W. Harold Petersen, RHU, DFP

The International Disability Insurance Society (IDIS) is only eight years young, but it is one of the few insurance associations that has experienced continued growth each and every year. Along with its organic growth, it is ranked as a top association in which members participate in the annual conference. The eighth annual conference was held last October in Denver, CO, and more than 65 percent of the membership was in attendance. The meeting was deemed a huge success, with a program that provided something for everyone.

There is a plethora of benefits one could expect from being a member of the Inter­national DI Society:

First and foremost, there are networking opportunities with the biggest and best names in the industry. There are the old-timers, who bring years of sales experience and training knowledge, as well as the newer generations, with skills to tell DI stories in new and robust ways. There are insurance carriers and their highly educated staff members to advise on products and trends. Present also are distributors who can offer helpful ideas for making the sales of disability insurance easy for you (and with top compensation packages). You’ll find claims consultants, underwriters, accountants, attorneys, actuaries, marketing experts and social media gurus on the International DI Society membership list, which, as you can see, is quite diverse.

Members get the opportunity to access the DI Resource Center, 24/7/365, via the website. You’ll find valuable information along with direct connections to member companies so that your questions, interests and/or concerns can be addressed by DI experts. Sales tracks and sales ideas, along with recently published articles on various DI subjects, are all easily located at www.internationaldisociety.com.

The International DI Society study group meets quarterly via conference call. These sessions are led by experts with knowledge in the particular field of the topic to be discussed. Topics vary from the fundamental basics to complex details of disability insurance plans. Sales, underwriting, understanding financials, placing a rated case and claims issues are all topics for upcoming study groups.

Supplementing the study group is an active LinkedIn discussion group, which allows member participation to assist with getting answers or advice from within the society’s collection of experts. You can find advice on social media, marketing, products and claims.

Coming this year, and to be presented for the first time at the 2013 annual conference, will be the unveiling of a professional designation which can be earned by participating in the American Health Insurance Plans’ (AHIP) new disability insurance credentialed study program.

Adding to the list of resources are The American College, the LIFE Foundation and its DI Awareness Month, and the Council for Disability Awareness. Along with the International DI Society, these organizations bring the greatest impact for a professional agent who caters to the most basic need of any financial plan—that of income protection.

The International DI Society has truly been the salvation to what was a dying industry. Ten years ago, it was difficult to find carriers eager to sell disability insurance. Industry magazines rarely ran articles on the subject of DI, and the old insurance associations had a real aversion to offering education or lobbying efforts for disability insurance at their local, state or national levels.

As a result of International DI Society standing up for this great industry and rattling the cages of producers, insurers, regulators and educators, new life was injected into the disability insurance industry. If you are not already, you should become part of this new sales trend.

Disability insurance is now in vogue. Why? Because it provides the most profit to the professional agent and it is a product that most consumers recognize as extremely important when an agent takes the time to explain it to them.

The many surveys done by the large disability insurance carriers reflect this news. The only thing standing in the way of the consumer buying disability insurance is the fact that most consumers have never been approached to buy it. What a shameful thing that is!

We have seen what can happen when Congress gets involved with health insurance, when more than 80 percent of Americans actually own some form of medical insurance. Yet only 35 percent of Americans have privately owned disability insurance. Is our industry inviting another social program because we have failed to offer income protection to the American wage earners?

Get involved with the International DI Society. It will be the most profitable thing you can do for yourself in 2013!

Key person coverage is a business insurance that has been prescribed very readily on the life insurance side of our industry, and sales are actually good. However, the adoption of key person disability insurance has not been as widely received over the many years since its inception. The reasons are probably the same as they are when comparing personal life insurance and personal disability insurance. There just seems to be confusion about which insurable event is more likely to occur.

Key person disability insurance is a great door opener. Since very few carriers even offer such a plan, it stands to reason that not many professional insurance producers suggest the coverage to their business clients. When you liken the role of a key person in a business to that of an industrial machine, there is not much difference other than the key person has a soul. Both are production sources and both occasionally break down.

When a machine breaks down, a good mechanic can usually have it back up and running within a reasonable period of time. The same may or may not be true for a key person. Many human ailments are indeed cured within a short period of time—flu, colds and minor injuries. However, more serious health conditions may take weeks, months or even years to overcome. What happens, then, to this precious production source, and how does this affect a business?

Professional insurance advisors should bring to the attention of their business clients the reasons for key person disability insurance. Every business and professional firm, profit and nonprofit, charity, church and educational institution has at least one employee who is key to the success of the organization’s mission. When advised that this valuable insurance is relatively inexpensive and that it will eliminate the concerns of a cash flow interruption during the disability of a key person, most astute business owners will indeed buy.

While key person disability benefits are normally tied to the key person’s income, often it is the revenue that they generate that allows the doors of the business to remain open. Therefore, key person disability insurance should also be considered revenue replacement insurance.

Perhaps you have seen or heard about cases such as a wonder kid computer programmer working diligently to bring a new product to the market. The investors behind this programmer recognized that if something were to happen to this person prior to the product’s completion, everyone involved would suffer financially. In this case, it is not the income of the key person that needs to be insured, but rather the investment that has been made in the program.

Law firms often have one or more partners who are referred to as the “rainmakers”—the people with connections who bring business to the firm. Without the rainmakers, a firm would be hard-pressed to develop enough business to keep the staff of associate attorneys, paralegals, law clerks and researchers employed. 

Another example might be a church whose dynamic preacher has pulled together a community in the spirit of worship, and this congregation has taken on a large amount of debt to build a new place of worship. Without the leadership of the pastor, they may have a difficult time maintaining the membership and the tithing needed to pay off the debt. So in a case such as this, key person benefits need to be tied to the debt obligation.

Key person coverage is meant to provide a cash flow to help an organization continue to move forward in the event that a key employee, business owner or partner becomes disabled.

Unlike business overhead expense disability insurance—which is a reimbursement for actual expenses incurred—key person disability insurance is typically paid as a flat indemnity to a company, which can then use the money in any way it considers most fitting.

Although there are exceptions, key person benefit periods are normally limited to one or two years. This period of time provides the firm with a crucial cash flow to allow for critical planning without the crisis that a cash flow interruption creates. Due to the short benefit period, the premium costs are kept affordable as well.

Key employees come in assorted shapes and sizes and are identified by a variety of titles including “owner.” They are of either sex and range in age from the very young to senior ages. For these reasons and more, a key person plan needs to be flexible and provide enough capacity to adequately cover the risk.

As we move past the harvest and settle into winter, the rapid approach of year-end holidays leaves many of us in disbelief that the year is almost over. Your great expectations for this year’s business production have either materialized or have remained beyond reach, but there is still time to hit those high notes and perhaps even surpass expectations.

DI Production Checklist

 • Lead your sales calls with disability insurance, explaining to your prospects that in order to develop a financial plan they must first protect the income that makes any financial plan possible.

 • Cross-sell your clients who have purchased other insurance products from you, asking them how they would pay those premiums if they were to become disabled.

 • Review your client files, looking to make sure they have disability insurance and, just as important, that they have adequate amounts of income replacement coverage.

 • Segregate clients’ personal insurance needs and investigate subsidiary business insurance needs, e.g., buy/sell, business overhead, key person, bank loan indemnification, etc.

 • Encourage your clients to become interactive with you by providing them a link to third party disability needs calculators, available at no cost from organizations such as LIFE (Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education) and the Council for Disability Awareness. Calculators such as these can validate your proposal of disability insurance.

 • Join and participate in associations such as the International DI Society and NAIFA so as to be included in this dynamic and surging disability insurance industry.

Find a Focus Point

Let’s examine the subject of buy/sell disability plans as an example. This time of year is usually when businesses begin to make their financial and business plans for the next year. You want to suggest that this is also an excellent time to review their buy/sell agreement. If they do not have one, you can certainly assist them in developing one; if they already have one, make certain that it addresses how the buyout will be funded in the event of a disability. The disability contingency portion of a buy/sell agreement should precede the death contingency page, as industry statistics show that disability is far more likely than death during one’s working years.

Careful review of an existing buy/sell agreement needs to make sure there is indeed a funding mechanism for disability. You should examine the provisions of the agreement to make sure they align with any buy/sell disability policy that is either in place or will be prescribed. For example, if the trigger for the buy/sell to take effect is 12 months of disability, make certain the disability insurance has the same elimination period. If the agreement calls for a lump sum as opposed to an installment, again make sure the insurance matches.

Analyze the buy/sell disability plan to make certain the funding does not reduce when approaching the designated retirement age. This is a very important practice, as we know from studies that people today are having to work into their senior years and push back retirement. If their existing buy/sell disability plan begins to reduce, this can be fixed by either replacing the existing plan with one that does not reduce, or adding a “rescue plan” that would prop up the reducing portion of the existing plan.

With the insurance industry’s preoccupation with retirement income, it is easy to overlook this very important aspect of senior-aged workers. Many of these people feel good about maintaining their relevance in the work  force, and plugging their disability coverage gap is a heroic effort on a producer’s part.

Another concern is the probable need for a buy/sell agreement to increase every year or two as a business grows. If the firm is progressive and making money, DI insurance needs to be increased accordingly to stay in balance. Suppose the agreement was established when the firm had a value of $100,000—the buy out was $50,000 per partner. Let’s say the firm has flourished and now has a total value of $4 million. Obviously, insurance must be brought to this level, otherwise each partner is liable for $1.95 million should the other become disabled and the buy/sell agreement demand a buy out. This is why annual reviews are crucial for insurance professionals to keep their clients current with acceptable amounts of insurance.

As harvest season nears its end, there is still time in 2012 to review and correct the unintended shortfalls in your valued clients’ disability coverage. Disability financial planning is an ongoing practice, and if you want a bountiful year end, take the time to bring the idea of adequate disability insurance to your clients and prospects.

Don’t forget, DI is a crop that replants itself every year with strong renewal commissions, which can mean less plow time for you! Have I run the metaphor into the ground yet? Well, probably!

Ninety-seven years ago, Solomon Hueb­ner, founder of The American College, taught us that there are two kinds of death: dead death and living death. Either kind of death destroys one’s ability to earn an income, and the financial consequences are the same—earned income ceases. Thus, it must be part of our core values as financial advisors to draw the parallel between life insurance and disability insurance with each and every one of our clients.

The avoidance of selling disability insurance by our profession is obvious when our industry results are reviewed. Today more than 78 percent of Americans have some form of life insurance, while only 27 percent have any type of disability insurance. Although both products are sold as income replacement plans, life insurance has always been the product of choice for most insurance producers. This contentious situation continues to occur even with the knowledge that the odds of needing disability insurance before age 65 are as much as seven and a half times that of needing life insurance.

Reasons for these statistics are many. One fact is that disability insurance typically costs more than life insurance and, therefore, it may be more difficult to sell to clients who are already stressed with tight budgets. Another reason may be that disability insurance appears to be more complex given the many definitions describing the ways in which a person may be considered disabled. With life insurance, there are only so many ways you can say, “Die and we will pay you.”

During the past 64 years that I have been in the disability insurance business, I have found that perhaps the biggest reason insurance producers tend to balk at selling disability insurance is the fact that disability underwriting is usually more difficult and time consuming.

But wait! DI Can Be Simple, Fast and Profitable

The vastly underserved market in our life and health industry is indeed the disability insurance market. Industry surveys have reported that the number one reason consumers have not bought disability insurance is that they have never been asked. Can it be that simple? You bet it can!

Just ask an employer if he would like to provide income protection to his valuable employees and he will probably say that he would really like to, but cannot afford it. Consider posing the following question: “Would you like to help your employees obtain their own income protection without any cost to you? If so, we can put together a plan for them that would be guaranteed issue and provide premium discounts.” I have just described a voluntary, individual, multi-life disability sale. There really would not be any reason for an employer to say no.

If an employer-prospect already provides group long term disability coverage or even sponsors additional individual disability income coverage, the benefits may very likely be inadequate for certain employees and supplemental coverage may be needed. The approach of layering plans to achieve 65 percent of income replacement is not only useful but necessary for higher income employees. The insureds will benefit from the option to obtain a customized plan as opposed to a one-size-fits-all solution offered to all employees. It is important for you to translate this to employers or human resources personnel, as they will probably dismiss the solicitation, stating that they already have disability insurance.

Scanning one’s files for potential multi-life DI cases is a simple and usually rewarding project. Your clients will realize that you do indeed think about their interests, further solidifying their belief in you and your service, not simply as a producer, but also as an advisor who holds the interests of clients as a sacred trust.

Multi-life underwriting will provide simple and fast underwriting for those who participate. By offering individual ownership, the policies are completely portable and can remain with the insureds wherever their working careers take them.

Guaranteed issue programs are readily available from many of the top disability insurance carriers, and the employees will certainly benefit from “happy underwriting,” without the concerns of rejection or modification. Premium discounts are attractive values of these collective underwriting programs.

These advantages pave the way for you, the producer, to leverage the values of employee groups, either on a mandatory plan or on a voluntary plan. Modern purveyors of disability insurance can perform as financial architects and use great new modern tools to build a plan capable of handling nearly every personal and business need.

Disability financial planning for multi-life is a gold mine waiting for those insurance professionals willing to go beyond the individual sale! 

In my June article, “The Fortune In Selling Disability Income Protection,” I discussed the tremendous market for disability income insurance. According to LIMRA, only 27 percent of American income earners have any disability income insurance in force beyond what is provided by Social Security or any state disability program. A survey conducted by a major insurance company indicated that approximately half of those who are insured with disability insurance are not adequately insured.

So What Does “Adequately Insured” Mean?

Personal economists who have studied income needs to a great extent believe that personal income replacement must be at least two-thirds of a wage earner’s normal gross income, or negative results will quickly develop. Our own industry stands by this same figure, as the traditional maximum issue and participation limit by insuring companies is also two-thirds of gross income.

As with many things in life, there are easy ways to do things and more difficult ways to do things. Disability financial planning is one of those processes of easy and hard. The easy way is to always make sure you have two-thirds of your client’s income protected. This is the only amount that can be considered as “adequate” coverage. If you are the type of advisor who enjoys drilling down and developing more specific detailed proof about what is adequate coverage for your clients, there are a number of tools available to assist you.

Excellent sources can be found either at the LIFE Foundation website, www.lifehappens.org, or at the Council for Disability Insurance Awareness website, www.­disabilitycanhappen.org.

Remembering that only 27 percent of American wage earners have disability insurance and only half of them have adequate coverage, this is a slam-dunk opportunity for the professional insurance agent! These identifiable insureds may know that they have disability insurance coverage available to them, but they don’t typically know that the benefits are inadequate for their needs. This is a simple and affordable service to provide your clients. At the very least you will achieve a favorable interview, and chances are it will result in a sale of a supplemental disability insurance plan.

What To Do When You Cannot Provide Adequate Coverage

In today’s real world of higher incomes, a disability financial plan to provide your clients with a two-thirds replacement of their income often involves the need to blend two or more disability policies into their disability estate portfolios. Without a doubt, adequate income replacement will become confusing to your clients when all of the policy provisions are factored into the equation.

What are some of these factors? Let’s break this down based on three of the most common types of disability insurance available in the market:

Group Disability Insurance: Typically group coverage covers base salary only and does not include other income such as commissions, bonuses, incentive pay, retirement contributions, etc. The maximum monthly benefit is decided by the employer and/or the insurer and is often inadequate in amount.

Individual Disability Insurance: These policies are typically owned by the policyholder and can nicely supplement group disability coverage. However, as incomes increase, the amount of coverage offered decreases on the percentage of income replaced. Many people whose income is in excess of $100,000 may find themselves underinsured.

High Limit Disability Insurance: This type of coverage stacks on top of existing insurance or acts as primary coverage when traditional group or individual DI is not available and is often required to achieve the two-thirds income replacement standard.

Following is an example of a disability financial plan.

We all sometimes wonder why we must buy so much insurance. One thing is very clear to me after 64 years in the business: When a serious disability strikes, there is never enough money. The thing to remember, which should rekindle the feeling of need, is that DI is one of only a very few insurance plans that pay the insured directly.

 • Life insurance pays a beneficiary.

 • LTC insurance pays a nursing home.

 • Medical insurance pays doctors and hospitals.

 • Auto insurance pays a repair shop.

 • Homeowners insurance pays contractors.

DI benefits are paid to the insured and spent by the insured in the way in which the insured sees fit!

To most of us, income is critical to our peace of mind and to a large extent our happiness. It is one of the most likely insurance needs, and yet it is too often overlooked or neglected.

Our duty as professional insurance purveyors is to help bring about an awareness of this crucial financial planning matter. 

The difference between the entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial person is tolerance and aversion to risk. Webster defines an entrepreneur as one who organizes and assumes the risk of a business or enterprise, risk being the key word. Not all are organizers of a business. Some buy or buy into or inherit a business interest, but the ongoing acceptance of risk for a company designates a person as an entrepreneur.

Though an entrepreneur feels absolutely certain of the success of his enterprise, partners or associates who possess strengths in the entrepreneur’s areas of weakness are recruited to join and create a sound team. Determined and confident, an attitude of success is manifested, and failure is never a thought. Strong, proud and capable of solving any problem, these individuals are likely to contract the disease known as Superman or Wonder Woman Syndrome. The sufferers of this syndrome barely admit to being mortal, and susceptibility to illness or injury are dismissed as something that only other people have.

Being a risk-taker and possessed with Superman/Wonder Woman Syndrome, the entrepreneurial spirit is often a daunting obstacle to selling optimal amounts of disability insurance. The sales task must ground the entrepreneur by convincing him that the possibility of disability is real—for both him and his partner(s)—and the negative financial effects would likely ruin a business.

Paint Them A Picture

Ms. W, imagine that your business partner, Mr. S, is driving you to a meeting. An oncoming car passes over the center divider and collides with your car. Sure, you probably escape without severe injury, but Mr. S is likely seriously injured and rushed to the hospital.

You anxiously wait with your partner’s family at the hospital, hoping Mr. S will live and reassuring his wife and kids that he is tough and will surely make it. You then realize that this entire family depends upon your partner’s ability to earn an income.

Mr. S lives, and many weeks pass as he recovers, facing surgical procedures and physical therapy. Though in much pain, he recognizes the increased despair in his wife’s eyes. She tells him that all of their savings has been spent and there are still many bills to be paid. He asks why has their savings been spent. She replies that they have not received a paycheck since the accident, and the short term disability benefits and workers compensation are insufficient.

Enraged, Mr. S demands that, as a principal, he receive his normal salary. But the business cannot support a non-worker, especially when he is a key person in production and revenues have dropped. The firm continues to weaken in its state, and its value is falling due to frightened attitudes and the personal financial demands of Mr. S. There is no satisfactory solution to this desperate tale.

Prescribe the Right Plan

By forming agreements in advance and funding them with budget-integrating insurance plans, financial disasters can be avoided.

    •  Salary continuation for the disabled member of a firm.

 •  Key person indemnification to the firm to offset losses sustained by a disability.

 •  Buy/sell coverage to fund the buyout of the disabled partner’s share of the business.

With these mechanisms in place, the disabled worker’s income is maintained and the business remains whole in his absence, and the problem of a partner unable to return to work is solved in an acceptable manner.

Show these Supermen and Wonder Women the need for disability income protection and how disability financial planning can allow them to focus on their entrepreneurial endeavors, rather than worry about the potential financial outcome of an illness or injury suddenly affecting their business.

While strolling along a Beverly Hills shopping avenue, my wife and I were attracted to an unusual storefront. Its physical appearance was unique and distinctive which always draws the eye and brings people in, whether that be statement lighting with www.neonfilter.com or a flattering color scheme, there are ways to bring customers through those doors. The store sells high-end men’s and women’s watches. Each display window featured a single watch. The least expensive watch was $16,400. The most expensive watch was nearly $300,000 and looked very strange indeed! This is not a jewelry store, it is a watch store, and it only sells one brand with a limited product line.

As a business person, my mind immediately went to the mundane thoughts of: How can they expect success in a high-rent territory such as this, considering the limited affordability of the potential customers? Consumers who want a dependable watch can buy one at a drug store for around $20, and most people no longer have the need for a watch because their cell phones display the time of day direct via satellite.

So what can we learn from a highly successful watch company that we can apply to the business of insurance and financial planning?

Mr. Bernard Fornas, president and CEO of Cartier Jewelers, has an answer. He envisions his firm to be the epitome of desire, which is Cartier’s daily concern. There is surely a complex alchemy that gets the company to that point, and management is paid very well to maintain that status. So if Mr. Fornas’ theory holds true: It is not just market size, but a desirability factor that makes sales.

How can the disability insurance industry translate the efforts that have made Cartier so desirable?

Few purveyors of the product can boast that there is a line to buy disability insurance crowding their office doors. Plus, if there is a line outside your door, you probably need to have the claim forms handy.

Insurance is always desirable at the time of need, so the trick is promoting that desirability. An optimal and dependable disability insurance plan should indeed provide a high element of desirability. Such a plan provides time preservation: If one desires to provide necessities and some luxuries for one’s family, it can only be done by having the time to produce and accumulate the funds to buy such things. Only the security of continuous cash flow can enable a person to indulge in this desire.

If the cash flow that provides the affordability is interrupted temporarily, rather than suddenly changing these dreams and intentions, disability insurance can provide a guaranteed cash flow to fall back on. If one’s dreams should be permanently interrupted by a long term disablement (or by death), insurance plans contemplated and exercised provide an acceptable ending to an otherwise devastating experience.

The fact is, your client cannot wear a DI policy as a fashion accessory. He will never have his DI policy hanging on his wall like a cherished piece of artwork. A DI policy is simply the mechanism that provides the replacement cash flow which allows the affordability of such things. That is how you communicate the desirability of disability insurance!

The ability to alleviate the worry of time lost from our lives was never so good as the day disability insurance came about, and today the capacity to do so is at its best.

The desirability characteristics have been made possible by disability financial planning, which is a long term disability plan designed with an adequate amount of disability insurance. Such planning is now available on an individual, multi-life or group basis and certainly provides a desirability factor, one that producers would do well to communicate to their clients!

According to the latest count from the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the United States is 308,745,538 and growing. It is estimated that 188 million of those people are income earners.

According to the Life Insurance Marketing Research Association (LIMRA), only 27 percent of these income earners have any form of disability income protection other than what is provided by Social Security. Additionally, based on a survey by a major insurance company, the vast majority of those with disability income protection are inadequately insured. That means 137,240,000 American income-earners have a need for more disability insurance.

These statistics are clues to where profitable efforts by professional insurance agents and brokers can best be invested. I personally recognized this excellent opportunity in the field of disability insurance many years ago. My passion for disability insurance comes from my father’s personal disability story. My crusade throughout my career has been to suggest to all insurance professionals that the delivery of a disability benefit check provides a feeling of great satisfaction, plus a likely plethora of referrals from a grateful client.

Today’s current disability market environment is strong and liberal. Insurers are making profits with their disability insurance, and their desires to grow their businesses results in excellent products, attractive rates and, most importantly, streamlined underwriting processes. In short, there has never been a better time to be in the business of prescribing disability insurance.

The very strong renewal commissions that disability insurance yields do not take very many years to develop into a substantial cash flow for a producer and, all the while, provide a foundation to clients’ personal or business financial plans.

Chart 1 illustrates commission yield from one $3,000 premium over a decade: Disability insurance pays a 50 percent first-year commission and 10 percent renewals, while life insurance pays 80 percent first-year commission and no renewals. While life insurance attracts producers with high initial commission rates, disability insurance promises the longevity of renewal rates. In this example, the disability insurance commission surpasses the life insurance commission at year four­—and still has many years of renewals ahead.

Chart 2 shows annual commissions for selling one of each policy type every week. As you can see, disability insurance surpasses life insurance by year four. While life commissions stay level, disability commissions continue to rise, resulting in a far greater income.

Largely due to the uncertainty of the new health care law, medical insurance agents are facing diminishing sales. Add to that the decreased commissions resulting from the new medical loss ratio mandate and these agents’ incomes are suffering. Life insurance commissions are also shrinking while disability insurance compensation remains steady, if not growing. There has never been a better time in the history of the product to be in the disability insurance industry. The demand is apparent, and we are in need of more suppliers.

The recognition that people have disability needs at advanced ages has pushed expansion of the market. People are working longer because their retirement plans have fallen short of expectations. Many who have retired are re-entering the work force out of necessity. Benefit periods are now pushing retirement ages up to 67 or 70 years of age, and issue ages now go to age 70 and higher.

An evolution of the DI industry is dawning. It has new and enlarged capabilities due to greatly enhanced issue and participation limits which are now capable of providing benefits in excess of $100,000 per month per person and coverage for $100 million agreements.

Advancements in underwriting processes of guaranteed issue disability insurance plans for multi-life cases, online applications and electronic policy delivery all point out great reasons to make disability insurance sales part of your daily routine.

I have been asked to write a monthly column on the topic of disability insurance for Broker World magazine. This is an assignment which I am excited and eager to do. As a long-time devotee and staunch believer in this product, I will share with you important ideas about how you can make a fortune selling disability income protection.

In the months ahead I will provide insights on communicating the importance of disability financial planning to your prospects and clients. I will discuss how you might handle sales, closing, underwriting, policy delivery and claims. I invite all readers to submit questions, suggestions and criticism, for we want to provide excellence in the work we will be doing for our valued friends at Broker World. [WHP]