Love, Love, Love

Turns out The Beatles were right. All you need is love.

So, if you read Linda Koco’s report in last week’s issue from the life insurance conference sponsored by LIMRA International, LOMA, the Society of Actuaries and the American Council of Life Insurers (whew!), you saw that some industry notables thought some worthwhile things would happen if life insurance agents tapped into that sentiment more in the course of their sales pitches.

For one, drilling down to the emotional core of the reasons why people buy life insurance could actually spur more prospects to sign on the dotted line. This in turn would have a restorative effect on the generally floundering and flat life insurance sales that have characterized the industry’s performance for some years.

Bob Kerzner, LIMRA’s president and CEO, told Koco, “Love is the strongest buying emotion. It’s in our data…Buying insurance is seen as a way to express feelings of love.”

There’s another salutary effect that would come from going for the emotional core. This is that agents would feel better about what they do if they were able to motivate more people to buy life insurance, said Joe Jordan, senior vice president of individual business marketing at MetLife.

Many agents don’t feel good about selling life insurance, he said, and some of the reason is that they and the industry have focused too much on product and information in the last couple of decades, while holding back on the love factor behind the purchase.

As Koco’s story put it: “Jordan said he himself used to prefer rational presentations, but he has found that this did not motivate clients to buy.

“Now, he said, ‘I am the advocate of the people who are dependent on the client.’ He helps clients recognize their emotions and how their loved ones’ lives would be affected if the clients were no longer alive to provide for them.”