BenaVest’s ACA New Agent Roadmap! 

Are you ready to become a licensed health insurance agent or broker and start selling Obamacare health insurance plans on the ACA Marketplace? Whether you’re brand new or renewing your credentials, this step-by-step guide will walk you through everything you need to know to start enrolling clients and growing your book of business.

How To Start Selling Obamacare Health Insurance In 5 EASY Steps!

• Step 1: Create Your CMS Account

  • If you already have a CMS Enterprise Portal account, simply renew for the current year.

  • New agents need to visit CMS Portal and select New User Registration to create an account.

  This account is the foundation for all your Marketplace agent activities.

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  Step 2: Register as an Agent or Broker

  • Log in to your new CMS Enterprise Portal account.

  • Select Request Access Now.

  • Choose FFM/Training – Agents/Brokers/Assisters.

  • From the dropdown menu, select FFM Agent Broker.

  By completing this step, you officially identify yourself as an ACA agent or broker who can help individuals and families shop for Marketplace health coverage.

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  Step 3: Confirm Your Identity

  • Complete the identity-proofing process with basic personal information.

  • Once approved, log out and wait a few minutes for your role to update.

  • If needed, select Federally Facilitated Marketplace (FFM) / Request for MLMS Training Access.

  This ensures you’re recognized as an ACA-qualified health insurance professional.

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  Step 4: Complete Required ACA Training

  To sell ACA health insurance plans, you must complete training each year:

  • Free option: Take training directly through CMS via the Marketplace Learning Management System (MLMS).

  • Paid vendor option: Enroll through a CMS-approved vendor. (Some offer continuing education units (CEUs).)

  Choose the curriculum that fits your market:

  • Individual Marketplace – for selling Obamacare plans to individuals and families.

  • SHOP Marketplace – for selling small business health insurance plans.

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  Step 5: Sign Privacy & Security Agreements

  • Once training is complete, launch and electronically sign the CMS Privacy and Security Agreements.

  • Print your Registration Completion Certificate and save a copy.

  • Send the certificate to office@benavest.com to finalize your Marketplace readiness.

  Important Tips for Success:

  • Turn off your pop-up blocker so training windows open correctly.

  • Always return to the Home screen after finishing a module to ensure it registers.

  • Your FFM ID is the same as your CMS portal username.

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  Health Insurance Agent vs. Broker – What’s the Difference?

  • Health Insurance Agents: Represent one carrier (captive agent) or multiple carriers (independent agent). Agents are guides, helping clients understand plan options, coverage, and costs. Agents earn commissions from carriers—never charging clients directly.

  • Health Insurance Brokers: Work on behalf of clients, offering a wider selection of carriers and plans. Brokers are especially valuable when clients need to compare multiple ACA health insurance plans.

  Both roles play a vital part in connecting families and individuals with affordable health coverage.

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  Start Selling Obamacare Health Insurance Today

  Selling ACA Marketplace health insurance is not just about earning commissions—it’s about helping families access affordable, quality care. By following these five steps, you’ll be ready to:

  • Enroll clients in Obamacare health plans year-round.

  • Grow your income with ACA agent commissions.

  • Build a lasting career in the health insurance industry.

NEXT STEPS: BenaVest Onboarding Documents.

After completion of your CMS, if you have not already, you will receive the onboarding documents from Benavest.This will be in the form of a Docusign packet.

You will want to complete these as soon as you can. The packet and documents will help us to create your agent file within Benavest. You will also request the carriers that you wish to contract with.

We recommend that you contract with all non-captive carriers in your state. We also recommend that you add a few dental and vision carriers, the popular ones are There is no charge to contract with the carriers.

BenaVest Contracting Steps : How to complete Carrier Contracting.

At this point, you will be receiving carrier-specific contracting. Remember to take your time completing the contracting. You will be receiving an email for each carrier that you had requested in the Onboarding Docusign.

As the carrier(s) are processing your contract, you will receive Appointment/Welcome emails from them. If you can please forward any emails you receive from the carrier to office@benavest.com so we can update your file within Benavest. (The carriers usually take around 2 weeks to appoint you from the time you complete your contracting. Please do not write until you are appointed and also verify the states you are appointed in.)

BenaVest’s Agent Member Site And Exclusive Perks.

Qualification

All you need to qualify for the agent member site and its perks are at least one of the following:

• 3 appointed carriers in ACA or 2 appointments if one or both of the carriers is:
  • Oscar
  • Bright Health
  • Ambetter
• 3 appointed Medicare carriers
• 3 appointed Ancillary carriers
• 3 appointed Life carriers

Overview Of Benefits

Here at BenaVest, we offer our agents all the tools necessary to succeed!

• Your very own landing pages for each product line that you sell
• Access to the agent member site
• Marketing tools including emails, social media posts, and more!
• Extensive webinar training for all ACA, Medicare, Life, Supplemental, and more!
• Extensive tool kit with information that you can have handy during appointments
• Access to our agency builder program to start an agency of your own

We include all of this, FREE OF CHARGE. Follow along in this post as we go over all of these benefits in more detail.

Landing Pages

If you have always wanted a webpage to advertise to your clients and have never been able to make it yourself or hire someone to make it for you, you are in luck! BenaVest offers landing pages for all the product lines you are appointed with!

As you get your appointments we begin to add more to your website. We start with a homepage and after that you will get landing pages for:

• ACA / Obamacare
• Medicare
• Life
• Supplemental
• Retirement planning
• Group Insurance

BenaVest Agent Member Site.

The BenaVest agent member site is packed with great information including: webinars, tools, and marketing materials.

Marketing Materials
Our marketing materials include creative images that can be used to post on your social media accounts. We have several packs that come with creative images that catch attention.

We also provide detailed email templates that can be sent out to your email list which are extremely useful and easy to use. All you need to do is copy the template, paste it into your message and change a few fields, done!

All of these marketing materials come with instructions for an easy to use experience.

Tools
Having access to the BenaVest member site means you have all access to our tools! We provide:

A calendar with important dates and information
Important phone numbers that you can provide for your clients
Bookmarks to the most important Healthcare.gov tools
Quoting tools and income charts

We provide all the tools you need all in one spot so you do not have to look all over the internet to get the help you need. We are always finding new ways to provide our agents with the tools they need making BenaVest’s agent member site a living breathing wealth of information.

Webinars
We provide all the training webinars and powerpoints that you need to learn about a new product line or even just to brush up on your skills. These webinars are extensive and are anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half of great information to help you produce!

Agency Builder Program

Starting an agency by yourself is difficult, however, BenaVest makes it much easier with our agency builder program. This program allows you to go from being a solo agent to having an agency.

The agency builder is a landing page that we make for you to contract agents under your name and receive a bigger portion of the commissions. There are several levels to an agency with different benefits.

We have an agent, Brian Marsh, that went from being a lone agent all the way to having 20+ agents working under him. He was able to do all of that with our help and the agency builder platform!

BenaVest’s ACA Enrollment Platform

You will need a system to sign up and enroll your ACA clients. The enrollment platforms our agents uses Health Sherpa.

Health Sherpa

Health Sherpa utilizes an easy to use dashboard that always has an easy access quote button. Clicking this button will instantly direct you to the quoting system, allowing you to begin creating a quote for a client. Along with this feature, there are buttons to instantly start an application as well as many other features that Health Sherpa offers.

Health Sherpa offers Enhanced Direct Enrollment (EDE) enrollment as well.

Start Enrolling ACA Health Insurance Clients Today!

Once you have completed many of the steps required to become a BenaVest agent. You can start signing clients up for health insurance!

Sales Process Webinar

The first thing we recommend you do is to watch the ACA sales process flow webinar. This webinar goes over important information on how to sell ACA and the best way to do it.

On the membership site, you will have access to this webinar and the presentation that we used for it to read at your own pace.

ACA Sales Process Flow Webinar

This webinar goes over many important key features and factors that you should know.

Sales Script
The ACA webinar goes over the base inline ACA sales script for efficiency. This inbound-outbound script is our inhouse script we use for Inbound Calls and for outbound Lead Registration calls. It is an essential lifeline that helps start your sales process and is a Vital Time-Saving Tool that will help you get through the sale in a very efficient and strategic manner.

7 Step Guide To Sell
In the ACA sales flow webinar, you can find a 7 step guide that covers the steps of a sale from beginning to end. This guide goes over:

1. Qualifying the client
2. Other qualification tips
3. Discussing household size
4. Discussing household income
5. Quoting and reviewing how much tax credit your client qualifies for
6. Filling an intake form
7. Payment and uploading documentation

The webinar covers all of these topics in detail and provides additional extra tips to perform your best.

Other Webinars
Within the ACA sales flow presentation you will be able to find other webinars that supplement the sales flow presentation including:

• 2021 OEP Training
• ACA Leads Training
• Benefit Align Training
• ACA Referral Training
• ACA Blueprint Training
• Webinars for other product lines as well

Boost Client Value with BenaVest’s Full Insurance Product Portfolio ; Toolbelt.

When contracting and a few other steps are complete, you will be able to request some other products with BenaVest. Ancillary and off-exchange products can be requested and are great to have for cross-selling to your clients.

These product lines are great because they can be offered to clients that do not qualify for ACA plans.

Off-Exchange Plans

These plans are sold outside of the ACA marketplace. They are sold directly by insurance carriers or brokers.

It is recommended to find the best plan for clients whether they are ACA plans or off-exchange plans. Some off-exchange plans offer coverage that can not be found on marketplace plans and may be a better option for some.

As mentioned earlier it is also possible that a client does not qualify for ACA so an off-exchange plan will be the choice for them.

Supplemental Plans

Supplemental health insurance plans are plans that offer more than a regular health plan. These plans may include:

• Dental Insurance
• Critical Illness Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• Disability
• And more

You may consider supplemental plans, as well as ACA plans when assisting a client find the best plan, at the best price for them.

Conclusion: Take the Next Step with BenaVest!

If you found this post and what BenaVest has to offer interesting, feel free to share it with your friends and family or share it on social media. Thank You!

FREE ACA Obamacare Sales Training Packet

• Get access to the sales process that streamline sales
• Expert training for top producer contributions