The “Search for a Local Agent” tool will search for all agents that are certified in Virginia’s Insurance Marketplace. Consumers have the option to select a distance but can also select “Any” in this field. The results will show all agents in order of closest to furthest from the zip code inputted, so if there are Virginia certified agents from other states, those agents will show up on the results if they select “Any” for the radius or if they are within the radius of the original zip code inputted.
The Agent Connect feature has the same logic; the system starts with a narrow radius and continues to expand until it finds 3 brokers. For densely populated areas this means the local agents would be called first. For rural zip codes if there are no local agents, in theory the out of state agents would get a call if no agents were found within Virginia as the zip code is expanding, but typically a local agent would be found first.