In this article I will NOT go into to much detail on the basics of either health or life insurance. If you’re a new agent you'll hopefully be trained by your mentor. If you’re a veteran you don't need a refresher course. However, I will go over what I think are important basic features of both health and life that make those products "internet friendly". Both health and life insurance are intangible products, meaning the client doesn't get to see or touch what they are buying. What they are buying is a CONCEPT. The concept is that if they incur a medical expense, some portion of that will be covered by the insurance company or when they die the insurance company will pay money to their beneficiary. When selling online you won't have the luxury of seeing body language or facial expressions so you have to make sure your client is on the same frequency as you, much more than in a face to face situation.
LIFE INSURANCE BASICS YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR ONLINE SALES
Life Insurance is one of the most important financial tools families use today. There are only two reasons for life insurance, either to create an estate or to transfer one. There are instances when tax and financial planning professionals will recommend insurance products for tax purposes but for the most part 99% of all insurance sales are made to accomplish one of the two aforementioned reasons.
100% of online insurance sales are made to create an estate or what I call “income replacement coverage”. The insurance will be used to replace lost income caused by the premature death of one of the parents. I rarely recommend life insurance to individuals without children, the exception being if both spouse’s incomes are needed to pay a mortgage. Or some other financial commitment that would burden the surviving spouse. Many life insurance professionals will argue this with me, but remember internet sales and marketing is far different from face to face consultative sales. Therefore, life insurance is usually an “add on” product to what the prospect was originally looking for online, a health insurance quote.
• Life insurance is easier to qualify for than health insurance. For the most part underwriting on life policies are far more lax then on health insurance
• There are only two reasons to have life insurance: either to create and estate or transfer one.
• Term life or “income replacement coverage” is what our online clients will need in almost 99% of the cases we run into.
• General rule of thumb of how much: Primary insured's income multiplied by the number of years until the youngest child is on their own example: Dad makes $75,000 per year, youngest child is 2. $75,000 X 20 (years until youngest child is 22) = estimated face value $1.5 MM 20 year term.
I go into much more detail on these topics and more in the ebook “How to Build Your Own Online Insurance Agency”.
Rick Liuag spent over 20 years as an executive for several telecommunications and technology companies before starting his own online insurance agency in 2004. He has been a top individual producer for mulitple companies each year since 2005. In 2008 Mr. Liuag founded Integrated Resources Inc. A company designed to train and mentor insurance agents on how to market and sell more health and life insurance online. In 2009 he authored the ebook "How to Build Your Own Online Insurance Agency", an interactive training manual on what web based tools and strategies work best for insurance agents to prosper in the new internet economy. Learn more about the ebook at http://www.Theautomaticagency.biz or visit his blog at http://www.theautomaticagency.biz/blog
