Todd Buchanan affects the recommendations of about 200,000 people in the United States who help clients with life insurance and annuities, and he wants more of those financial professionals to take offering life insurance seriously.
Buchanan is the president of AmeriLife's AmeriLife Wealth independent advice and financial services distribution business and the president of the company's Crump Life Insurance Services business.
Selling life insurance is more difficult than annuities and investment services, but "protection has to be first and foremost in any conversation about a family's financial planning," Buchanan said in an interview Friday.
What it means: A giant, private equity-backed financial services distributor may be putting more muscle behind giving life insurance some of the buzz annuities now have.
Todd Buchanan: Buchanan is a University of Southern Mississippi graduate, a former national president of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and a former U.S. Army captain.
He has been involved in the financial services sector since 1996, when he left active military service.
Crump Life helps organizations like Charles Schwab and Bank of America Merrill Lynch address clients' needs for life insurance, and Buchanan said he wants to fill advisors with at least as much passion for educating clients about life insurance as about preparing for retirement.
Advice that matters: AmeriLife and Crump Life serve many clients who need permanent life insurance for purposes of legacy planning, but Buchanan wants advisors to keep the need for protection in their hearts.
He recalled one of the first clients he served.
He persuaded the man to save $100 per month in a mutual fund but had not talked to the man about life insurance. The man died six months later.
Buchanan could help the widow get only $630 in savings, not $100,000, or $1 million, in term life death benefits.
"That's lived with me for more than 30 years," Buchanan said.
Buchanan also wants to help advisors get past the idea that the only interesting client is a fabulously wealthy client.
"The mass affluent market is huge," Buchanan said. "That's the biggest growth area."
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