Since I last wrote about the big news between AARP and the American Seniors Association (ASA), I have received numerous emails asking me questions mostly focused on 1) how to join the ASA, 2) how they compare to AARP and 3) what benefits and insurance programs they offer.
First: if you want to join, visit their website: www.americanseniors.org
Second: The ASA is an elder advocacy group similar to the AARP, but more politically conservative in nature. They’re actually going out of their way to market themselves as a conservative alternative to the AARP. While the AARP does not actively market itself as a liberal organization, some view them as such. The ASA appears to be embracing the conservative niche, doing things like posting Fox News videos on their website’s front page.
Third: Since I first wrote about the ASA, they have partnered with Liberty Mutual insurance group and Mutual of Omaha to offer a insurance benefits through their site. This is undoubtedly an attempt to both appease their increasing member base, but also to generate additional revenue. They are undoubtedly getting lead and/or commission revenue through their partnership with Liberty Mutual.
Buyers should be wary of what they buy regardless of where they buy it, however. American Seniors Association is still relatively new and they don’t have the membership base that AARP does, so if your primary objective in obtaining insurance is to save money, shop widely and wisely. For example, the ASA’s “Medicare Solutions” link on their site is actually a link to Senior Market Sales, Inc., a company that offers insurance products to seniors through third parties.
I did a little digging on the link to “Travel” on the ASA’s site. It appears that they’re just offering a commission based link through www.cltsloyalty.com, a company that partners with others to offer travel and vacation plans. While I see nothing necessarily wrong with this, a disclaimer of some sort might be appropriate. The ASA does not actually state that its their travel program, they’re just implying that it is by listing it on their site and failing to directly state that it’s not their program.
The ASA is still a very new organization that is slowly gaining experience and size. Their website format and design is, in my opinion, still amateur. It is not well organized or designed, and I think that’s indicative of their organization as well.
The ASA’s advocacy efforts appear non-existent, and I see no professional research resources on any work they’re conducting. At this stage, the ASA seems to be offering little more than a way for conservative elders to join an organization that proclaims to represent their interests, but don’t exactly say how. Instead they prominently focus attention on their revenue generating insurance and travel programs.
That being said, I’ve signed up for their email updates to see how they develop and improve over time. Stay tuned.
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Sir, An interesting question you may wish to explore is why AARP does not bring it’s alleged “senior might” to bear on the Social Security Admin, Congress, and/or its buddy Obama to correct the CPI-based COLA calculation problem. SSA uses the “regular” CPI to calculate whether recipients get an increase each year, rather than the CPI-E (for elderly). The difference is the inclusion of gasoline prices, which have skewed the cola calculations due to the large drop from last year to this year. Since elderly do not drive anywhere near as much as the working population, the CPI-E is more representative of their actual living costs. Seniors will NOT get a cola this year (or next probably) due to the use of this incorrect CPI. When I emailed AARP about this, all I got was a BS email suggesting I check their website for their policies, etc. Obviously the fact that AARP receives $83million a year from Uncle Sugar has them behaving more like a lapdog than a guarddog.
You don’t have to be a member of any association to buy a medicare supplement plan. You can go to National Medicare Supplements and view quotes instantly from many top rated Insurance Sarriers that offer medicare supplements. Go to: http://www.nationalmedicaresupplements.com/
Considering the fact that the lion’s share of AARP’s annual revenue comes from its insurance activities (a fact easily verified from its published annual financial statements), I find it odd that you would “call out’ ASA for its similar activities.
I’ve been watching AARP for quite some time and while I don’t belong to either AARP or ASA I can most definitely say, based on their actions, that AARP, if it speaks for seniors at all, only speaks for liberal seniors.
I would go even farther, I see AARP as a third person insurance provider masquerading as senior advocacy organization. As one of the insurance providers, AARP could benefit from an avalanche of money flowing through their organization under the provisions of the proposed legislation. They apparently have no problem with cutting $500,000,000,000 out of Medicare while enriching themselves.