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Life Insurance awanerness month marketing

While September is officially Life Insurance Awareness Month, in reality, every month presents an opportunity to reach out to old clients and discover new opportunities in your local market. Marketing and outreach are concepts that get thrown around quite a bit in the industry. Some agents excel at making new connections while others may need more concrete direction in order to feel comfortable. This month, we are gonna go over a couple of ways you can find success in your marketing campaign.

Work your existing business: the power of policy review

Some of the best revenue opportunities lay in your existing client base. Changes to regulations that affect our business and your clients’ opportunities such as the illustration update from AG 49A and IRC Section 7702 create a compelling reason to check in on your clients’ policies.

Reaching out via email or phone to offer a policy review has two main benefits: it shows your client that you are always looking out for their best interests and presents opportunities for your client to save money, purchase more coverage if their goals have changed, and helps keep them aware of new products and alternatives that may be applicable to their needs.

Make use of email campaigns to all of your clients regularly

In addition to offering a policy review, it is important to keep the line of communications between you and your client open throughout the month and year. A consistent, targeted, email campaign can help you get the word out about new products and services to your book of business while maintaining your brand and presence with your clients.

Social media marketing for life insurance

Use social media software to keep your clients in the loop

Social media scheduling software has come a long way in the past several years. Posting to socials can be a chore but going to where your client is online is still one of the best ways to connect with them.

Lifehappens Pro is your friend

Lifehappens Pro is a suite of technologies that can help simplify your overall outreach campaign. With the click of a button, you can coordinate social posts to reach your audience on several platforms. Check out their free trial and give it a go. You can find it here.

Lifehappens Pro can give you:

Flyers, brochures, and graphics to use in your campaign
Videos for greater client engagement
Themed campaigns (such as one for LIAM) to generate awareness
Content collections to pull resources from
Social media posting and analytics to see what’s working and what’s not
Calculators for just about anything your client would like to see

The trial is for 15 days, and after that you can keep the outreach rolling for only $32 dollars per month. We endorse them because we use them. It’s that simple and it will help take your marketing to a new level.

podcasts for life insurance marketing

Have you ever been on a podcast?

Consider creating a podcast that you can link to your website. Your clients aren’t in the industry, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to know more about what’s happening in life insurance. A monthly podcast can be a great way to keep your content fresh while discussing the job you love.

Or be a guest on someone else’s podcast

You can also search Spotify, Itunes, and other podcast libraries for existing podcasts about life insurance. Content creators are always looking for new people to talk to and interview. Reaching out to the owner of the podcast with some topics that you’d like to talk about is another way to get your message across. This has the added benefit of connecting with a pre-existing audience and could help with lead generation.

life insurance digital marketing

Use life insurance statistics: bring the receipts

Statistics can be a great way to illustrate the importance of life insurance on your website, social posts, blogs, and public appearances. Lifehappens and LIMRA are your go-to sites to find the latest studies and stats about the industry. Showing your visitors the current trends in the market can amplify their understanding while giving you targeted content to present in all of your marketing campaigns.

Reach out, follow up, and carry on

Ultimately, marketing outreach is something that you should prioritize if you want to grow your business. It’s important to maintain regular contact with your client. The marketing Rule of 7 states that a prospect will take action after hearing or seeing a message 7 times. While that may seem over the top, the implication is clear: If you aren’t reaching out and presenting clients and prospects with consistent messaging, very little will move them to take you up on the opportunities you are offering. Make outreach a small part of your daily routine and follow up on your success.

Term life insurance is used for a variety of different reasons. At its core, however, it offers inexpensive coverage in the event of the unthinkable, providing your clients’ families and businesses with a large payout for a specified duration. These durations are most commonly 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years. Those durations, coincidently, also correspond with common loan amounts people would use for either their mortgage payments or their small business loans. Let’s explore a creative and cost-effective way to help your client pay off their house in full should anything happen to them during the course of their mortgage agreement. Let’s take a look at term life layering.

Simple Term Insurance to Protect Your Client’s Home

Mortgage loans are often either 15 or 30-year notes. Mortgage protection insurance (not to be confused with primary mortgage insurance, or PMI, which is often required by the lender in case of default on the loan) is voluntary and covers the outstanding mortgage amount in the event that the homeowner dies.

What would happen if the primary wage earner died and the spouse suddenly had a mortgage payment due next month without the additional income? In today’s hot real estate market, the spouse could probably sell the home quickly and take the equity in the home to live off of for a while, but is this the best option? What happens in the future when the real estate market cools and it takes 6 months to sell the home? Will that spouse and the kids get evicted after a foreclosure? These are the types of questions that your client might not think to ask themselves. This is why they look to you for guidance and consultation. Fortunately, for the savvy broker, there is an intelligent way to layer term life so that addresses these concerns in an equitable way.

In the most obvious approach to solve these various crises, a client with a 15-year mortgage on a $500,000 home that they already put $200,000 down on, could use term life insurance to protect the remaining $300,000 balance by purchasing a 15-year term insurance policy for that amount. This way, should something happen to your client during the mortgage term, the death benefit would allow their spouse to pay off the house, not disrupt the kid’s daily lives any more than is already happening, and provide the breathing room necessary to make it through this difficult time.

Layering Term Life: Protect Your Client’s Mortgage Without Mortgaging Their Pocketbook

Layering (sometimes referred to as laddering) is accomplished by utilizing multiple term insurance policies, with various durations, to cover the mortgage loan. If your client took out a $300,000 mortgage, as in the example above, they would be paying down the mortgage over time. In this case let’s say the mortgage was a 30-year mortgage, instead of a 15-year. As they’re paying down the principal on the loan, they don’t need as much insurance in year 20 as they did in year 5 because they’ve been paying down the loan for an additional 15 years. So…they need to get three insurance policies: a $100,000 10 year, a $100,000 15 year, and a $100,000 30 year term life insurance policy that adds up to the same $300,000 in coverage on day one. Here’s where the math gets fun and where we can really save some money while protecting our clients. If a reasonably healthy, but slightly overweight, 45-year-old man buys a 30 year, $300,000 term policy to cover his $300,000 30 year mortgage, it will cost him about $1150 per year, or about $100 per month. If he were to instead layer the 10, 20, and 30 years, $100,000 policies, it would cost a total of $980 per year, or just over $80 per month. That’s almost a 20% savings each month! And it doesn’t end there!

Term Layering Presents a Tremendous Savings Over Time

Since mortgages are paid out over time, your client doesn’t need $300,000 in coverage in year 15, as they have already paid some of that down. By layering term policies, not only do you save them on the monthly cost of the insurance, but, in the example, we’ve used here, after each 10 year period, one of the term policies drops off, and they no longer need to pay for those, again lowering their monthly cost. In the first 10 years, they need all three policies in place, but after year 10, the 10-year term insurance policy drops off, lowering their monthly payment on the two remaining (20 and 30-year terms) to about $780 per year. And, 10 years after that, the second policy drops off, leaving them only with the remaining 30-year policy (which at this point still has 10 years to go), and again lowers their monthly payment to under $500 per year! Take the total premiums for 3, $100,000 policies that we layered and the total over 30 years would be about $22,500. A more than 35% savings compared to paying for a $300,000 30 year term!

Let’s check out some actual numbers to drive the point ‘home’.

Layered Premium Schedule for Male, age 45 Standard Non-tobacco

Year	10-Year/$100,000	20-Year/$100,000	30-Year/$100,000	Total Premium	30-Year/$300,000
	Annual Premium	Annual Premium	Annual Premium	Annual Premium	Annual Premium
1	$198.92	$290.51	$487.88	$977.31	$1,158.02
2	$198.92	$290.51	$487.88	$977.31	$1,158.02
3	$198.92	$290.51	$487.88	$977.31	$1,158.02
4	$198.92	$290.51	$487.88	$977.31	$1,158.02
5	$198.92	$290.51	$487.88	$977.31	$1,158.02
6	$198.92	$290.51	$487.88	$977.31	$1,158.02
7	$198.92	$290.51	$487.88	$977.31	$1,158.02
8	$198.92	$290.51	$487.88	$977.31	$1,158.02
9	$198.92	$290.51	$487.88	$977.31	$1,158.02
10	$198.92	$290.51	$487.88	$977.31	$1,158.02
11		$290.51	$487.88	$778.39	$1,158.02
12		$290.51	$487.88	$778.39	$1,158.02
13		$290.51	$487.88	$778.39	$1,158.02
14		$290.51	$487.88	$778.39	$1,158.02
15		$290.51	$487.88	$778.39	$1,158.02
16		$290.51	$487.88	$778.39	$1,158.02
17		$290.51	$487.88	$778.39	$1,158.02
18		$290.51	$487.88	$778.39	$1,158.02
19		$290.51	$487.88	$778.39	$1,158.02
20		$290.51	$487.88	$778.39	$1,158.02
21			$487.88	$487.88	$1,158.02
22			$487.88	$487.88	$1,158.02
23			$487.88	$487.88	$1,158.02
24			$487.88	$487.88	$1,158.02
25			$487.88	$487.88	$1,158.02
26			$487.88	$487.88	$1,158.02
27			$487.88	$487.88	$1,158.02
28			$487.88	$487.88	$1,158.02
29			$487.88	$487.88	$1,158.02
30			$487.88	$487.88	$1,158.02
Total Premium Paid	$1,989.20	$5,810.20	$14,636.40	$22,435.80	$34,740.60

Term Layering is a Strategy with Wider Applications

I used mortgages as an example here because the term durations offered by the insurance companies align well with mortgage loans. This strategy of layering can be used to fit many financial plans and objectives. Essentially any time-based asset that requires protection can be handled well and affordably with layered term policies. Your clients count on your expertise to help them protect their families and their assets. Thinking outside the box can reveal new strategies that save them money while still offering the peace of mind they need. It is always worth taking a look at how to use any insurance product to make sure that they get the most out of their coverage. Insurance products aren’t one-use propositions. Depending on the carrier, the budget, and the need, there are many ways to use any product to best fulfill the goals of your valued clients. Feel free to reach out to Rocky Mountain to see how you can provide the best possible opportunities for your client.

should you spread out your clients death benefit over time

The Pros of a Spreading Out Your Client’s Death Benefit

Have you ever been in a competitive situation with another agent and wish you could knock down the premium on a life insurance product while keeping the death benefit the same? Have you ever had a client come to you and as part of their overall financial plan you helped design, needing a certain amount of death benefit associated with their life insurance within a specific budget? How about a client who looks at you when you mention life insurance and says “I don’t want Mama/Papa to run off with a boyfriend/girlfriend with a whole bunch of money after I die!”? (This last one is one I’ve really heard!) There is a rider that comes free of charge, which can solve all of these issues.

benefits to spreading out the death benefit

A Rider to Spread Out the Death Benefit

A few carriers offer the ability to spread out the death benefit of a policy. The general idea is that instead of paying out the beneficiary a lump sum amount at the time of death, the owner of that policy can annuitize the death benefit, in a fully customizable way, to their heirs. Sometimes referred to as a “poor man’s trust”, these spread death benefit riders allow the owner to control the benefit paid from beyond the grave. If they have a spendthrift spouse or kid and are worried that they’ll take the entire $1 million death benefit and blow it in Las Vegas, they can dial in a smaller lump sum initially, provide a steady income for up to 30 years, and then also have a final lump sum payout at the end.

Spreading Out the Death Benefit Can Reduce Premiums and Raise Payouts

Let’s take a look at some examples here. Jeff and Stacy are 30 years old and have 2 young children. Jeff buys a term life insurance policy with a spread death benefit rider. The policy is applied, underwritten, and approved for $1,089,077. A few years later, Joe suddenly dies in an accident. His term insurance policy had been structured when it was purchased to pay out an initial lump sum to Stacy for $250,000, allowing her to pay off the house, cover his final expenses and wipe out the other credit card debt they had accumulated. Then, for the next 15 years, Stacy received a steady $3,000 per month, every month, until the kids finished school and at the end of the 15 years, she received a $500,000 final lump sum. The final lump sum was used to pay the kids’ college tuition and fees, and help fund Stacy’s retirement.

The total payout in this example was $1,290,000. The policy was a 30-year term policy and by structuring it with the spread death benefit option (at no cost) at the time of application, they were able to save $249 per year in premium. Remember, he only applied for $1,089,077, and that was what he paid premium on, not the $1.29MM total payout.

Here’s another example. Andrew is a 50-year-old male needing a $2,000,000 20 policy to make sure that his special needs daughter is covered if he were to die. At a standard rate, this will cost him $6,170.00 per year in our example. However, he has a budget of $5,000 per year. By structuring the policy to pay an initial lump sum of $250,000 to cover his final expenses, pay off the house, and providing a $250,000 final lump sum for her benefit, he is able to get to the same $2,000,000 payout and provide his daughter with a $5,002 fixed monthly payment for 25 years. And he did all that with only needing to be underwritten and approved for $1,586,916 at the time of application and the annual premium now fits his budget costing only $4,901.83 per year!

A Common Concern: Keeping Your Family Solvent for Years After Your Die

A fairly common objection to life insurance involves concerns about how a beneficiary will spend the death benefit. Some people really are against the idea of their spouses getting large lump sum payouts and “having a good time” without them at their expense. If Robert is 40 and in pretty good health. After filling out a needs identifier with you online, it’s determined that he needs $500,000 to replace his income for the next 15 years while the kids are still in the house. A 15 year, $500,000 term policy will cost him $45.58 per month, but he tells you that half a million dollars is way too much! “Why do they need that much money?! They’re just going to run off and vacation without me. They need only enough to cover my burial expenses.” By using one of these spread death benefit riders, you can now design a policy to have an initial benefit payout of $50,000 to cover the funeral expenses and pay off the car. Then for the next 15 years, while the kids are still in the house, we can replace his $2,500 per month income that “Mama” can’t get at while allowing them the same standard of living they were accustomed to. In this case, the monthly premium savings is minimal, now costing $44.93/month, but he’s accomplished his goal while still providing his family the protection that they need.

Rocky Mountain Can Help You Design A Case For These Clients

Each carrier’s rider is slightly different, but the one thing they all have in common is that they need to be selected at or before the time of issue. They can always be changed or canceled by the policy owner at any time prior to the insured’s death, but they cannot be added after the fact. We can help you with this case design if you have clients that fit these examples.

The current Guaranteed UL market is tumultuous to say the least right now. Everyone in our industry speaks to the “continued historic low interest rate environment”, and of course, they’re right. However, the fact remains that there are still options out there for low cost guarantees on permanent insurance to solve current (and likely even greater, future) estate planning problems. Indexed UL doesn’t have the same requirements as their GUL counterparts, and thus our carrier friends can offer lower premiums for equal death benefits.

Immediately though you think “but my client needs the guarantee in death benefit afforded by a GUL!” I’m amazed at the number of conversations I have with advisors that are unaware that IUL’s, specifically protection style IUL’s, offer guarantees to age 90, 95, 100 or beyond! Not only can we offer a death benefit guarantee to age 95, but we also have the advantage of indexing that can provide substantial cash value when designed correctly, often requiring less premium than its GUL cousin. The best of both worlds! The GUL, which still has its place in the planning world, continues to struggle. And yes… this is due to the longevity of the low interest rate environment that we currently experience.

There will always be a place and a need for guaranteed death benefit policies. As carriers providing traditional GUL policies continue to increase rates due to the hardship of the unforeseen, prolonged suffering of their general accounts because of the historic low interest rate environment, there do remain a few that stand out amongst the rest. There are still products to be found that are positioned to take advantage of this need and continue to rise to the top, even in an uncertain world.

Whether your client is looking for a single pay, short pay or 1035 scenarios, one carrier comes to mind immediately. Protective’s Lifetime Assurance UL and Advantage Choice UL are uniquely positioned in the GUL/GIUL space still to help these clients! And remember, IUL with no-lapse guarantees, offer both the protection of a GUL as well as the potential cash accumulation of an IUL with higher target premiums! Have your cake and eat it too!!!

Let’s take a look at some Protective examples.

Level Pay Design
Male Age 55 Standard Non-Tobacco, $500k DB, Guaranteed thru Age 100

1035 Exchange Design
Female Age 65 Standard Non-Tobacco, $1M DB, $200k 1035 Exchange, Guaranteed thru A105

Short Pay Design
Female Age 45 Select Preferred Non-Tobacco, $1M DB, Pay to Age 65, Guarantee thru Age 90

May is National Disability Insurance Awareness Month, DIAM. It, coincidentally, is also ALS Awareness Month, Correct Your Posture Month, National Stroke Awareness Month, National Motorcycle Awareness Month, National Brain Cancer and Brain Tumor Awareness Month, National Moving Month and Older Americans Month.

If you ask me, we get a little carried away with all the National Awareness’s, but having no control over it, I suppose we ought to embrace it. The mentioning of all the latter awareness’s above is they all may cause one to become disabled. So, while risking continued awareness fatigue, perhaps it is prudent to celebrate May as National Recommitment Month, and take another look at Disability Insurance.

We’ve all heard the old sales tactic of “if you had a machine that printed money, wouldn’t you want to insure it?” The idea being that our incomes are our biggest assets needing protection and if we were suddenly to become disabled, breaking the machine, it would have behooved us to have protected it with insurance. We also know that we are far more likely to become disabled then we are to die. The reality is, it’s very difficult to get people to listen. If a dentist or surgeon develops carpel tunnel syndrome and they are no longer able to perform their duties, how’s that practice going to survive?

Let’s talk about something a little different today though, still related to DI. Let’s talk about a disability buyout in coordination with a “deathtime” buy-sell agreement. Many business owners have been approached on the importance of funding their buy-sell agreement with life insurance, but far fewer have been approached about funding a disability buyout. What if we could take care of both with one policy? By utilizing a cash value life insurance policy, like an Index Universal Life, with a guaranteed death benefit out to age 95 or 100, we can accomplish this.

A properly designed IUL will accumulate cash value over time and provide a death benefit that can be used to fund the death time buy-sell agreement. Many IUL’s now have the ability to dial in a guarantee on the death benefit anywhere up to age 100! In the event that that business owner becomes disabled (far more likely than dying prematurely remember), the cash value in the policy can be used to either partially, or fully fund a disability buy-out of that business partner. Add a waiver of premium rider to the policy will allow the business to free up some additional cash that can be used to complete the buyout. As long as the policy doesn’t lapse, the death benefit after the partner dies, can also be used to complete the buyout if it hasn’t done so already.

Choosing the right carrier and the right policy is the key to a successful buy-sell or buyout funding plan. At Rocky Mountain Insurance Network, we are here to help with just that type of case design.

It has never been more important to help our clients protect what they have from the volatility in the market. According to a new study from Allianz Life, more than half of Americans say the pandemic has had a negative effect on their retirement savings and nearly the same number say they don’t think the markets have seen their lows yet. 72% say that they are reevaluating their savings plan and thinking about how to protect what they have from market volatility.

This is a great opportunity to have a conversation with your clients about hedging their retirement savings with an Index Universal Life policy. Insurance companies have figured out a better mouse trap and we owe it to our clients to discuss it with them. If 72% of our clients are looking to hedge their market risk, we already have the solution and we can help them with that. The IUL story has always been upside market potential with downside protection.

The introduction to multipliers a few years ago threatened to destroy that story with asset based fees and other hidden “Black Box” charges associated with their bonus multipliers in an effort to win an illustration war. AG-49a has put an end to those games and we now have a level playing field once again, that is in the best interest of the client. We can once again confidently discuss the benefits of Index UL with our clients.

Finally, there is no better asset class then a cash value life insurance policy when it comes to the tax advantages. A common objection we always hear is the underlying cost of insurance inherent in all of these contracts. A little known change in the IRS definition of life insurance, IRC sec. 7702, will make the cost of that insurance lower than ever. At Rocky Mountain Insurance Network, our motto has always been “The cost of insurance is significantly less than the cost of taxation.” Call us today so we can show you how we are helping our agents and advisors use IUL to hedge against market volatility and provide tax advantaged savings for their clients.

Life insurance is often thought of as the most effective way to replace a breadwinner’s income in the event of tragedy. Often overlooked however, is the need to cover the non-working spouse. Picturing life without your spouse is hard and most don’t like to do so, and for the advisor, it makes for a very difficult conversation about your client’s mortality. The fact is that a non-working spouse is as important to the family, if not more so, then the breadwinner. If, heaven forbid, the unthinkable does happen and a non-working spouse dies too early, the effect on the family will go far beyond the emotional grieving that ensues.

The financial ramifications of losing either spouse to premature death can be devastating. If that spouse is a stay at home parent, the ability to now pay for child care alone can crush a family’s budget. The working spouse, in order to continue the income stream they produced, will have to go back to work, but will likely want to do so only after they’ve had adequate time to grieve and console the kids. If that non-working spouse had coverage in the form of life insurance, they would be able to take the necessary time off before having to return to work allowing the family time to heal and plan for the future. Thus when the surviving spouse does eventually have to return to work, the affairs associated with the estate have been settled and planning for help with child care can be lined up.

There is no doubt that the cost of child care has skyrocketed in recent years. Ensuring there is enough life insurance coverage in place to pay for that necessary cost, will result in the family being financially secure and allow the other spouse to return to work. But the benefits don’t end with just child care. There are many things to consider if a non-working spouse dies. They were likely responsible for transportation, meal preparation, and other household activities that we take for granted in a one-earner household that would now need to be attended to, and if the breadwinner is to return to work, then those activities will need to done by someone else.

Furthermore, we haven’t yet discussed the real possibility that there may still be outstanding debt as well as medical bills that were accrued prior to the spouses passing. These medical bills can be huge! Life insurance doesn’t need to be expensive to provide the coverage a family like this needs, but the conversation must happen if we are to provide a holistic approach to the overall financial plan.

A good rule of thumb is to have a policy with 75% of the face amount then that of the breadwinner and this can be accomplished with an inexpensive 20 or 30 year term policy. Many of these policies today also include living benefit riders that may provide a portion of the benefit early if a major medical event occurs. This may very well allow a quality of life during the final months of an illness that would be unimaginable before. Stories of a terminal cancer diagnosis on a young father qualifies him to accelerate some of his death benefit so he is able to take his family on a memorable vacation to Disney Land are common with these types of policies. Imagine, as a financial advisor or insurance professional being able to bring the heroic news that that family will now get the money they need when they need it most!

There are real benefits for estate planning purposes as well. Whether a separate policy is used and placed in a trust for a family with a sizable estate, or a second-to–die policy is used, exceptions on the typical maximum of insurance allowed for a non-working spouse can be made. There is financial underwriting that occurs in each applied for policy. Insurance companies will make income exceptions for non-working spouses for a number of reasons. Knowing some of the guidelines, or having them at your fingertips when meeting with clients, will help you better present and explain the need for this insurance. We’re here to help. Let us know who needs this in your book of business, and we’ll leverage our resources to get these families the coverage they need.

Whether you agree with it or not, it’s our new reality and it’s not likely to change anytime soon. 11% of US adults say they have used marijuana in the last month and 48% of them have admitted to using it at least once in their lives. These aren’t just millennials either. These adults are fathers, mothers, grandparents and business owners and have no less need for the protection that life insurance provides then the non-user.

Historically it’s been difficult to find coverage for anyone who admits to drug use including marijuana. While it’s still a challenge finding coverage for the employee or owner of someone in the marijuana industry, insurance carriers have become more relaxed about the users of marijuana.

Depending on age, usage and whether or not THC is found in the lab results, we may be able to help clients get a preferred best, non-tobacco offer today. Download the file below to a list of some of the carrier’s requirements. For better or worse, Colorado led the pack in legalizing marijuana and at Rocky Mountain Insurance Network, we are here to help our advisors find the best possible coverage available for all of your clients.

Underwriting for Marijuana Clients

Download

There are two things that all clients are thinking about during these times. The first is their own mortality in an uncertain, pandemic world. The second are their taxes and how a changing administration and unprecedented federal stimulus will most certainly change them in the future. There was a relatively unheard of gift that happened at the beginning of 2021 that has been the “shot in the arm” that we may all have needed, and it wasn’t a Covid vaccine.

At the end of December, 2020, The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, was signed by then President Trump. This was the second largest stimulus bill aimed at relieving Americans impacted by the pandemic. Near the end of the more than 2100 page bill, was a change in IRC Sec. 7702, the definition of life insurance. 7702 dictates how much premium is allowed into a life insurance contract while still being defined as life insurance, and not an investment, thus preserving its tax advantages. If more premium is paid in, using one of two tests (GPT or CVAT), then is allowed by the definition, the contract becomes a Modified Endowment Contract or MEC. MEC status strips a policy of its tax advantages while the insured is alive.

The changes made by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, allow for a changing interest rate model for defining the minimum interest rates as opposed to the fixed interest rate model used before. These rates can now change based on the changes in market interest rates. In a prolonged, historically low interest rate environment, like we’ve been in for some time, it has been difficult for insurance companies to maintain profitability which has come at the expense of a policy’s performance.

The new rules allow for more premium to be paid into the same policy without it becoming a MEC, thus increasing its overall performance. This is obviously good news for accumulation products such as accumulation IUL, but also just as good for protection products. For older clients (think those in their 70s), we can take the same 12 pay premium for a given face amount and apply it now in only 8 years. This allows the indexing to take hold quicker and reduces the drag effect from the mortality charges resulting in far more efficient policies for older clients.

It’s not just older clients either. Impaired risk cases also will now have the ability to shine. As mentioned before, there is a reduction in the drag on a policy from the reduction of mortality charges associated with it due to a reduction in the net amount at risk to the insurance company increases the overall efficiency. We have the ability to now better attend to the financial needs of our clients using Index Universal Life, whether for protection or accumulation, even if they are aging or not in the best of health. We started this by saying that American’s mortality was more top of mind than ever, and this subgroup of the population has been at far greater risk for a year now, then ever before. Let’s go help secure their financial legacies and fulfil their protection goals.

Circling back to the second concern on every clients mind now – taxes. There is some irony in the fact that the bill passed in December that gave us in the life insurance and financial planning business this gift, came in the form a stimulus bill that most all will agree will eventually increase our taxes. We’re not here to argue over the benefits vs. detriments of stimulus spending, but the reality is, we will need to eventually pay for our increased spending. Our political climate is changing and with a new administration and a new congress seated, people are feeling uncertain as to what to expect from a tax standpoint in the future. Life insurance has always had a unique standing in tax planning landscape, and now more than ever, we need to look at it as an alternative asset class. If you’re a financial planner or wealth manager, you likely have a formula you prefer. X amount goes into managed money, x amount into an annuity etc. But life insurance was always too expensive, right?

With the changes that have been implemented to 7702, financial planners, RIA’s, wealth management firms, etc. will all need to take a second look at Index Universal Life. The changes that allow for a more efficient policy, will see a pickup in IRR by perhaps 50 basis points while still experiencing the tax advantaged growth. And, with 72% of Americans saying that they are reevaluating their savings plan and thinking about how to protect what they have from market volatility, what better way to help them do so then with a product designed to never have a negative return. We’ve all heard it called a Roth Alternative, or a Super Roth Alternative, now maybe it’s a Super Super Roth Alternative. Add in the living benefit riders to help cover expenses associated with long term care, and your fiduciary responsibility is covered.

Whether it’s a Roth alternative, a 529 plan alternative, special needs advanced planning, or older and/or less healthy clients we’re trying to help, the changes to 7702 will allow us to better serve our clients. Couple this change with the elimination of being able to illustrate ridiculous bonuses and multipliers, which were never going to prove feasible, that AG 49a afforded us, and we are re-legitimizing our place in the planning process. Call us today so we can help prepare your next proposal.

Whether you are a new advisor or have been providing outstanding client service for decades, statistics show that the industry is missing out on an enormous opportunity in our marketplace since its inception: Women. Insurance marketing up until this point in time has been entirely focused on securing the financial future for the families of the main breadwinner. Note the singular nature of that word. Breadwinner. Not only do many families today force that noun into the plural, in fact, many women are indeed the main breadwinner (nearly 41% of families and growing as of 2017, to be exact), and over 64% of families involve two working parents according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet, in the vast majority of life insurance marketing that you’ve seen for the past many years, the media depicts a family while only addressing one of the breadwinners. The assumption proves itself in the disparity between men who own life insurance versus women. It is well past time to stop ignoring, not only from a sales and revenue standpoint but also from a client service standpoint, this incredible opportunity to serve the ‘better half’ of our nation, and the numbers invariably support this hypothesis.

Exhibit A: Women Outnumber Men and Always Have

Let’s start with the basics. There are more women than men in the United States. Given that life insurance is designed to protect any human being’s loved ones in the event of their death, this fact alone tells us that selling life insurance for women makes economic sense to any advisor.

Diving into the details, there are roughly 7.4 million more women than men in our country. This represents an approximately 1.1% market advantage gap between the genders in favor of women. While that might seem slight when taken with other statistics that we will share in this article, that 1.1% difference is actually underrepresented in terms of life insurance needs. But let it stand that there are (and always have been) more women in the market than men.

Rudimentary logic applied to the economics of scale tells us that in any market where there is a dominance of one type of client over another, our approach should naturally gravitate towards the dominant client. In the case of our industry, we should have been marketing our important services to women as breadwinners and essential lives in the household since the beginning. Seeing as the first life insurance policy sold in the United States was way back in 1844, perhaps the culture of the times is to blame for this mistake.

Exhibit B: Women Live Longer Than Men

The fact is that women, on average, live a full 6 to 8 years longer than men. This fact could be misconstrued to support the greater importance to supply life insurance to men, since, in many cases, it is their families who inherit the death benefits after their husband passes away. However, to apply that logic we must neglect the facts that the mother will live on while also considering the issue of her Long Term Care, her salary, or the real possibility that she is a single mother or woman without children who has beneficiaries nonetheless.

The fact that women outlive men by nearly a decade cannot be understated. Not only does this allow them to reap greater returns in a cash accumulation life insurance vehicle, but it also means that the inherent longevity of women makes them clients for 6 to 8 years longer than their male counterparts.

All of this applies to women who do not have husbands. Longer lifespans require greater needs for end-of-life care which the proper policy can provide. Educating ourselves and our female clients on these stark realities is not just a play for more business but a true service that we can provide for our clients.

Exhibit C: Women Are Underrepresented In the Life Insurance Marketplace

This is where actual progress can be made and this is your mission as a life insurance advisor, male or female. The truth of the matter is that women, despite their equal value in their family’s financial well-being, are less likely to own a life insurance policy. The gender gap when it comes to life insurance in the United States is astounding.

According to a study published by Haven Life, there is a 12% gap (67% for women, 79% for men) between men who own life insurance policies compared to women who own them. Add that to the 1.1% population gap where there are more women than men and the picture becomes clearer. We, as an industry, are not involving women nearly enough in our efforts to insure as many Americans as possible.

The gap increases when we look a bit deeper into the women that have purchased a life insurance policy. Of this 67% of women who own policies, the average coverage amount for women was $231,342. The average amount of coverage for men? $423,102. Not only are fewer women insured despite their earning status in the family and their greater numbers in the overall population but they are also underinsured in terms of their male counterparts.

Women Are the Next Great Opportunity In Life Insurance: Closing Arguments

I’d like to point out one more important statistic:

70% of widows fire their advisors after their spouse dies.

To me, that is very telling. By focusing so much on your client that purchased the policy, it is easy to neglect the person they love the most. This social disconnect is devastating for business and unfair to the client you valued so highly.

Rocky Mountain makes every effort to not only treat men and women as the equals they are but to also understand the needs of our clients’ spouses as we administer the primary policy. This statistic is only frightening to advisors that are unprepared to engage with the family as well as the client. Rocky Mountain prepares the advisors who work with us to understand this opportunity and not only better serve their client, but retain the trust of their loved ones as well

Herein lies the opportunity that exists from a revenue and client-service perspective for any advisor looking to increase their book of business. Let’s run the numbers one last time to prove the case.

Population: There are 1.1% more women than men in the U.S. (7.4 million)
Longevity: Women live 6-8 years longer than men, making them excellent clients for LTC and other vehicles
Gender Gap: Women are 12% less insured than men
Underinsured: Women, despite being the main breadwinners in 41% of households, are insured $192,000 dollars less than men

Our advice is to reach out to more female clients. If the statistics are any indication, you likely have many clients that have women in their lives that could benefit from the insurance you have provided for the men in their life. The equality of the sexes is indisputable. Our industry is poised to make that equality a reality when it comes to providing outstanding client service to all of the women that are underrepresented in the marketplace today. The jury is no longer out. The numbers speak for themselves. In the case of including women to a greater degree in our life insurance marketplace, the verdict is yes. Case closed.