Husband and wife Ben and Amy Snyder are helping people make difficult decisions about insurance easy with their business Guidepost Insurance LLC.
Tuesday afternoon, the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Guidepost Insurance at the Chamber office.
Amy Snyder, Guidepost owner, said, “We primarily started with Medicare insurance, with Humana, and now have branched out to United, Aetna, Anthem, Cigna and Ben also offers Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance, outside of Medicare.”
Ben Snyder, Guidepost CEO, said ACA is for people who are not yet eligible for Medicare, but need health care insurance and don’t have it through their employer.
“We also offer services to seniors who need help applying for Medicare, so applying for the Part A and B, learning how Medicare works, learning all their options for meeting those requirements. And also helping people apply for Medicaid or just extra help,” Amy said.
The Medicare Savings Program is a joint program through the federal and state governments, Ben said. “There’s lots of people eligible for it and they don’t even know it. So when you work with state government, sometimes that can be tricky, so one of our roles is to serve as an advocate and help people do that. None of our services cost anything,” he said.
Last fall, Amy said, is when she opened the limited liability corporation. Ben was employed by Humana as a career agent, but recently became independent like Amy so they decided to join forces and go under one name - Guidepost. Ben has been doing insurance since 2021.
The easiest way to reach Amy or Ben is to call their cell phones. Ben’s number is 574-549-2028, and Amy’s number is 574-377-3182. They also have a website at guidepost.pro with basic information about who they are and what they do. Their direct emails are [email protected] and [email protected].
“We currently work out of our home. That’s how I started with Humana, and we may be adding office space maybe next year, but for the time being we usually meet people in their homes, unless they’re uncomfortable with that,” Ben said. In that case, he said they can meet customers at the library or other options as needed.
Amy said they serve northern Indiana. Ben said he will drive up to 90 minutes. He is licensed in 17 states, so he can help people as far as Florida and South Carolina through Zoom or other technologies.
“Our tagline is ‘Making Important Decisions Easy,’ so navigating Medicare and Affordable Care Act, it can be complicated, there’s lots of fine print, lots of details and then not only that, but after you have a policy in effect, it’s helpful to have somebody be a resource so” that’s part of our job, Ben said. “We don’t ever tell someone, ‘This is what you need.’ We educate them about how Medicare works, how Affordable Care Act works, inform them about their options and assist them in making the best decision for them.”
He said they care about people, and the heartbeat of their success is that they do care about people. Amy also is a nurse and has a clinical background, which aids her in helping people understand their plan benefits.
“I can walk them through their medical problems because I’ve worked in all sorts of settings as a registered nurse,” she said.