The habits of top life insurance producers

When the responses of advisors who reported generating more than $100,000 in life insurance premium in the past year were isolated and compared with the remaining responses, several striking differences emerged. It is important to note, however, that the data only supports a correlative rather than a causal relationship between a particular data point more common to six-figure producers and six-figure production. For example, one trait common to advisors who generated over $100,000 in premium is that they are more likely than the remaining survey population to own a whole life insurance policy. This does not mean that owning a whole life insurance policy caused these respondents to generate six-figures in life premium.

One striking correlation that emerged is that advisors who wrote more than $100,000 in life premium in the past year relied more heavily on life insurance sales concepts such as business succession planning and estate planning, concepts that are associated with higher-net-worth clients (figure 10; click to enlarge). In contrast, advisors who produced less in life insurance premium were more likely to sell final expense.

Interestingly, advisors who wrote the most life insurance premium last year relied just as heavily on the middle market. For top producers, the difference in the portion of commission income derived from sales to middle market clients is statistically insignificant when compared with advisors who wrote less than $100,000 in premium.

Advisors who wrote more than $100,000 in life premiums last year were also 25 percent more likely to talk about the living benefits of life insurance with their clients. This habit seems to have translated into product sales activity, as higher producers were much more likely to sell product riders associated with living benefits, such as long-term-care riders (42 percent more likely), chronic care riders (50 percent more likely) and disability income riders (39 percent more likely).