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October 06, 2004 at 08:00 PM
LIAM Is Gone, Long Live LIAM!
September is gone and Life Insurance Awareness Month is history. Long live Life Insurance Awareness Month!
A lot of time and effort went into making the promotion, spearheaded by the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education, a success. There was a lot of advertising and publicity activity in the consumer media, and LIFEs efforts were joined by numerous life insurance companies that did similar promotions of their own.
For a campaign like this, it is necessary to compress a lot of activity and effort into a definite amount of time in order to make a splash. But it seems to me that the whole purpose of LIAM was to raise the publics consciousness about how important it is for them to have life insurance. Or, I should say its purpose was to start to raise the publics consciousness. So, this needs to be looked at as a long-range project, not a one-month deal.
The simple fact is that while the promotion may have had a definite beginning and end, the underlying reason for it has to generate ongoing efforts. If it doesnt, if LIAM is looked at as something that necessitated effort for one monthand one month onlythen its purpose will have been defeated.
I hope that companies and industry groups dont judge the success of LIAM by whether or not there was an immediate spike in sales of life insurance. That would be nice, of course, but it also would be short-sighted. Immediate increased sales would be like icing on the cake, but shouldnt be mistaken for the cake itself.
Taking the long view means a number of things for producers and companies. But most importantly, the ongoing effort will need to be the equivalent of that formerly hip expression, “taking it to the streets.”
If all that LIAM accomplishes is to increase sales to the affluent market, then I believe it will have failed in its mission. The great need, as industry leaders have been saying with increasing frequency, is for the mid-market to buy coverage.
The middle market is woefully underinsured. According to Richard Wecker, president and CEO of LIMRA International, some 40% of American households, mostly in the mid-market, dont have any individual life insurance.
