Selling Life Insurance...

[Crabcake Johnny]

How often is whole life sold underfunded and over time they can't afford the premiums anyway? Then the premiums chew up all the cash value and the insured is left with a fat goose egg. Well....except the DB. Pretty expensive DB at that.

 

[insuremojo]

LOL, this is why clients need good agents...

 

[James]

You appear to be a tool of the mutual fund industry. Think of all the tax you will have to pay out when you start withdrawing it. Think of how much better off you'd be paying long-term capital gains taxes. Think of how much more money you'd have if your mutual fund didn't siphon off so much off the top. Plus you are assuming we won't have a major correction before you need the money. And lets not forget the risk, unless you are already retired, that tomorrow you won't be able to get out of bed. How much matching contribution does your employer offer when you are unable to work?

I was referring to your numbers about charging your contribution with a 20% charge card.

Over the last 20 years the stock market has done blah blah blah. So in the future the stock market will do blah blah blah.

Don't sweat these people, they are just feeding off themselves and trying to create some aurora for themselves. Why most Life Agents do not spend much time here once they meet these characters. Oh well, I was suprise they allowed this thread to go on as far as they did without doing the proverbial "Shout Down".

Yet, if you notice not one of them could deal with the real issues at the heart of the problem.

Yet, let's have some fun! You remember the ex cabinet member of the Clinton Administration, Rorbert Riech (spelling) the education or health guy, can not remember right off the bat. He was ask about funding or the saving of Social Security and Medicare. Which he return with no big fan fair, that qualified money could very well be the answer! Now the interviewer (I'm thinking Chris Matthrews) said "What" in his voice, he said he seen no problem, they'll get their money back with bigger SS benefits!

Now I'm sure most have a hard time believing that such a thing could happen but, truth is stranger than fiction. Plus, we are now seeing private property rights of ones home is not as secure as we thought. I'm thinking if a small town can steal someones home to resell to another private party, the federal government would have no problem stealing a few trillion here or there. Most investors don't have enough to get all that mad, esp. if they are promised higher SS benefits.

So the next time you hear Hilderbeast or Obama claim they can fund SS and Universal HC, they know where they can go and start the funding process! There has been research papers about this subject, SS and Qualified Plans, just can not remember off hand where they are at? If I find them again I'll be happy to post links. Studies and articles would vary from Congress members and major think tanks of DC.

Now no, I don't use this in my points when selling WL! I probably should though!

Ps, while the Roth is overally favored the cap is $5,000 the last time I looked and it goes away fairly quickly. The other day I was sitting down and talking to a RN and spouse the PA. Household income of around 190 grand, so how much can they place in a ROTH?

 

[J.R.]

Don't sweat these people, they are just feeing off themselves and trying to create some aurora for themselves. Why most Life Agents do not spend much time here once they meet these characters. Oh well, I was suprise they allowed this thread to go on as far as they did without doing the proverbial "Shout Down".

Yet, if you notice not one of them could deal with the real issues at the heart of the problem.

Yet, let's have some fun! You remember the ex cabinet member of the Clinton Administration, Rorbert Riech (spelling) the education or health guy, can not remember right off the bat. He was ask about funding or the saving of Social Security and Medicare. Which he return with no big fan fair, that qualified money could very well be the answer! Now the interviewer (I'm thinking Chris Matthrews) said "What" in his voice, he said he seen no problem, they'll get their money back with bigger SS benefits!

Now I'm sure most have a hard time believing that such a thing could happen but, truth is stranger than fiction. Plus, we are now seeing private property rights of ones home is not as secure as we thought. I'm thinking if a small town can steal someones home to resell to another private party, the federal government would have no problem stealing a few trillion here or there. Most investors don't have enough to get all that mad, esp. if they are promised higher SS benefits.

So the next time you hear Hilderbeast or Obama claim they can fund SS and Universal HC, they know where they can go and start the funding process! There has been research papers about this subject, SS and Qualified Plans, just can not remember off hand where they are at? If I find them again I'll be happy to post links. Studies and articles would vary from Congress members and major think tanks of DC.

Now no, I don't use this in my points when selling WL! I probably should though!

Ps, while the Roth is overally favored the cap is $5,000 the last time I looked and it goes away fairly quickly. The other day I was sitting down and talking to a RN and spouse the PA. Household income of around 190 grand, so how much can they place in a ROTH?

How about a SEP IRA???

 

[James]

How about a SEP IRA???

How about it? Okay with me. They can use cash value for the "Total Insurance Plan Makeover".

 

[Mr. Bill]

Well the last two pages were definitely interesting. From a tax standpoint, I'm glad there are so many large IRAs out there so you people can pay taxes on my behalf (during your retirement years).

On another note, I have yet to see one person successfully retire prior to age 59 1/2 using IRA distributions to live on. We can yak on and on and on about the methods which avert tax penalties, but the reality is that for the most part, American workers have been convinced to use their own money to fund their own retirement (instead of an employer providing a pension) and their expectations for returns and withdrawals are simply too high.

 

[James]

Okay, it has been a day and I'm thinking the Drive By's have decided to go play in another sand box? Hopefully, they do get boring after a while.

Let's talk about the first aspects of prospecting to these fine people. First off, I attempt to get leads the old fashion way, I open the yellow pages! Na, just kidding even though that is a great resource, I like to go down to the library (they have a coffee bar now in our library) and visit and chat up with people while doing my research.

I already have a certain business in mind, lets say today I am interested in growing plants and the like, great it is all about Nurseries, Garden shops and the like. I get the business reference books and find all the listings, generally they'll have information of when the business was started, number of employees, SIC, credit ratings sometimes etc etc.. I simply copy the pages at 10 cents per copy, each page will generally have ten listings, so that is 1 cent per lead for those that like to crunch numbers.

So with a roll of dimes in hand I should leave with about 500 leads if there is that many leads of this type of prospect. Sometimes I have to use several business types before I can use up a roll of dimes. Generally speaking this is a once in a week event, generally this is done on monday. I find it a great way to start a week, working getting those all valuable leads that I could probably resell to gullible agents for around $100, if I find ten gullible agents? Hey, what the hell am I doing peddling insurance to savvy business owners!

Okay, now that I have about 500 leads, it is a race to the ole' boiler room! Okay, that is either an office may it be Colonial, Conseco, AIG or my home office, whichever suits my flavor that day. So, it is time to hit the telephone, keep this in mind, the less you say the easier it is! Now the only thing I'm attempting to do here is to make sure they are still in business and the listed owner is still the owner. Plus, I'm seeing if they will give me permission to drop off some information, that is it, nothing more nothing less.

So basically it is nothing more then this,

Me; Dear sir/mam, this is James from James's Insurance Agency, God's gift to insurance how are you doing today?

Lead; I'm fine what is this in reference to?

Me; I'm in the process of working with other Nurseries/Garden Shops in your vincinity, we have information about our Review Process and Products that others in your industry have found helpfull. I just need to confirm your address and name of owner so I can send it over to you, would that be okay?

Lead; I guess it would be okay?

Me; Great, I have your address as 123 Locust, Great Plains and zip is 23456, is that correct? I have your owner as Mr. Big is that correct? Great, by the way, can I have your name to put down as a contact? Great, you will recieve this information within a week, I hope to have the good fortune of working with you and your company!

You see, I'm not needing to talk to anyone specific person nor am I trying to make an appointment and most will verify their address and owner's name, why not you call them not like you don't know correct? Now, that I have confirm several hundred names and addresses it is time to go out and to the proverbial drop.

I really don't care to much of what is in the "Drop", I use a flyer covering the general products, Life, DI, and Supplements. A letter of introduction and some company brochures all stuff in a nice plain white letter size envelope. I then proceed to go B2B, I have the addresses so I can direct my drive time for the day, I have the gate keepers name if there is one, they generally answer the phones. I have the business owners name, I can now ask to speak to him directly, I know the gate keeper! I have their permission to drop off my materials!

Now some say you shouldn't use company brochures because they are not well suited for selling. Well, all I can say this is a people's business and if you have a crutch that calls for a "Great Sale Flyer" get rid of it. Its all going to be thrown away at the end of the day and no person ever said to me, "Wait, first I have to look at this flyer, brochure or letter before I agree to set up an appointment time!". What they do know is this, I called and recieve permission to come by, I carried thru with what I said so far and now asking for an appointment to show them what kind of work I do!

Now in most small businesses the owner is close by when you walk in, simply ask for the contact person. You walk up and say, Hi, I'm James we spoke the other day and I'm here dropping off my materials. Is Mr/Mrs Big here? So you meet the owner or likely so and introduce yourself, you can do that formally by using a Five Way type of presentation or simply use the informal way and just ask for an appointment so you can show them what kind of work you do.

Now this is all it takes, no great deal of money or energy. Just a little bit of your time and gas and in no time you can have your calender filled to the brim. Always be honest and open in what you do, don't buy into the nonsense that "Insurance" is a killer and never use it. Most people like their insurance agent if they have one, hopefully their insurance person does P&C and they don't have a life agent. Then you simply plant your flag as their Life Agent that can be called upon at any time.

Don't be a one time johnny, stay in contact even if they don't buy today, in most cases its simply a matter of timing. Plus if you live in a small city such as I do, you get known as the insurance guy fairly quickly and many that see you as the Insurance Guy may never have brought a policy from you. Go to the grocery store or mall and you run into these leads all the time, meet their family and kids so when you go back to revisit you're a family friend!

 

[James]

Agreed. Worst case scenario with perm life is you earn the minimum rate and take don't see a real gain due to inflation, but your money's there. You can put your money in stocks/mutual funds and yes, it can evaporate.

CDs, however, offer the same, if not more protection then perm life policies.

Regarding stocks please remember - there is no reward without risk. Uneducated people like to make the "but there is reward without risk" comments to clients. Really.....if there was reward without risk every person and financial institution would be in it.

I'm going thru these comments of the two pages of BS by John, M&M and others, yet this one sticks out as a good one. Those Uneducated People want an investment with no risk? Okay, explain me this, why so much BOLI out there? Banks and companies cross the board have Trillions of dollars stuck in BOLI's? They must be a part of your "Uneducated Masses", no sir I submit the uneducated is a lot closer to you than you think. I was kind of stuck between this one and the other where you threw out that proverbial "Underfunded WL", that was pretty good too.

 

[James]

James, I have forgotten more about life insurance than you'll ever know...
How many parts of CLU have you completed? Do you want me to post my transcript from the American College?

While you're posting about circulating brochures from those second-rate, low-budget companies you work with, my life resume includes;

Prudential - learned life from ground-up, doing debit insurance
Guardian - business owner/professional clientele
Phoenix - two years as a life wholesaler in the high net worth market

How 'bout you? Life of Georgia? Noticed in a earlier thread, didn't bother to tell us how many lives you write...just that your average commission is "right around $2,000 per client".

Lastly your abacus needs a tune-up - in the example, you make $450 fyc on the whole life case, and $300 on the term...

First off, I don't know any one Agent that is a big enough sucker or just stupid that they would agree on 50% comp on Term (I'm assuming you are talking first year) and 75% comp on WL? In my experience no Ind. Agent even the suckers that buy into NAA makes 55% first year comp on Term, I make around 115% first year comp on term and you are correct about 75% comp first year on WL. So in your example of only having 50 dollars amonth to spend or $600 annually I would make about $690 on a Term sale and about $450 with a Whole Life if the monthly amount is the same.

Of course what do I know, I'm not the one that wash out of three different Life companies only to end up selling Health.

 

[J.R.]

First off, I don't know any one Agent that is a big enough sucker or just stupid that they would agree on 50% comp on Term (I'm assuming you are talking first year) and 75% comp on WL? In my experience no Ind. Agent even the suckers that buy into NAA makes 55% first year comp on Term, I make around 115% first year comp on term and you are correct about 75% comp first year on WL. So in your example of only having 50 dollars amonth to spend or $600 annually I would make about $690 on a Term sale and about $450 with a Whole Life if the monthly amount is the same.

Of course what do I know, I'm not the one that wash out of three different Life companies only to end up selling Health.

I'm up to speed on health, but not life so forgive my ignorance.
What companies offer term commission up to 115% and is that direct or through an IMO? If it's an IMO, who is it?? Most of the numbers I've been given for term are 90%-100%.