Due to the surge in long term care need within the Baby Boomer generation, as they continue to grow older and age in place, many of their children are now turning to financial advisors and long term care professionals for solutions to their own potential needs for these services down the road.
Because their own health is still good, and despite the overwhelming responsibilities being shouldered by this generation in providing unpaid care to their parents, the level of denial in terms of their own potential need for these services remains high.
To combat these negative forces, it must be remembered that it is critical to identify and personalize the need for these services, but also to create urgency on the part of these younger clients.
Urgency begins and ends with the agent feeling the urgency that no matter how old/young a prospect is, that it’s incredible that they have not protected themselves yet. “Why have you taken so long to protect yourself at your age?” “What must happen for you to come to grips with this devastating looming problem?”
No one in their mid-40s is in the same health that they were as a 21-year-old. With time comes change. Their hair (graying or thinning), their skin (wrinkles or sagging), a slowing metabolism, fat accumulation that used to be easily burned off, diminished jumping ability, and slower running speed. Stamina is not what it once was, and there is a greater need for sleep. To this end, most pro athletes have retired because they can no longer compete physically, with longer healing time for injuries and diminished overall performance. How many visited chiropractors when they were 21? Memory changes, and the brain has already begun to shrink by the time a person turns 40. Younger clients are most fearful of the threat of a diagnosis of disease or accidents, which happen to everyone. The key is to protect insurability today.
Is selling to younger clients a one call close? Absolutely! They deal with denial issues just like older prospects and if you don’t help them today with denial and urgency, trying to get back in the home is an effort in frustration. Younger clients still purchase emotionally but do use more logic to support their decision hence why explaining the most expensive cost of waiting—insurability—supplements their thought process.
Urgency begins with the initial client contact. You may have to make more evening or Saturday morning calls to catch prospects at home if they are not reaching out to you. As you speak to them and ask probing health questions, you should close the health section with, “Now I know why you are looking into this important insurance addition to your portfolio.” If they ask, “What do you mean by that?” simply respond, “I can’t tell you how many clients I speak with in your age group who have already waited too long and they can no longer protect themselves. From what I can tell on the surface it appears perhaps you have not waited too long and may still be able to protect yourself.”
Because these younger clients have active professional careers that keep them busy during the day, if you wish to avoid evening appointments you first must remember that, as a professional, your time is no less valuable than any other professional who typically conducts his or her business during the regular workday.
To this end, make up your mind that’s how you want to prioritize your time and be clear when setting appointments. A recommended approach would be to say to your prospect, “l don’t know about you, but after a full day of work I’m drained and don’t always have the energy to concentrate. For important planning matters like this, many of my clients prefer either early morning appointments, say 7:30-8:00 before they go to work, or they come home a little early from work for a late afternoon appointment, say around 4:00-4:30. Which is better for you?” Be clear and crisp with your either/or close. Some agents are so clear about not working evenings that they would prefer to work Saturdays instead. People visit their attorneys, doctors, dentists, and financial planners during normal business hours, why not their LTCI consultant? This is such a testament to belief in the worthwhile work long term care specialists do and how you as the advocate appropriately value your time.
How many younger people have already had health issues in their past that caused them to need help with their ADLs? Certainly folks with bone breaks, sprains, surgeries, bad flu bugs, car accidents, bad cuts, infections, tooth extractions. What if they had never gotten better from those disabilities? I would contend that 100 percent of your prospects have had disabilities that could have had far reaching consequences if they had not healed! This is a great time to peel the onion and dig deep to uncover the real fear and anxiety.
It’s also vitally important for younger prospects to uncover their financial circumstances to include both assets and income streams. Return on Investment (ROI) or Interest on Savings (IOS) may not be the best mechanism for funding the policy while they are younger and still in accumulation mode. For them, premiums may come from current discretionary employment income. Regardless of how they plan to pay for these premiums, not fully examining a prospect’s finances and making a recommendation to buy is like a physician doing an incomplete examination and then recommending a prescription. In medical circles, that is known as malpractice.
What are the consequences of younger clients procrastinating? Once you’ve determined a client’s emotional needs and desires, you can then have them deal with consequences of those dreams not becoming a reality and force them to conclude whether they are okay with that outcome. Ideally, make those dreams shorter term so they can really feel the consequences when you do the takeaway. As an example, “What if you weren’t able to send your child to college due to poor planning, or you weren’t able to save for retirement due to an unprotected change in your health?” This concept is known as the “takeaway.” For more background, read the chapter in How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettiger entitled “The $250,000 in 15 minutes” to fully appreciate the power of the takeaway. It will unlock the key for you if you struggle to create urgency for someone to act today.
While conducting your client interview, follow this line of questioning:
- Whom do you have your health insurance with?
- What is the most important reason you have health insurance?
- Would you ever do without your health insurance? Have you ever been without?
- If you had none today, how long would you wait to do something about it?
- What are the main diseases or accidents you worry about? They will often give answers such as stroke, MS, Alzheimer’s, car accidents, which we know are only covered for skilled care.
- Don’t you find it ironic that you only have half a health insurance policy? What are you going to do to fund the main issues you are worried about that you have no real coverage for?
- How does your incomplete health insurance plan impact all your hopes, dreams, and aspirations?
Another complimentary approach while discussing the associated risk of not having protection in place against the need for long term care is to tap into their goals for why they are saving money in the first place. This approach helps them reprioritize how they are spending money and helps leapfrog long term care insurance ahead of some of their other funding strategies and puts it on an equal plane with health insurance. Think of the Maslow hierarchy of needs pyramid with survival at the base and self-actualization up at the top. Most younger people think of LTCI as a “nice to have” up near the top of the pyramid, and our goal is to have them move it down to the base of the pyramid as a “must have” for future security.
- What principally have you been saving your money for? Most answers will involve either retirement planning, college education for kids, or purchasing a retirement property.
- If something happened to your health tomorrow and you had to fund long term care personally, what would happen to your savings strategies?
- How would you feel if you had to liquidate all your retirement savings or college savings and your spouse may never get to retire or your kids go to college?
- Is there any other risk that you can think of other than long term care that could keep you from realizing your lifelong dreams that you haven’t already protected?
- Doesn’t it make sense to have a long term care insurance policy in place to make sure that all your hopes and dreams can be realized?
- Do you see any reason why you would treat the long term care risk any differently than you would your skilled health care risk?
- If you can afford a policy without impacting your lifestyle and significantly altering your savings strategy, do you see any reason why you wouldn’t get this insurance while you have a reasonable chance of qualifying? A great congruence check for agents is asking them if they secured their own LTCI plan. Failure to come to grips with their own morbidity as a “younger” person has a direct impact on their ability to effectively create urgency for their prospects! Plus, how do you answer the question posed by the prospect “What coverage do you have?” if you are not protected?
Creating urgency with younger clients is simply a matter of being passionate as we assist clients in understanding the growing risk and consequences associated with people needing care, and accepting the fact that their health could change instantaneously and appreciating the huge consequences that go along with guessing wrong. No matter how old you are, health changes can happen with a snap of the fingers. The key is protecting insurability today while they have a reasonable chance of doing so. They must be convinced that the consequences of waiting far outweigh the risk of deciding to move forward with protection today.
