Leaarn a lot? Sure. Learn enough about your best options in your area? I don’t think we even know where you are. My fin advisor is a broker. I brought him my questions and concerns. He could lay out my best options, let me chew on it. Then enrolled me. Easy peasy.
On CC, there are some knowledgeable, some less so. The info sometimes gets clouded, not clearer. A broker should know more than even the most astute here can.
^^yes, learned enough about my options. ( I am not going to say whether it is the best option, as I have to know everything to know whether it is the best and I don’t think I know everything. Who does?).
LOL. The two posters who questioned whether I got sufficient information regarding my health plans are the people who do not know too much about the questions regarding the supplemental plan I asked. I will just leave it at that.
Not only in this post, but there are several posts discussing the health care plan. May be because of I do not just blindly rely on a broker, I learned more about supplemental plan and MA.
Oh, I understand what you meant by information gets clouded, say when I asked about supplemental plan and you injected the discussion with the MA plan (as in my other post). I just have to ignore the noise. There are many knowledgeable people on this forum, I found out if I do not rely ONLY on a broker, I learn a lot.
@annamom I’m guessing I’m one of the misinformed from your POV.
Let’s just say…your POV is wrong…but I’m not here to dispute my knowledge of MA plans vs regular supplemental plans…I’ve had both.
I hope you found a broker in your area who could do a side by side (which isn’t technically possible between MA and regular Medicare plus supplement…but you can get an idea) so you could see the benefits and debits if both types of Medicare coverage.
That’s what we did…and that’s what a ton of others we know did when we were offered both options.
Then again…the open enrollment period for Medicare is over…so…there’s always next year.
Actually, the first broker I worked with gave me insufficient information and I ended up signing up on my own. It’s not that the broker was bad – it’s just that I was all set to sign up for a plan with company A when I saw a new, equivalent plan from company B with a lower premium. (Medicare Supplement F with extras). When I asked my broker about that … she said her firm didn’t represent company B, so couldn’t sign me up with their policy – there was a whole long list of companies that they did represent, but B wasn’t one of them. (B is a major insurance company - so that wasn’t the issue – it’s just that not all brokers are able to represent all companies).
So yes – the broker was a source of valuable information – but I think I’m better off for having done my own research. I had checked rates for the dominant companies on the market before I first contacted the broker-- partly with the help of info posted here-- and at that time Company B wasn’t competitive, and A clearly was the better deal… so it didn’t occur to me to ask the broker about that. But when I checked again during the month that I was ready to sign up… things had changed.
There were some other reasons I had soured on that particular broker – so it worked out ok for me in the end. But whatever a broker “should” know is not necessarily what they “do” know. So I definitely understand what @annamom means with statement that she does “just not blindly rely on a broker.”
I think that in general a good broker will provide their clients with reasonably good information – it is when digging into the details or less common circumstances that they might miss things that other sources can provide. I also learned some things along the way from the brokers I talked to that I would not have known otherwise – so I’d certainly go along with the advice for people to work with a broker. It’s just the “brokers know everything” viewpoint that I take issue with.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Please remember that CC is not a debate society. I deleted several posts. Comments were getting a little impolite.
I’m closing this thread now as I don’t think there’s any more advice that can be given to the OP. A new thread may be started if there are updates to the situation.