You Should Absolutely Make DI Part of Your Life Sales Pitch
Yes, death is a certainty and disablement is not. But let’s discuss why disability insurance should be a regular part of your business and why it’s a natural complement to your life insurance sales.
Physical or mental disablement is a sobering reality. The chances of becoming disabled and losing the ability to earn a living during one’s career are three times more likely than dying during that same period of time. 25% of those venturing into the workforce today can expect at some point to become disabled for at least a period of 12 months in duration prior to normal retirement age. Disablement causes severe financial consequences. Over 40% of filed bankruptcies in this country stem, at least in part, from loss of income due to medical disabilities. Financial protection from disablement is imperative and the insurance solutions organically go hand-in-hand with life insurance sales.
Consider for a moment your average client who has a comfortable lifestyle, an economically dependent family and an adequate financial portfolio including life insurance. The client becomes disabled due to an injury or illness and is unable to work and earn that paycheck for an extended period of time. How is he or she going to maintain their lifestyle and provide for that family without prematurely raiding the savings accounts and the investment and retirement vehicles? How is he or she going to pay those life insurance premiums? Personal DI will provide financial safeguards to protect your client’s most important asset – his or her ability to earn a living.
Cross-selling opportunities are numerous when considering adding DI to your life sales pitch, especially for business insurance needs. Key person life policies are important pieces of protection when indemnifying contracts like buy/sell agreements and business loans as well as funding business continuation and succession plans. Why shouldn’t disability insurance be part of the same equation to complement the death benefit?
Income protection is fundamentally as important as life insurance to any prospective working client out there. The prescription of DI appropriately balances a life sale as you not only look to protect the client and their estate in case of death, but also in the case of the more probable disablement that could in the long term alter their career and their potential accumulation of income and assests.