Tips from the Insurance Pros with David Everly
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Matt (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Assurity’s podcast, Tips from the Insurance Pros. In this series, we talk with industry experts as they share ideas and insights you can use today. I'm your host Matt and I'm here with our very own David Everly who's going to discuss new Whole Life Insurance with Accelerated Underwriting as well as the advantages it offers to both producers and clients. As a regional sales manager, David works with sales directors and marketers with a focus on recruiting, developing and strategy building. Thanks for joining us, David.
David Everly (00:39):
Thank you so much Matt. I really appreciate that. I personally enjoy these podcasts myself, so I really appreciate being able to be part of one as well. Thank you.
Matt (00:47):
Oh, that's phenomenal to hear. As with all of our guests, why don't you start by sharing a bit of your background?
David Everly (00:54):
Well, I've been in the financial services industry for 37 years now, uh, first 15 in banking services and then the next 22 and life insurance and protection products. I've been both an independent advisor as well as a company representative. And one of the things I'm most proud of, uh, in these, uh, 22 years of working with agencies and agents across the country, I've been in 49 of the 50 States supporting agents and agencies. And I know that there are many agents today trying to protect families and just to be part of that has been one of the happiest parts of my career.
Matt (01:33):
That's awesome. Well, focusing in a little bit on whole life – Assurity’s new whole life product comes with features such as an accelerated death benefit rider and limited pay options up front. Can you tell us a bit about them, and the advantages that they offer producers?
David Everly (01:49):
Absolutely. Well first off, let's, let's talk a little bit. Let's go back in time and we realize that life insurance about 20 years ago was really expected just to do two things -- and permanent life insurance, that is. Just build cash value for supplemental retirement and for emergencies and then secondarily to pay a death benefit upon the insured’s death. But if you fast forward to today, life insurance has to do much more. One of the reasons why we're very proud of the new whole life with accelerated underwriting is because it offers an accelerated benefit rider. Now the client can access the accelerated benefit either through a terminal illness option or through a chronic illness option, but why do we need that? Being able to have accelerated benefit rider on our new whole life product can give clients access to money used for things like medical bills, treatment costs, long-term care expenses, and just with lost income. And also, Matt, what we've added to the whole life is a critical illness rider was very important because it allows the client to take from 5,000 up to 75,000 of benefit for cancer, stroke or heart attack if they have events such as that and they can utilize that to pay for out of pocket costs for the health insurance plans to pay their mortgage, to pay their expenses, to buy food.
David Everly (03:11):
And what's really wonderful about it is it does not reduce the death benefit by one dime. Now that rider has a cost but it's a very strong benefit for the client.
Matt (03:22):
Absolutely.
David Everly (03:23):
Another feature that is really strong on our new whole life is what we call our short pay scenarios. It's very competitive for pay to age 65 as well as their 10-pay and a 20-pay option. And why would we do that is because the agent and client may want to maximize the premium and the cash value of their policy so they do a short pay into the contract and if you take a look at those and our new whole life, they're going to be very, very competitive. Those are great fits for sales ideas such as buy/sell agreements, such as executive bonus, 1062 executive bonus, as well as supplemental retirement options.
Matt (04:02):
Similar to our term life insurance, Assurity now offers accelerated underwriting for whole life applications. David, what does this mean for both producers and clients?
David Everly (04:13):
That's a great question, Matt, and what it really means is speed of submission is speed to issue. When you think about it, most clients and agents want a faster process. They want to be able to submit a case faster and get that case issued faster. Clients don't want to wait for months before they get a decision on whether they're going to be insured or not. So with our accelerated underwriting process and now that our whole life is on that, what it offers the agent and the client is a possibility of a same-day decision. The faster that we can get a case issued, the faster we can protect families and the faster we can get a case issued means the more likely that client will take that case and the agent will place.
Matt (04:55):
It sounds like a great addition to whole life, then. Where should producers be looking for whole life sales and what is, in your opinion, the best way to bring whole life protection into the conversation?
David Everly (05:07):
There are a number of sales ideas out there for whole life, but I'm going to target three that I think stand out. The first is around policy review. We know that there are a number of policies in the market that are either underperforming or don't have living benefit options like our new whole life will have. So by talking to these clients with these older policies that have cash value, there's an opportunity to roll that cash value out over to our new whole life and give the client a stronger benefit. Not only the death benefit, certainly as a as a safety net, but also give them living benefits in the form of the accelerated benefit rider as well as a critical illness rider. Another strong sales idea is around supplemental retirement planning. We know that there are a lot of clients who are looking to supplement their income for their retirement.
David Everly (05:57):
Well, one of the options we have with our whole life is to pay to age 65 and so by say a 45-year-old male or female funding that as from age 45 to 65 they can build up strong cash value. We have a death benefit protection while they're saving additional cash and at age 65 start receiving cash from the cash value of the whole life policy. That could be a tremendous sales idea for agents as well. And then finally, the last sales idea I'll give you is around the executive bonus or 1062 executive bonus. We know that one of the biggest expenses for small businesses is recruiting and retaining key people. As you know, if you, if a small business has a really good person, eventually a larger company's going to notice that and possibly offer them more benefits or a better income.
David Everly (06:51):
One of the ways to somewhat mitigate that is to offer those employees strong benefits. Where the 1062 executive bonus, what we can do or what the small businesses can do is offer a benefit that pays a lump sum bonus to that employee for every year that they stay with the company. Now, what does the employee get? They get strong benefits, death benefit, cash value when they retire, plus the living benefits of accelerated benefit rider and possibly the critical illness rider. What does the company get? Well, they get an upfront tax deduction and they get to keep their key employee for a number of years. So that can be another strong sales idea. Now along with a number of other sales ideas like college funding, children's insurance, reallocation of assets into a life insurance policy, those can all be strong prospecting points for an agent.
Matt (07:47):
That is a very wide variety of uses for a very flexible product.
David Everly (07:52):
Absolutely.
Matt (07:53):
Now moving on – lastly, David, what tools does Assurity have to help producers prospect and to close whole life sales?
David Everly (08:02):
Sure. Matt, one of the things we're very proud that our marketing department has put together some really strong consumer-facing pieces that can help an agent prospect. Pieces on things such as funding for college education, the accelerated death benefit rider and how it works, how limited pay options work and the best use for them. Also children's insurance owned by both parents and children's insurance owned by grandparents, and finally accelerated underwriting, how it works and how it benefits both the agent as well as the client. Another resource we have is your regional sales team. Please feel free to reach out to them. They'll help you in understanding all the opportunities you have with marketing pieces, with Assurity, as well as our new whole life product – and also help you grow your business and bring in additional cases.
Matt (08:48):
That was great. Is there anything more that you would like to say about her whole life, David?
David Everly (08:53):
I think that the whole life is a product that is certainly strong for its time is certainly one that is needed for clients who are looking for not only death benefit protection and cash value growth, but also for living benefits in the form of the accelerated benefit rider as well as a critical illness rider. It’s a product for this time and certainly one that can help you grow your business overall.
Matt (09:15):
That was a phenomenal overview of our whole life product and I'm excited to see agents across the country taking advantage of this great product. Thanks so much again for joining us today, David.
David:
Thank you so much, Matt. I really appreciate it.
Matt
And to our listeners, thanks for tuning in to Assurity’s Tips from the Insurance Pros. To learn more about our new whole life insurance product, contact your regional sales team or email us at podcast@assurity.com and we'll be happy to connect you with a representative. Thanks for listening.
Matt (09:52):
For producer use only. Not for use with the general public. Not for use in New York.
Assurity is a marketing name for the mutual holding company, Assurity Group Incorporated and its subsidiaries. Those subsidiaries include, but are not limited to, Assurity Life Insurance Company and Assurity Life Insurance Company of New York. Insurance products and services are offered by Assurity Life Insurance Company in all states except New York. In New York, insurance products and services are offered by Assurity Life Insurance Company of New York, Albany, New York. Product availability features and rates may vary by state.