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Life Health > Life Insurance

MassMutual Agents Use Web To Help Sell LTD At Worksite

By Trevor Thomas

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“The supplemental disability market is largely an untapped market,” says Gerald Radican, senior partner, Capital Financial Partners, a MassMutual agency in Vienna, Va.

Sales of supplemental disability insurance are often lackluster because many employees think their employers regular coverage would give them 100% of income, says Radican. “In reality, its about 60% net and for highly paid employees, its less.”

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Springfield, Mass., estimates about half of its long-term disability insurance sales are made through worksites.

Electronic enrollment is a key reason why the companys sales have sparkled in that channel, maintains Radican.

“It helps us to show employees the gross and net effect of disability insurance on their income and helps them visualize the gap between working and disabled income,” he says. “I like to get them up to 70% or 75% of their normal net income. We use technology to customize that information to each individual.”

Employees can access the information online by themselves while on their home computers, or they can sign up or get more information while meeting with a laptop-equipped agent in the workplace. “Its all right there in front of them,” he says.

Capital Financial recently sold LTD policies to many workers in a 105-employee company using face-to-face meetings with agents. “We showed them exactly how much supplemental coverage they can buy,” Radican explains. “They completed the application online, and they had coverage that night.”

A few preferred to sign up later at home via computer, he notes.

“We gave them a password so they could log on, and I gave them a worksheet with numbers they could enter. They could also call me and ask me to sign them up.”

MassMutual generally targets employers of between 50 and 150 employees for worksite sales, Radican says.

Although there is no reenrollment period for disability because it is not sold on a group basis, MassMutual does do a number of things to keep employees signed up.

For one thing, once an employee is on a supplemental disability plan, the benefit is portable, “so if they leave, we can keep their business,” Radican points out.

In addition, as new employees come on board, Capital Financial agents are able to fit them into the system.

And when employers are reenrolled for other benefits, it presents an opportunity for the agent to sign them up for long-term disability or to increase their benefit in line with increases in the employees income.

Disability also serves as a lead-in for sales of other MassMutual products, Radican observes.

“From the productivity standpoint, supplemental long-term disability is a great opportunity to do cross-selling,” says Radican. “Weve had a lot of success with that. When we come in and educate employees about disability insurance, they come to look at us as an advisor. They may have other ancillary issues such as what to do with old retirement plans.”

Life insurance is a big cross-selling opportunity for many disability clients, he says.

“They might have left a company that offered more coverage than their current employer, or they may simply want more individual coverage,” he explains.

Disability clients also often are good candidates for 529 plans, he says.

“From the producer standpoint, this simple tool allows us to do that kind of cross-selling,” he says. “A Web-based strategy gives us a good opportunity to separate from the competition.

Disability is a great opportunity to provide good service to the employer client, he notes. “Employers love it because it takes the administrative work off their plate.”

Reproduced from National Underwriter Life & Health/Financial Services Edition, September 1, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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