When discussing individual disability insurance (IDI) products with a prospective client, you could share many real-life examples of how IDI policies have protected families from financial ruin.
For example, from the website www.lifehappens.org, there's the story of Dr. Valerie King, a single mother with three young daughters. After Dr. King had a series of surgeries to treat her ulcerative colitis, she found herself disabled and unable to do the work she loved. Fortunately, years earlier, Dr. King was protected with the IDI coverage she unexpectedly now needed—ensuring a bright financial future for her young family.
What about the IDI policy owners who never had to make a claim? How have they benefited from their IDI policy? Has their money been well spent? As you know, an insurance company has to manage it so that there are more people that never make a claim than those that will.
So, let's consider an incredibly important benefit every IDI policyholder enjoys—whether they make a claim or not—the benefit of peace of mind. This psychological benefit pays every minute of every day the policy is in force. From personal experience, this is a benefit that can't be underestimated.
Over the years we seen clients use their policies, but we’ve seen more not use them. Thankfully, we’ve never needed to make a disability claim on our policies. For all of us though, we’ve received tremendous benefit in knowing the policy was available and actively protecting our income. That knowledge has been priceless to us and all of the policyholders that have bought disability income protection.
Conversely, we dread to think how we would have felt if we had been disabled and we did not have IDI coverage. The psychological toll would certainly have been as devastating as the financial toll—perhaps even more so.
In life we have all kinds of safety nets in place like DI products. These safety nets may never be used, but they regularly give us that priceless benefit of…peace of mind.
If someone skydives they usually have a backup parachute, which you’d think would be vitally important. While rarely used they do have substantial value. If you have a client that enjoys cruises, could you imagine paying less for a cruise without lifeboats? Would one even consider taking a cruise if there were no life vests or lifeboats attached? Would you buy a car without airbags or safety belts? These are worthwhile investments and wouldn’t even be contemplated by most clients.
While we have never jumped out of an airplane, we certainly would not skydive without a backup safety parachute. We do take cruises and we drive all over the country. Knowing there are airbags in our cars makes us feel safe—as do the lifeboats on the cruise ship. They allow us to travel with peace of mind. Knowing we are doing our best to protect ourselves puts us at ease. We are more relaxed. We personally value the feeling of knowing that we have prepared for the unpredictable—the feeling of being able to do as much as we can, ahead of time, to prevent something tragic.
Taking the cruise and car analogy further, if someone offered you a discount cruise on a ship that had no life vests or lifeboats, would you board that boat to save money? How about if someone offered you a discount on a car without airbags and other safety equipment? Would you take the deal? Better yet, would you put your children or spouse on that cheaper boat or in that less expensive car?
Disability insurance products give responsible, successful, caring clients the incredible opportunity to protect their incomes from stopping and the devastating effects that can have on their families. Yes, the financial benefits of IDI protection will be there if needed but, whether a claim is made or not, peace of mind will always be there for the life of the policy.
