Integrity Marketing Group L.L.C. made news earlier this month by announcing that it had acquired Neishloss & Fleming Inc., a longtime Medicare plan distributor.
Integrity itself is a Dallas-based company that focuses on distributing a wide range of life insurance products, health insurance products and other products aimed at older consumers.
Integrity was founded in 2006 and now has relationships with about 120,000 independent agents and brokers.
Denis Tauscheck, the company's chief revenue officer, said his company looks for relationships with other companies that try to do right by the insurers, the agents and the consumers.
"It's got to be the right fit," Tauscheck said today in a telephone interview.
Tauscheck himself spent some time as an actuary at Aviva's North American operations, then served as a senior vice president and actuary at National Guardian Life Insurance Company. He joined Integrity in 2014.
Tauscheck's position gives him a broad perspective on what's happening in the U.S. senior market.
Here are five of his observations about the market, drawn from today's interview.
1. The Medicare Advantage market is still maturing.
Today, agents coping with the turmoil in the individual major medical market may see the Medicare Advantage market as a refugee. But that market is still rebounding from the turmoil it faced in the late 1990s, when federal subsidy cuts chased major carriers from that market.
Tauscheck said he sees that market continuing to evolve.
(Image: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
The news that Mutual of Omaha will be entering the Medicare Advantage market "brings a lot of credibility to that space," Tauscheck said.
2. Producers are broadening their Medicare plan horizons.
A few years ago, many agents liked selling Medicare supplement insurance plans.
