Like many readers of this column I am second generation “wholesale brokerage.” The promise that my father helped develop beginning in the early 1960’s was a guaranteed commitment to America’s consumers to deliver the best product at the best price. However I clearly remember his first insurance sales lesson: “Son, The best sale is an old sale!” Virtually every conversation concerning future product development or distribution strategy seems to circle back to a suggestion to work your own book of business. In the early days of LTCI sales we were continually asked for leads. The standard response was, “You do not need them, you need to work your own book of business.” There is true optimism again in our market. The only signs of life in the LIMRA production numbers involves some form of an approach to chronic illness risk. Combo, hybrid, linked and asset-based—they have all become fertile fields to plough. It now becomes impossible to resist the temptation to humbly suggest that the belief that companies would eventually line up to make sure they also had an option for chronic illness appeared frequently in this column.
It also becomes impossible to not now pause and again gaze into our own LTCI crystal ball. Through the swirling mists of a troubled past now appear impressive new marketing and sales opportunities:
- Future sales will be governed by those we left behind over the last 20 years and finding new and better ways to approach the generations coming behind the Boomers. The evolving “point of care” initiatives providing options to those who previously failed to plan will continue to gain traction and success. And on the opposite end of that spectrum, the younger “transactional” buyers will profit from advances in technology and speed-to-issue philosophies. Younger buyers will be better able to take full advantage of their underwriting advantages.
- The “Mission” of all our efforts will shift from only helping those who can afford total risk replacement to just making sure that all customers in the private insurance buying market can remain private pay.
- The group market will return with a vengeance—large and small.
- New product will be form fitting. Superfluous benefits and excess premiums will begin to fall away as we accept the necessity of our new Mission definition outlined above.
All the above will require policy and benefit review. The review process has always lived at the heart of all our sales activities. It is impossible to not now challenge all readers of this column to verify the reality of their own book of business. Truthfully no one knows definitively what is in force at any moment in time. No one is always on top of the current insurance needs of all those past customers for whom we accept some level of responsibility. Are you absolutely positive you have asked every member of your sales congregation if their life policy also covers chronic illness if they should need it?
Not wishing to step on anyone’s planning toes, it would seem negligent to not suggest that whatever your policy review practices or habits might be that they now include several additional core considerations:
- Did your 1035 strategies include LTCI or chronic illness options?
- Did your offer to now include a “care” alternative include a comprehensive discussion of IRC Section 101g vs 7702B benefits and could you define exactly what they would be paid if they accessed the benefit?
As you evaluated potential conversions or lapses, did you at least consider converting those established and currently paid-for face amounts into care dollars in the secondary market?
We have slowly but surely returned to a market with well over a hundred companies offering some form of chronic illness risk abatement. Wake up and smell the roses.
Other than that I have no opinion on the subject.
