ACA Open Enrollment

Getting Your CRM Ready for ACA Open Enrollment

Marketplace Open Enrollment for 2027 coverage typically starts November 1, 2026 and runs through January 15, 2027 (some states use a different window). That is close enough that “I’ll set up the CRM when leads start coming in” is already too late. The agents who stay organized in December are the ones who finished the boring work in August and September.

Why this week matters more than the first week of November

During OEP you will not have time to import last year’s book, write drip copy, test email sending, or decide what “Quoted” vs “App submitted” means. You will be quoting, calling, and chasing missing documents. A CRM only helps if the list is clean, the stages are honest, and follow-up already fires when a new lead hits.

This article is the before checklist. For what to do once volume hits, see How to Use a CRM During ACA Open Enrollment.

1. Get every name into one list

Import last year’s clients, leftover vendor leads, webinar registrants, and the spreadsheet that still lives on your desktop. Tag what you can: last year’s plan type, household, and whether they actually enrolled. Set a real lead source on every record — Facebook, referral, HealthSherpa, purchased lead — so you can see later what actually sold, not what felt busy.

Duplicate names and empty phones will waste November. Clean them now while you still have patience.

2. Pick pipeline stages you will actually update

Five or six stages beat twelve you never touch. A practical OEP set is: New, Contacted, Quote sent, App submitted, Sold, Lost. If a lead sits in Quote sent for two weeks with no next step, that is a follow-up failure, not a “still working it” status.

Put a follow-up date on anyone you intend to call. If it is not on a calendar or a task, it is a wish.

3. Build drips and templates before the inbox explodes

Write (or generate) sequences for new leads, quote follow-up, deadline reminders, and “we quoted you and never heard back.” Save the emails you send every year: first contact, quote sent, OEP ending soon, thank you after enrollment. Test one send to yourself. Confirm your From address, signature, and that links work on a phone.

If you wait until November 3 to discover SMTP is wrong, you lose the first three days of every new lead.

4. Make email and SMS boringly reliable

Connect sending so campaigns actually leave the building. Know how you will text: a dedicated business number beats mixing client SMS with your personal phone. When Open Enrollment starts, you want opens and clicks visible — so you call the people who engaged, not the people who never saw the email.

5. Turn last year’s book into a renewal list

Retention is most of the income after year one. If coverage start dates are in the CRM, you can see who is coming due — including short-term 3- and 6-month plans, not only annual ACA. Call those households before they shop with someone else in November.

6. Know which lead sources are worth buying

“I was busy” is not a close rate. Before you spend on another lead drop, look at sold vs all contacts by source for the last 90 days and last year. Double down on what sold. Cut what only produced quotes. OEP spend without that number is guessing with a louder phone.

A simple two-week prep plan

• This week: Import and tag the book. Set lead sources. Fix bad numbers and emails.
• Next week: Pipeline stages, drips, templates, one test email and one test SMS.
• The week after: Renewal list from coverage start dates. Follow-up dates on anyone still open. Glance at close rate by source before you buy more leads.

How Cadence covers this checklist

Cadence is built for health insurance agents: contacts with coverage dates and quotes, a pipeline, email and SMS, drip campaigns (including AI-written sequences), a renewals list from coverage start, and reports for close rate by lead source plus email opens and clicks. AI can draft the first outreach so you are not staring at a blank template the night before November 1.

Full Pro for 14 days, then $79/month. No feature tiers.