirement income insurance, and investment plans, including annuities, mutual funds, and ETF saving plans.
Equis
Equis is a marketing organization for independent insurance agents and agency builders.
Its main product is mortgage protection life insurance, designed to reduce or eliminate the threat of foreclosure or eviction if the insured passes unexpectedly. The company also offers final expense, living benefits, and indexed universal life insurance products.
Freedom Equity Group
Freedom Equity Group, based in Arroyo Grande, California, is an independent marketing organization (IMO) that contracts with insurance companies to promote and distribute a range of life insurance products.
Freedom Equity Group focuses on selling life insurance and annuities. Its main product is indexed universal life insurance, a form of permanent coverage that provides a cash value in addition to life insurance.
My Thoughts
Here are my thoughts as an experienced insurance agent and agency owner on becoming an agent with US Health Advisors.
Vesting
My advice to all insurance agents joining any agency is to ensure you own your book of business. “Vesting” is the industry term that indicates who owns future income streams of said clients.
Wonder why that’s a big deal? For example, what if you leave US Health Advisors for another insurance sales opportunity?
With many insurance sales opportunities (like in my agency), when an agent moves on, he continues getting paid the commission from those past sales.
However, while I’m not sure whether or not this is the case with USHEALTH Advisors, many insurance agencies do NOT let you take those commissions.
So, check the contract and ask your recruiter about vesting and ownership before you sign up.
Selling Multiple Companies
One important piece of advice to any new agent is to consider becoming an independent agent versus a captive agent.
Wonder what that means?
For example, a captive agent usually only sells one type of product, and an independent agent sells a variety of insurance products.
Independent insurance agents more easily custom-tailor their insurance products to the client, as they are not forced to sell one product like captive agents do. This means independent agents usually have better products with better pricing relative to captive agents.
When selling for USHealth Advisors, most likely you’ll have to agree not to sell for any other health insurance carrier, which means you’ll be captive and have a restriction on your policy options.
And while that isn’t the end of the world, you will experience the product restrictions above, which could have direct consequences on your ability to close more health insurance policies.
Summary
So there’s my thoughts on how a career with USHealth Advisors works for agents considering jumping in.
I hope you enjoyed this article and understand a little more about how an insurance sales career with US Health Advisors works.
In case you’re interested, I train new and experienced agents to become top producing agents in final expense, Medicare Advantage, and annuity sales.
If you’d like more information about how my organization works, learn more here.
Make sure to also check out my agent success stories as well as my best selling insurance sales books.
11 Comments
Patricia Y Ferguson
I am searching for a new career. I have been a captive P&C agent for over 20 years. I am now retired and working from home, independently and need to find a new "home". Please contact me with more information. Telephone number: (830)777-4050. I am most interested in "Final Expense". I have been in a sales position all my career, love it, and want to continue. Early in my career I learned one big lesson "sell to your strength". I will be 81 years old soon. My strength is my age. By my calculation, I have at least 20 more years in the field. Maybe you will find a home for me.
David Duford
Thanks Patricia! I emailed a few days ago.
ALex Johnson
I have been reading about you and your opportunity and reading reviews about a lot of organizations. I am so ready to join a team to be a rock star in the Medicare arena. I have just been a part of a few bad teams that just recruited me and left me out there alone. You have a requirement that I cannot do at the moment which is the monetary requirement right now. I will shortly after the holiday and really want to join. Thank you for your honesty in all your articles.
David Duford
Nice to meet you Alex – stay in touch!
Roxanne Abunda
I am a new agent waiting for my license. After 3 days of training from USHA, I was terrified because it feels like my trainer pour the entire stuff, and haven’t had time to go over to review or print all the stuff I need. I watched my trainer taking care of the client applying online and I just lost control. Leads are coming in and I don’t even know how to answer them yet and it was overwhelming. The next day I decide to quit. I wasn’t ready for everything. 😞
David Duford
No worries – plenty of other opportunities out there. The insurance sales business is great, so don't give up on it quite yet =).
S. A.
I spent many years as a US Health Advisor and a lot of the information in your review is not accurate. First of all, the company doesn’t offer comprehensive training. Every office is different and when I started with them I had 3 different leaders within 3 weeks and none of tangent spent any time training me because they either never showed up or were to busy selling. I ended up just reading the material and getting on the phone. That’s the type of person you have to be to make it there. Second, their software, Vanilla Soft, does not cost $75 a month and they do not cover the cost for you. It cost $97 a month and you always pay that yourself. Next, yes, they provide leads in most offices but it’s widely known the leads are garbage and you have to make over a thousand dials to speak with a human. The only way to survive there is to spend a minimum of a thousand dollars a week. They also don’t tell new agents that they won’t make any money if they aren’t licensed in at least 30 states that USHA does business in. Luckily I was already licensed in over 40 states when I arrived. The leaders get paid a commission by home office to recruit new bodies so they will take anyone with a pulse and a license. What they don’t tell you is how toxic the culture is and how much fraud and stealing is actually going on all around you. I am 100% certain you will find a more ethical group of people in a holding tank at your local jail than at any USHA office. That’s speaking from years of experience. I made good money there on advances but they actually charge you fees and interest for your advances. They also charge you annual appointment fees and licensing fees that are completely made up to cover their bottom line. In summary this is a very toxic company that preys on naive agents trying to sell them a dream. Most agents leave there after 3 months broke and dejected. I wouldn’t recommend this company unless you come in with all your states and at least 20,000 to spend on leads on top of 3 months living expenses. Lastly, when I retired my book paid 18,000 a month. The attrition rate on the policy’s is so high that in a year that went down to 5,000 a month and that’s from an agent with a consistent 80%+ taken rate.
Suzette Roberts
Good job Dave shedding some light about US Health Advisors. I was recruited by USHA with no license. I was naive to say the least. I'm sure this company is not all bad, but my experience was mostly negative. I did receive some minimal training from my upline. The reasons I quit; the expensive leads broke me, lack of comprehensive training, charge backs and attrition is horrible. Agent beware! When I pain painstakingly wrote a sale, it had to be "verified" by a 3rd party phone call. The verification calls were scheduled 2-3 days after the sale; 1 in 3 sales "verified". Many of my sales that "stuck" cancelled in a short window within 3 months or less. I stayed too long; 4 months of constant frustration with very little to show for my efforts. Agent Beware!
David Duford
Thanks for the background, Suzette =).
Erick Lamela
thank you guys for your job reviews we appreciate the honesty here
D. O.
I'll mostly agree with S.A.'s comments on USHA. I too have been an agent with USHA for a few years now. My experience is somewhat unique since I have had the opportunity to work out of multiple divisions across three states. I started in one of their flagship divisions in Tampa. This is a large office with a couple of hundred agents. I will say, it is a Boiler Room/Wolf of Wall Street type of environment in that particular office (in fact they would often play those movies on TVs around the office on weekends). It was a high-volume call center setup. I have learned that every division and office is different, but in Tampa unlimited leads were provided as part of the monthly "office pack". Like all paid leads, they were crap. They are primarily purchased from some of the big vendors, Nextgen, Datalot, etc. It is truly a numbers game first, successful agents dial 200-400 leads a day. Most don't answer because their phone is blowing up after filling out forms online. Those that do answer are pissed off because of the calls. But, out of the 200-400 dials a day, you only need 1 or 2 per day to pitch to and close 3-4 per week you can make $100k your first year.
The Tampa office provides EXTENSIVE training, most of which is "mandatory" (nothing is mandatory because it's 1099, but they do threaten to turn off leads). The training is based on the Jordan Belfort (Wolf of Wall Street) – Straight Line method. They have honed over the years what they refer to as the "Golden Script". And constantly drill tonality. This is a revolving door but there are a good number of agents making $100K – $300k within their first 2-3 years without getting into a leadership role (more on that in a moment). Its high intensity and the constant loud rap music (yes I'm old) drove me nuts. It's mostly younger people with some older folks like me mixed in. But when you get a bunch of young "non-professionals" making more money than they've ever seen, they also do some pretty stupid stuff. The culture in this office is focused on the bling and the cars. I get it, it is part of their recruiting, but when I was there, one of the rules was you couldn't park in the first row in the front of the building unless your car was worth at least $80K. I will say, had I been able to stay in Tampa, I was on track to a leadership level and was doing pretty well. Then life kicked me in the rear.
Now, I can say this is not the experience in most of the other divisions across the country. Family reasons moved me to another state and I quickly learned that not all of USHA is like the Tampa office. The other two divisions I've been in did not provide leads and they were much smaller offices. In fact, the turnover in all offices, including Tampa, is extremely high. But in the non-call center type offices, the MO seems to be recruit, milk their warm market for split sales, and then let them sink or swim. The training is definitely subpar, at least compared to the Tampa office. If they know how to network and generate their own leads, they can do ok. The rest flounder and leave.
What initially attracted me was the fact it was 1099, leads provided, and I really liked the products, very innovative. The downside is that they are medically underwritten health plans and finding qualified people when you did get them on the phone was frustrating. I will say, besides the individual shenanigans in various offices, at the corporate level, they really do seem to strive to be ethical and serve their members.
Being that these are not ACA (Obamacare) plans, there are a number of things they don't cover, and new clients, no matter how well you try to educate them, never quite fully get that. The was always that pucker factor every time I got a call from a client that they had a medical issue. But I can say, there were a number of time the company came through and paid claims they otherwise probably didn't have to. Also, agents who put their clients first instead of the commission had clients with better experiences and therefore better retention. I tried to build the right coverage and had many clients that had great experiences with tens of thousands of claims paid with only a few hundred out of their own pocket (in some cases my clients got paid money for their claims). But there were those that were pissed because their particular claim fell in that non-covered gap.
In late 2019, United Healthcare purchased USHA and added major credibility to the company and product improvements. Trump's executive order that zeroed out the Shared Responsibility Payment (the penalty) for not having an ACA plan also helped.
So why did I leave? If I could have stayed in Tampa, I have no doubt I would still be there and doing very well. The lack of lead support from my other offices and COVID this past year decimated my existing book. I was losing clients faster than I could replace them and I wasn't in a position to shell out a couple of thousand dollars a week to buy the lead volume needed to make the call center strategy work.
Finally, the captive agent model was not working for me. I was tired of turning away prospects (sending them to ACA or other referral partners). Plus, I wanted to sell Medicare and life which doesn't even compete with USHA but was not allowed to. Again, I get why they do it, but it also seems a bit short-sighted, especially now they are owned by United Healthcare who has some of the best Medicare Advantage and Med Supp plans out there. From what I hear, United Healthcare has also come in a cleaned up some of the more extreme Wolf of Wall Street type of extracurricular activities that often took place in the restrooms.
Bottom line, if you are in a market like Tampa or Orlando where they have these large call-center type offices, and you are young with raw talent they can mold, you can be very successful. Or if you are anywhere else but have a strong network and networking skills, especially good at networking with small businesses (2-12 employees) and the self-employed, you can also do pretty well. For those that qualify, the products are much better quality (better access to care) than and more affordable than the ACA Marketplace (Obamacare).
I wish everyone there the best of luck and there are still some particular agents I send referrals to, but USHA was just no longer a fit for me.
I am now with the Pinnacle Elite Division of WFG, focused on the middle-income underserved financial market, educating about Family Banking strategies and IULs and Indexed Annuities. I am not captive so I can also sell marketplace (although no money there) and Medicare. WFG is an MLM-type structure so I can recruit and build a team without having to first hit certain production requirements like at USHA and it works well for recruiting people looking for a part-time/side hustle.