About Clearview
An independent Medicare agency in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Small on purpose, unhurried on purpose, and structured so that we have no reason to steer you.
Why the agency exists
Every autumn, roughly forty pieces of Medicare mail arrive at the house of every person over sixty-five in this country. Some of it is from their own plan. Most of it is advertising designed to look like it is from their own plan, or from the government, and a portion of it is designed to be frightening.
Our founder spent a fortnight one October sorting that mail at a kitchen table in Springfield, trying to work out which envelope actually mattered. She had a background in benefits administration and it still took her a fortnight. It became fairly obvious that people without that background were not sorting it at all — they were either ignoring everything or answering whichever advertisement was loudest.
Clearview opened to be the alternative to both. We do not advertise on daytime television, we do not run dinner seminars, and we do not telephone people who have not asked us to. Almost everyone who becomes a client was sent by someone who already was.
The agency is small and we intend to keep it that way. An hour per household per year is what the work actually takes, and there is a limit to how many hours exist.
The money question
We are paid a commission by the insurance company whose plan you enroll in. You pay us nothing, and your premium is not higher for having used us — plan prices are the same whether you enroll through an agent, through a call centre, or directly.
Commissions on Medicare Advantage and Part D plans are capped by federal regulation and are broadly comparable across carriers. That is the structural reason an independent agent can be genuinely neutral: there is no plan that pays us dramatically more for pointing you at it.
Supplement commissions are not capped the same way and do vary between insurers.So we will tell you plainly: on the supplement side, differences exist. Our practice is to show you the rate history alongside the quote and let you see the whole field, and to say when a lower-commission carrier is the one we would choose ourselves.
If any of that is unsatisfying, the alternative is worth knowing about — your State Health Insurance Assistance Program offers free, unbiased counselling from people paid by nobody. We refer people there regularly and we think you should know it exists.
How we work
01
No unsolicited telephone calls, no arriving at your door, no email lists you did not join. Rules restrict when an agent may contact you without permission, and we keep well inside them. If someone claiming to be from Clearview telephones you unprompted, it is not us.
02
You leave with written notes and go home to think. We would rather you enrolled in December having understood it than in October having been persuaded. If an adviser anywhere pressures you to decide on the spot, that is reason enough to end the conversation.
03
Most years, for most clients, the right answer at review is to change nothing. We say so and earn nothing further from it. An agency that finds a reason to move you every autumn is generating commissions, not advice.
2014
Advising in the Ohio Valley since
3
States we are licensed in
5
Advisers, all salaried
0
Cold calls made, ever
Where we work
Medicare plans are sold county by county — the plans available in Hamilton County are not the plans available two counties east. We are licensed and certified across Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, and we quote what is actually available where you live.
Cincinnati · Columbus · Dayton · Springfield · Toledo
Covington · Lexington · Louisville
Indianapolis · Fort Wayne · Bloomington
Everything an adviser does, you can do yourself for free — and there are people whose whole job is to help you do it, with no product to sell.
Five people, all licensed, all certified annually, and you will speak to the same one each year.