Niche Product Marketing – Part 2 – The “What” and “How”
Excess or high-limit disability insurance is a prime example of what the niche markets have to offer. If you have a client making in excess of $250,000, you will be hard-pressed to find a carrier willing to insure at least 65% of that client’s income. The niche market will be able to provide a supplemental layer of “own-occupation” high-limit disability coverage on top of existing individual and/or group long-term disability insurance.
For your clients that have been declined by disability carriers due to hazardous occupations, substandard health histories or even older ages, there are ample sources for impaired-risk disability underwriting. Niche-product companies have the unique ability to employ more lenient underwriting guidelines than the standard market, allowing your hard-to-place clients to acquire comprehensive income replacement insurance when your standard carriers say “no.”
Healthcare needs that the ACA doesn’t address like travel insurance have always been a staple of the niche-product market. International travel medical policies provide those working in or visiting other countries with major medical care anywhere in the world. They also provide robust ancillary benefits like trip cancellation reimbursement and emergency evacuation services back to the United States.
Products offering death benefits are also represented in the non-traditional market with products like Failure to Survive or Contract Protection which allow simplified-issue, quickly underwritten death benefits to indemnify short-term business contracts including loans and buy/sell agreements. And like its niche-market disability counterparts, the underwriting guidelines are more forgiving than those of U.S. life carriers.
Along the life insurance lines, war and terrorism insurance has remained important to Americans since 2001. Built upon an accidental death and dismemberment chassis, war and terrorism coverage provides high-limit benefits to U.S. residents living, traveling or working anywhere in the world, including hotspots in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. The best prospects include government contractors, security guards, missionaries, international business persons and tourists.
The aforementioned products are just a glimpse of the worthwhile and exciting options available to your clients. You may not see a need for them every day, but I can guarantee that the traditional U.S. insurance markets are not always going to be able to assist every one of your clients every time they need insurance. The secret to success in niche-product marketing is to be prolific. Provide solutions to problems your clients didn’t think of previously.
Look to the outlying markets frequently and not only when you hit one of those roadblocks. If you have a client wanting personal life insurance, also show them a supplemental AD&D policy with war and terrorism coverage. If you have an individual disability client, make sure to provide a quote for excess personal coverage as well as key person insurance to help protect their business.
There are so many tools out there and they are all designed to help protect your clients’ families, their businesses and their financial well-being. Don’t approach as a salesperson, approach as an advisor and perhaps even as a friend because you are providing more than a service for compensation, you are providing them with financial security. Niche products have become more established and are regularly addressing the everyday insurance needs of all Americans. It will behoove you to think outside the box and look beyond traditional insurance marketplaces.