Last week, I shared with you 3 of my goals for the first quarter of the year. One of them is to collaborate with agents & advisors to identify opportunities within their existing book of business.
Regardless of how you dissect your book of business, there is one thing that you need to do – make sure that your inventory of clients and their associated information is up to date. This creates one of your first opportunities to engage with them and plant the seed for a review.
So, check in and get that update.
It might be an address change or a beneficiary change or a health change or a change in their financial situation. Whatever it is … it is an opportunity to engage and schedule a more complete review.
While you are doing this, you can begin dissecting your book of business. You can segment it by age, assets under management, engagement, or any other criteria that you want.
Since we are talking about mining for an asset-based LTC opportunity, I would suggest the following minimum criteria:
- Client age – 50 to 87
- Decent health
- Assets excluding home of $350,000 or more
You will want to identify those who have experienced a long term care situation within their family as this is viewed as the biggest motivator to seek out planning advice and/or purchase a policy to fund their plan. Their assets and health will be a factor, but the understanding of their future risk is important.
Regardless, a discussion about how your clients envision their future years playing out is important. More importantly, there need to be different paths – a perfect path (live long, stay healthy, then die in your sleep), an imperfect path (have a decent life with decent health and limited extended care needs before passing), and a challenging path (live with health issues that require extended care for a moderate period of time before passing).
And remember, this is not just numbers! The impact to your clients’ families relationships, stability, careers, and more are as important (if not more important) than their finances. Ask these questions …
- How will 2 years of care impact their family?
- What sacrifices will be made and by whom?
- And, can those adjustments be managed physically, emotionally, and financially by the family?
Be brave and ask those questions to any of your clients who are age 87 or younger … then, call me and we can brainstorm a potential solution.
I can be reached via phone at (678) 512-9627 or email at kevin.fisher@oneamerica.com
Fridays with Fisher 