Final Expense Company Selection

[keith48]

Good rates, short app

Piss poor service and claims

Claims and service is indeed horrible. I have been trying to get a claim settled on a policy that was written 6 years ago. No reason for the delays. Going on 5 weeks since they got the claim forms and all documentation.

Newby, I don't know you, but I must say this is one of the most valuable threads I've ever seen posted here. You are an asset to this forum. Thank you.

 

[Gooner]

Claims and service is indeed horrible. I have been trying to get a claim settled on a policy that was written 6 years ago. No reason for the delays. Going on 5 weeks since they got the claim forms and all documentation.

Newby, I don't know you, but I must say this is one of the most valuable threads I've ever seen posted here. You are an asset to this forum. Thank you.

If you knew him...you wouldn't say that. Haha

 

[term1]

Trans app is so long and needs 4 sig's but the transamerica name is easy to sell. I'm amazed one can get fe clients to do a pos. heck I wrote 2 trans policy's in one house last week and after all the chit chat and writing I was there 2 hrs. If I did a pos it would have been 3 hrs.

 

[WinoBlues]

Claims and service is indeed horrible. I have been trying to get a claim settled on a policy that was written 6 years ago. No reason for the delays. Going on 5 weeks since they got the claim forms and all documentation.

Newby, I don't know you, but I must say this is one of the most valuable threads I've ever seen posted here. You are an asset to this forum. Thank you.

I do not sell by price so it easy to put them in "only if I have to" pile.

 

[Newby]

Awesome thread, wish I had this advice when I first started. Although it's super helpful even now, year later. For me My top 3 are SNL for their lead credit and debit express RNA for their no H/W And Americo, but they are similar to SNL in rates, do you recommend another company to replace this one? How about Standard Life, since they go down to younger Ages...... Thanks! Amber

SNL is a company we just added and I haven't personally used so I'm less familiar with the triggers they would have without studying their app. But from what I know about them they seemed like they had a stronger graded product than the Prefered product. They could work but I think RNA would be the stronger lead in company of your choices. I would probably have Settlers as your third because their silver plan especially has a lot of unique conditions that are acceptable. I also like having a company with a 20-pay option for those younger applicants.

Regardless of which company you choose for your main, you just make a list that is specific to that company of the common health conditions or situations that cause you to trigger away. By common I mean you want to know where you are going with heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, COPD, obesity, debit express payers, people on disability, mental conditions and younger applicants under age 50 who are FE caliber. If you know where you are going with these conditions you will be good on the majority of your appointments. You can always keep fine tuning as you discover the less common conditions like seizures, hepatitis, etc. Every condition that is listed on your main company's app should eventually be compared to see if a secondary company would be a substantially better option or not and if so, that becomes a trigger for you.

You will quickly become an expert at your companies and make more sales, make more money and win more company trips and lead credits.

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Excellent post! Knowing who to place where is a crucial skill to hone! I'm surprised nobody has come up with an app yet where you can just plug in the health conditions and it gives you a list of which carriers most likely to underwrite! Is there such an "app" available or did I just stumble on to the next "million dollar" idea?

That's an idea that gets thrown around a lot. Adam that owns FexQuotes actually called me very excited one day with the answer (he thought.) I thought he was going to tell me he added that feature.

What he came up with was going to be a call button within the quoter that all the agents that use FexQuotes would press anytime they were stumped on a case. It would call my cell phone. If I didn't answer it would go to another guy or two. I was flattered that he thought of me but I thought he had lost his mind. There would be so many calls a day that I would never be able to handle the majority of them. I'm doing good when I can handle these calls from my own agents. FexQuotes has thousands of subscribers. Thanks but no thanks!

The closest tool I know of is our own website that lists health conditions and how different companies rate them. It's also got all the RX guides, all the height-weight charts and all the underwriting guides for all our companies right there together for easy access on the fly. It's a usefull tool but never complete. It's always an ongoing project. I think most good FE IMOs have something similar for their own agent's use. I know some agents have collected a lot of data together and put it in a cheat sheet that you can carry with you. There is a thread on the forum about that and it's useful. Also just a forum search on any unusual health condition will usually pull up a discussion about that condition.

And we just have to face facts. We can't help everybody. At least not with first day full coverage. As agents get a little experience on them they learn when they really do have to go to graded or GI plans.

 

[goget]

Theres no doubt in my mind the learning curve is much greater than most other types of insurance. One must learn at least 5 carriers,learn how to manage areas and leads,learn the do's and don't of each carrier's underwriting,learn how to fill out each carriers apps 100% accurate. The hardest part is getting enough leads week in and week out to be able to see at least 10-15 people each and every week. One must learn how to get the appointments to how to present and close. Its so much info all at once that getting it down pat takes many many months and getting in front of tons of people to hone your craft. And of course people need the money for at least 10 weeks of leads and money to live on for 3-5 months.Starting off is very challenging. But what newby says is correct in that if you're not confident in your knowledge of carriers and are fumbling around not sure were to write something the client will pick up on that.You can't always have the best product for someone as you don't sell every carrier. Simply have a few great carriers that newby listed and a few good graded like Aetna and 5 star and a gi like gerber and vantis and that's it. That's what you sell and that's it period. It covers most people.When I started at met many yrs ago I sol one company and you either sold that or you sold nothing

 

[bboman23]

Very good post Newby! Every agent should have a starting lineup.

 

[jdeasy]

Very good post Newby! Every agent should have a starting lineup.

Not just a line up. One company. One company as a go to that you intend to write everyone with. Learn that company inside out and they will learn you too.

I'm prety sure that's what Newby is saying. But there is not one company out there for everyone so you should have a couple more to default to if they are not a good fit for your number one.

For me that's RNA. If everyone was a good fit for RNA they would all go to RNA. They are not so I carry some others for those people. Today you pretty much have to have a carrier or two that takes the DE card. RNA doesn't so there's what Newby calls a "trigger" to go elsewhere.

 

[Rearden]

Not just a line up. One company. One company as a go to that you intend to write everyone with. Learn that company inside out and they will learn you too.

I'm prety sure that's what Newby is saying. But there is not one company out there for everyone so you should have a couple more to default to if they are not a good fit for your number one.

For me that's RNA. If everyone was a good fit for RNA they would all go to RNA. They are not so I carry some others for those people. Today you pretty much have to have a carrier or two that takes the DE card. RNA doesn't so there's what Newby calls a "trigger" to go elsewhere.

After a year of training brand new agents to Final Expense, here is my perspective on how new agents should properly contract with carriers:

1) Understand that fundamentally this business is a one-call close business; every time -- even when the prospect confidently assures you he will buy from you in 2-3 weeks when you have access to the carrier you need -- you leave a house without ink on paper, your chances of closing that prospect are at least cut in half if not more. Namely because of competition beating you to the punch, malaise setting in, etc.

However, a new agent does not want to become overwhelmed trying to learn 10 carriers and each of their nuances.

To solve for this matter, I instruct my agents to learn 2 to 3 carriers back and forth, up and down to cover 80-85% of the possible underwriting situations, and to have the other carriers on "back-up" when one of those bread-and-butter carriers do not fit.

Therefore, I have my agents contract with everything -- despite it being an extra hassle -- so we can optimize every opportunity we run into.

 

[agentjhc]

Good thread. Be interesting to see a similar thread on Med Supps from those of you with a lot of experience in. Med Supps, though I do realize there could be significant regional/state variations in premiums (Oxford in TN vs GA for example).