You’re on your own – no company benefits
There are many Real Estate Agents out there with a wonderful spouse in the workforce, providing some stable income and getting benefits. If you’re one of those, count yourself lucky.
For the vast majority of agents, that’s not the case.
You are the primary bread winner for your household. Being a Real Estate Agent has some amazing benefits, most notably the freedom you get with your schedule and no boss to tell you when to clock in and clock out. One of the downsides to this self employed freedom is that you, more than likely, don’t get a company benefits package.
You’re on your own!
You get to decide what benefits you want and you get the privileged of paying for those benefits. Working with an experienced Health Insurance Agent can help you understand what’s available to you, maximize your benefits, and keep your costs down (as much as possible).
Options for the Self Employed’s
Do it yourself, just life FSBO’s. You can spend hours online figuring out what plan is best for you and your family, OR
Hire a professional to do it for you. Best part about this option is that you don’t have to pay for a professional. It’s already built into the cost of the health plan.
Options for your Team
If you have your own team and want to provide health benefits, you have options. There are many tax benefits to providing health insurance (and other benefits) to your employees.
For smaller teams, most have found that if your team get’s an individual plan, they can qualify for credits and cost sharing available through the market place. This makes the cost of their insurance lower than it could be on a group plan. Many employers are now encouraging their employees to get their own policy.
What can I Expect?
Here are few examples of a few households we’ve helped so far. Disclaimer: Everyone’s income / household is different so individual premiums will vary. These are also examples of the cheapest plans available. There’s a reason you want to work with a professional.
Realtor and Spouse with 3 Kids in South Jordan
(100k in Gross Annual Real Estate Commission)
- $35 co-pay for doctor visits
- $97 per month covers all 5 family members
Realtor and Spouse in Lehi
(50k in Gross Annual Real Estate Commissions)
- $5 copay for doctor visits
- $68 per month covers both
Can I write off my Health Insurance Premiums?
This is a question we get often, and the correct response is “You’ll have to ask your accountant.” I’m not a tax guy and can’t give tax advice. Health Insurance Premiums are getting higher and higher each year (sometimes costing as much as your mortgage payment) so I’d definitely bring this up to your accountant and discuss your options. Remember, all write offs affect your adjusted gross income, and that affects the amount of tax credit that is available to you.
Should I use a Real Estate Agent to Sell My House?
You like this question?
Of course you should!! There are many advantages to using an Agent to sell your home. But not everybody does. If you’ve been in the real estate world for very long, you’ve discovered that there are some people that just prefer to do it themselves (and try to save money, but that’s not always the case.) They want to handle it themselves with the hope of not having to pay out a commission.
I’ve found in the health insurance space that people try to do it themselves not to save a commission but rather because they don’t know they have another option.
Did you know…
- There are licensed professional who can help with your open enrollment
- These professionals can help you understand the benefits and coverage of each policy
- You’re more likely to make the best decision when advised by a professional
- You’re more likely to get all the tax benefits and cost sharing when working with a professional
AND
- There are no cost savings by doing it yourself
- There are no commissions to be saved, or a discount for do-it-your-selfers
- The price is the same whether you spend 15 minutes vs 2 hours to complete your enrollment
There is not cost savings by doing your Health Insurance on your own. The price set by the insurance companies already has the commission built in, so you may as well get the benefit of having a licensed professional on your side to help you.
What if I’ve already signed up on Healthcare.gov?
Not a problem. You still need an agent on your side. Did you know health commissions are always built into the cost of a health plan? If you enrolled yourself through healthcare.gov, you are still paying a commission, but you’re not getting any of the benefit.
There’s a simple fix for that.
Schedule a 10 min phone call and we’ll walk you through it. In fact, there’s a 1 page form you need to sign and we take care of it from there. You’ll be amazed at how simple it is, and you’ll be even more amazed that next year’s enrollment will take less time that it did to ready this article.
Real Estate Agents are professionals who know that craft and drive an industry. They understand the importance of having a great team, and rely on their team to make their lives run smooth. Give us a call and add us to your team. We’ll take care of your health insurance headache.
