Active Medicare Supplement Issuers Are Smokin' Hot: Gen Re

The Gen Re survey participants reported an increase in the percentage of consumers who bought coverage during the open enrollment period.

Medigap users get one six-month open enrollment period starts. The Medigap open enrollment period starts the first day of the month in which the consumer is 65 or older and enrolled in Medicare Part B.

In 2017, the survey participants made 43% of their sales to consumers who were buying coverage during the open enrollment period. That was up from 39% in 2016.

The percentage of consumers who put off buying Medigap coverage and had to go through a medical underwriting process fell to 39%, from 46%.

Better Pipeline

Gen Re also found that the underwriting process for underwritten applicants might be working better.

The percentage of underwritten applications deemed incomplete fell to 3.2%, from 3.6%.

The decline rate fell to 15.9%, from 16.2%.

The percentage of approved applicants who actually took up the coverage increased to 76.7%, from 74.8%.

But Gen Re notes that the apparent decrease in the decline rate may be due changes in the list of companies that provided underwriting decision data. For the companies that reported underwriting decision data for both 2016 and 2017, the decline rate actually increased to 17.5% in 2017, from 16.5%.

— Read Gen Re: Medigap Issuers Forecast Stability, on ThinkAdvisor.

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