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October 29, 2014 at 06:29 AM
I speak to a lot of agents all across the country. The conversations are generally about the markets they work in, the products they are comfortable talking about, and what help they need with the case they are presently working on.
After a while, you begin to see some elements of our business that work against millions of prospective buyers: Many agents work in markets selling annuities or Medicare products where prospects miss out on a life product they would have actually bought had the agent known to ask a couple of simple questions. With the advent of the no-call list and spam act, the volume of information millions of prospects receive has been drastically reduced.
Agent training opportunities covering the many reasons for the purchase of life insurance throughout different phases of life have also greatly diminished, as many carriers have elected to exit the career distribution system in favor of brokerage distribution. Millions of prospects are left to figure things out for themselves, which more often than not, leads to them doing nothing.
In my 30 years in this industry, I’ve never seen many different life products or riders that buyers can choose from, depending on their needs. Just knowing some basic product information leads to sales. Here are a few examples:
Term insurance
Few death claims are paid by carriers, but there is term insurance that has both critical and chronic illness benefits. Also, discuss mixing in some permanent life insurance so that something is in force when they actually die years after the term ran out. Do more than take an order.
Supplementing retirement income
Taking advantage of cash value life insurance for some income-tax-free retirement money is not a new idea in our industry. It’s been done for years.
