Unlock the secrets of health insurance with the savvy guidance of Carol Foley from Mainline Benefits Company, who joins us on the Good Neighbor podcast to navigate the labyrinth of coverage options. If unraveling the complex world of insurance policies has ever left you bewildered, this is the episode that promises to equip you with the knowledge to make informed decisions, whether you're an individual, part of a family, a small business owner, or stepping gracefully into your senior years. Carol's expertise brings clarity to the ever-changing insurance landscape, ensuring our South Florida community finds tailored solutions that won't break the bank.
As we stroll down memory lane, we celebrate Mainline Benefits' remarkable 15-year journey, from its origins to its strategic expansion into the warmth of Florida. I get personal about my own move to the Sunshine State and my affection for the tennis courts, while underscoring Mainline's commitment to demystifying insurance through their comprehensive policy reviews—free of any obligation, of course. For anyone from the entrepreneur seeking part-time employee coverage to those approaching the golden age of 65, Carol Foley provides an invaluable toolkit for confidently choosing the right insurance path. Join us for this engaging chat where personal anecdotes meet professional insights, all with a dose of that signature South Florida charm.
Unlock the secrets of health insurance with the savvy guidance of Carol Foley from Mainline Benefits Company, who joins us on the Good Neighbor podcast to navigate the labyrinth of coverage options. If unraveling the complex world of insurance policies has ever left you bewildered, this is the episode that promises to equip you with the knowledge to make informed decisions, whether you're an individual, part of a family, a small business owner, or stepping gracefully into your senior years. Carol's expertise brings clarity to the ever-changing insurance landscape, ensuring our South Florida community finds tailored solutions that won't break the bank.
As we stroll down memory lane, we celebrate Mainline Benefits' remarkable 15-year journey, from its origins to its strategic expansion into the warmth of Florida. I get personal about my own move to the Sunshine State and my affection for the tennis courts, while underscoring Mainline's commitment to demystifying insurance through their comprehensive policy reviews—free of any obligation, of course. For anyone from the entrepreneur seeking part-time employee coverage to those approaching the golden age of 65, Carol Foley provides an invaluable toolkit for confidently choosing the right insurance path. Join us for this engaging chat where personal anecdotes meet professional insights, all with a dose of that signature South Florida charm.
This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolff.
Speaker 2:
Hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to the Good Neighbor podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Wolff, and today I'm joined by Carol Foley. And Carol comes to us from Mainline Benefits Company and I must say, Carol, I've not had the pleasure of encountering Mainline Benefits up to this point, so thought it'd be interesting to have you on the show to tell us a little bit about what you guys do and what you offer to our great community down here in South Florida. So, Carol, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 3:
Thank you, jeremy. Thank you so much. It is a pleasure to be here, and let me start by just telling you a little bit about who we are and what we do to help our clients.
Speaker 1:
Yes, please.
Speaker 3:
Mainline Benefits is centric around all health insurance products, so that would include products for individuals, for families, for small businesses, as well as for Medicare for the seniors. We offer all kinds of health insurance products. We also offer life insurance, disability, long-term care and all types of ancillary products that would coordinate nicely with perhaps a particular need you have, such as a cancer policy or a critical illness policy, heart attack and stroke. Perhaps one of those conditions runs in your family and you might be concerned about that and protect yourself against the if that might occur. So that's what we do. We work with all different dive companies. We work with individuals and pretty much through their life. So if a husband and wife they're married, we provide products for them. Their kids grow up, and so it's a very bonding job where we have very close relationships with our clients and see them through all the different needs that they might have.
Speaker 2:
Okay, so Mainline I know you mentioned before we got on air here that Mainline is based out of Pennsylvania. I think you said right.
Speaker 3:
Correct. The agency itself is based out of Malvern, pennsylvania, but we have brokers and agents all across the country handling clients everywhere in the US.
Speaker 2:
Okay, and you're down. If I'm not mistaken, you're in Pemberpines.
Speaker 3:
Actually I'm in Hallendale.
Speaker 2:
Hallendale. Okay, hallendale. So how long has Mainline been in Florida for?
Speaker 3:
We've been here five years.
Speaker 2:
Five years.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, but keep in mind, we started this agency a few years ago to put together best-debred products for our clients. All of us came from a very large organization before with 10, 20 years of experience there. The Mainline benefit part is our agency, which is allowing us to go out and find the best products for each category and offer them to our clients.
Speaker 2:
Okay, is there a specific demographic that you cater to through Mainline, or is it available to everybody? Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:
What makes the job so great is that we cater to everybody. There is not a single person that we can help with something, whether it's, like I said, an individual, a family, someone's turning 65, they would like to get on to Medicare whether it's small group Within a small group, we deal with a lot of small and large companies. Many times within that company, for example, you might have a group of people that are part-time. They don't meet the 30-hour criteria to be offered benefits. We can help those folks within a company that don't automatically get benefits and help them get covered. So yeah, so we don't have a particular demographic. The fun part about it is we do everything, so it's whatever your needs might be health-related.
Speaker 2:
So I think there's a lot of people out there probably like me, that when it comes to health insurance they're, I guess, confused. I think many people— get insurance directly through their employer, so they really don't have much time to think about exactly what goes into it. It's just offered through the employer. And then there's other folks that go, I guess, on the open exchange through the like Obamacare type program and pick from a range of policies. Then there's other people out there that maybe have more financial freedom, that can kind of pick and choose a little bit more free. Can you talk a little bit about that or speak to that to clear up some common myths or misconceptions that folks have surrounding the insurance industry?
Speaker 3:
Exactly.
Speaker 3:
So, insurance, insurance, health insurance, all kinds of insurance right now are in a state of flux whereby there's been a lot of changes. I mean, since I've been in the industry, you know getting into starting with Obamacare, and then you know all the different things that go along with that. So the industry itself is forever changing. Health insurance as such a needed entity is also, you know, there's a lot of uncertainty about it. What does it cover? How am I going to afford it? What will cost me? You know how. I know if that benefit is covered or not.
Speaker 3:
So what I think what makes our job, you know, so rewarding is that we take all the fear out of that. So if someone comes to me and they say here's my situation, I'll offer them three to five different scenarios of different options, you know, taking into account their budget, taking into account, you know, the flexibility of. You know, do I want to go anywhere? Do I want a plan that offers me the ability to go in network or out of network? Here are my doctors. Do my doctors take it? Here's my medications. What am I going to pay for my medications?
Speaker 3:
On this policy, so we provide information, I think, taking the fear out of that, you know, you know the what does my policy cover scenario. So, yeah, I think, as an industry, I've always enjoyed industries that are, you know, ever changing. I think it makes it pretty interesting and, like I said, because it is that type of a situation people do have a lot of, you know, they need to be educated and that's what we will do. We'll go through line item by line item, all that thing. You know what's covered, is it under deductible, what deductible mean? So, by providing that information, I think it puts people at ease. They now know what the situation is and they're not caught off guard.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's so important in so many industries across the board especially those such as health insurance, your mortgage, real estate, these types of industries, financial advisor, tax, accountants, things like that to have quality relationships with the people that you do business with and really have the confidence to know that if you do encounter any kind of issue, you can then go to, in your case, your health insurance agent and have them kind of go through and explain different coverages and really kind of go to bat for you and help you out dealing with various providers that you're having issues with.
Speaker 2:
I just experienced something myself at Pediatric Associates over in Pemberpines with my daughter. I won't get into the details, but it was a very stressful situation that took me, even with the help of my insurance carrier, probably two hours two to three hours of my time to get resolved, and I'm pulling my hair out of my head and I really wish I had somebody like you on my side that could say hey Carol, could you help me deal with this? I don't have to go crazy.
Speaker 3:
Every client has my cell phone number. So if they're in a situation you know doctor's office, this is what's going on here, what's going to be covered you know I'm there for them. So it's it is. We're absolutely, absolutely an advocate for our clients, helping them to understand you know what should be covered. And as they're being told it's not covered, then that we especially go to bat for them. You know, we'll call the carrier and we'll get them involved and they will call the provider and say this, this should be covered. So yeah, there's a lot to it and the nice part is that you don't pay anymore, whether you're using a broker or not. Sometimes people will think that they go direct to Florida blue or somewhere else. They're going to get a better price. The fact is, they'll get the same exact price, but without the advocate.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that makes sense and really that's one of the reasons why we do this show, why we have this platform to help promote local businesses and help build trust and credibility and relationships between our residents and various professionals such as yourself. So very good. So, carol, how did you get into the insurance business? Talk a little bit about your journey and how you ended up with mainline.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that's a great question. I might have sort of alluded to it before, but I enjoy industries that are tough to understand and that there's a lot of change, and I had a very good friend who was in this industry. We talked many, many times about it. It was about 15 years ago. I decided to join and part of the reason why, like I said, I enjoy it. It's something that is not going away.
Speaker 3:
People will always need insurance, right, and the way that you work with your clients is, like I said, it's more of a lifetime hopefully a lifetime relationship. You know, where you just keep building and building and building your database of clients, and I love the fact that it is truly recession-proof. There's nothing that will take away insurance from people needing it, especially with people with corporate coverages those types of things. Maybe you've experienced it, maybe not, but a lot of people have. Every year it gets more expensive for the employee. They get less coverage.
Speaker 3:
Employers are struggling to provide decent coverage as they're presented with higher and higher bills every year. So whether they suck it up and pay it or whether they pass it on to their employees, that's a tough, you know, seesaw, it's really all over the board. So even clients that have or are offered corporate insurance may sometimes not opt to take it. It's not even a better deal, so they might look elsewhere for other types of coverage. So that's the important part is looking at the industry. I love the fact that we have so many different products for our clients, you know, to support them in every phase of their life.
Speaker 2:
All right, very, very cool. So, looking back through your journey, is there something that comes to mind, a life hardship or challenge, something that you struggled with along the way, that sitting here today, you could say that you're either better off or haven't gone through, or maybe it was a defining moment. Something come to mind there.
Speaker 3:
Okay, so I was in technology sales early on in my career as a computer technology major and during that I guess eight to 10 years, you know layoffs were occurring all the time. I watched people in their 40s and 50s who were career employees losing their job, getting laid off, that type of thing. I kind of lost my interest in corporate America and thought I really want to have my own business, that I want to be 100% responsible for, where I don't have to worry about somebody coming along saying, oh, we're doing, you know, layoffs or we have too many people here. I want to reduce my stress, and it's funny if people try to say, well, I have my own business to reduce my stress. In my case it's exactly true.
Speaker 3:
When I'm in control, when I'm in control, I don't have stress. It's when my future is in the hands of some random person that I have stress. So this for me, is with my defining moment, where I just said my goal was to, you know, reduce my stress level and own my own entity.
Speaker 2:
And that's what this was. Was it 15 years ago that you started this journey? Okay, but you said and so Mainline has been in Florida for five years and you started 15 years ago. So who did you start off with?
Speaker 3:
back in the health insurance sphere, I guess I can say that the name most of us came from a very large company called Health Markets.
Speaker 3:
They're a nationwide company, you know 3,000, 4,000 brokers across the country and then, like I said, a few years ago, we decided to go off on our own, which we felt that we could do, you know, a better job in terms of, you know, providing better products, picking and choosing, and we were agents with health markets. We could only sell what they allowed us to sell. We couldn't go outside of that realm and find the best life policy or the best disability policy. We had to sell what was there and that was frustrating for a lot of us. So we wanted to take that matter into our own hands and now we have the complete freedom of picking and choosing the best products that are out there, because there's new products coming out all the time and we want to have them in our bag to offer them.
Speaker 2:
Okay. So, if I understand correctly and correct me if I'm wrong you and others started mainline Five years or okay. So if they're based in Pennsylvania and you're down here in Florida, how did you, how did you guys, make the decision to, I guess, get into South Florida? Have you always been based down here or did you come from Pennsylvania and then, you'd be located down to.
Speaker 3:
South Florida. Yeah, most yeah, most of us are, you know, cover many states. So, for example, you know I cover about 30 states. Most of us do cover many, many states. So it's where your living isn't as important as you know, where you want to really focus. I came down to Florida several years ago and my goal here was to really help the Medicare market Down here. There's a lot of seniors that are needing assistance and that was part of the reason I moved down here. Of course, I do love Florida anyway, but that was Really my motivation for coming down here was to move a little bit more into the Medicare market.
Speaker 3:
Okay, so, but like I, said we are all, all of us are all over the tree, so we don't have it's not like we have sitting in office in Pennsylvania. We're all out across the country got it.
Speaker 2:
It's just incorporated in Pennsylvania, and then you're you obviously have. I guess you would say you have Reciprocal insurance licenses and many, many other states operating. So down in South Florida a few years ago. What's what's what's not to love about South Florida, right, carol I?
Speaker 3:
love South Florida. I absolutely love it. It's very different down here. It's a different vibe. I mean you just feel so much healthier, You're more active. You know Sun's always shining, although today's not a good day, Right, but um, but yeah, it's a great place to be. I just I love the lifestyle down here.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I was up in New Jersey over the holidays to visit my brother and it's very. It's just dark and congested. I know me and reary and depressing, and I remember when we got back to Fort Lauderdale Airport, my father picked us up and we drove out of the airport and I just saw how bright and spacious it was. I said then I love living.
Speaker 3:
I know it's so different and I go back. I go back home for holidays and I I appreciate, I appreciate the greenery and I appreciate you know the. I don't know what it is, it's just different up north, but I do appreciate it and I miss it sometimes, but for the most part I don't. I love being down here.
Speaker 2:
So what do you like to do for fun when you're not working Of?
Speaker 3:
course I have gotten into. I when I was in Pennsylvania, I had three kids. I still have three kids, but I was, you know, they were younger and I thought, when I finally get to Florida, I want to play tennis. I want to play tennis every day. And that's exactly what I did. I came to Florida, I played tennis every day. I love it and so it's. You know, it's fabulous.
Speaker 2:
So you haven't transitioned to pickleball yet. That's all I keep.
Speaker 3:
I like playing pickleball on my Saturday afternoon if you're just kind of kicking around. But it's um for me. I know a lot of people love it. I for me, for two, I have. I have sort of a week back and so the bending over a pickleball, like after an hour, I can only play for about an hour. It's like I guess it just hurts my lower back sometimes. But a lot of people down here love it. I'll play, you know. Like I said, I was so often, but I do have that back problem. So it will get to me after an hour or two.
Speaker 2:
Right on. Before we wrap up here, Carol, what's the one thing you'd like to leave our listeners with that you'd like them to know about? Mainline Benefits Company?
Speaker 3:
Absolutely so. Every single encounter with us. There's no obligation, there's no fee, and so and I do what's called no free policy reviews I will. Somebody just says I'm not sure if I'm on the right program. You know, I'm not sure if I've got the right life insurance. I'm not really. Most the problem is most people don't even really understand what they have.
Speaker 3:
So part of our service is to sit down and say here's what you have and from my perspective, here are the pluses of what you have and here are some of the holds in what you have, meaning you're vulnerable in certain areas. We can revamp it, we can supplement it, but always listening to my client. Certainly their budget. Everyone has a budget that they need to work within, and let's work within that. I don't oversell, I don't, I simply fill the gaps. They're always offered, you know, multiple options for them to, you know, evaluate, and then I'll do whatever they basically end up wanting to do and so. But I think most of it is the free education and that way you know they don't have to buy a thing. They can just say oh, sometimes I do this all the time during Medicare season, you know, am I on the right plan? And sometimes I'll end up saying you know you are, stay right where you are, there's no, there's no changes needed. But other times I will make offerings and suggest different, different types of policies.
Speaker 2:
So for anyone out there that's listening, that I don't know, maybe has had a recent encounter such as I had had a rough experience and they're looking for trusted professionals, somebody like yourself that they can speak with, learn more. How could we reach you guys? How can we learn more about Mainline?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, oh, absolutely. Feel free to call me at 610-639-5616 or Carol Foley Insurance at gmailcom. I also have a website, mainline Benefits Carol Foley. You certainly can contact me through there as well.
Speaker 2:
Perfect, and we will, of course, link in the description to all of your contact information. Carol, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure getting the opportunity to meet you well, at least virtually, and learn a little bit about what you do. So thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3:
Thank you, Jeremy. It was a pleasure being on and thank you to the listeners for giving me the opportunity. Thank you.
Speaker 2:
All right, everyone have a wonderful day, take care and we'll see you next time. Bye.
Speaker 1:
Bye. Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Cooper City. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, Go to GNPCoopersitycom. That's GNPCoopersitycom, or call 954-231-3170.