For insurance agents

Starting the life insurance conversation

The reason this conversation is awkward is that most openings make the client picture dying. The ones that work make them picture their family's Tuesday, which is a different thing entirely.

When to send it

After a life event you already know about — a house, a baby, a marriage, a business. Never cold.

What it has to do

• Attaches to something that already changed in their life.
• Talks about the mortgage, the income, the childcare — concrete monthly things.
• Asks whether they have anything in place, rather than assuming they do not.
• Offers to do the arithmetic rather than to sell a policy.

What to avoid

• Fear. 'What would happen to your family if...' is the oldest opening in the business and everyone's guard goes up at the word 'if'.
• Quoting a number before you know their health situation. A quote that moves after underwriting is worse than no quote.
• Pushing after a soft no. In this line a soft no now is often a yes in two years, and pressure forfeits that.

A worked example

Hi Jess,

Congratulations again on the closing.

One thing worth five minutes now that the mortgage is real: if something happened to either of you, could the other one keep the house on one income? For most people the honest answer is no, and most people have never actually done that arithmetic.

I'm not pitching you a policy. I'm offering to do the maths — what the gap actually is, and what covering it would cost a month. Sometimes it's less than people expect and sometimes it isn't, but either way you'd know.

Do you have anything in place already, through work or otherwise?

Richard

Names and details here are invented. Written the way an agent would actually send it, not the way a template would.

More like this

• The renewal reminder email that starts a conversation
• What to write when a claim is denied
• Telling a client their rate went up