Life moves fast and changes to your client’s health, employment, living situation and finances can happen in a heartbeat. We’ve all experienced a great deal of change, especially over the course of the pandemic. In fact, a 2021 Insurance Barometer Study by Life Happens and LIMRA (1) discovered that the heightened awareness and uncertainty during the recent pandemic motivated people to purchase more insurance. From protecting one’s income for the benefit of surviving family members, to having funds to meet hospital bills, the importance of insurance has never been more evident.
This industry is built on relationships and client expectations have never been higher. Clients want ongoing, personalized relationships with their Advisors and would prefer that their Advisor reach out to them, rather than initiating that contact themselves. Your clients value consistency and reliability above all else, so it’s prudent to have a post-sale service strategy and process in place.
Policy Reviews
Whether you call it an annual review, insurance review, progress update or beneficiary audit, sitting down with your client to do a review of their overall financial situation is valuable for both them and you, their Advisor. Regular client reviews will give you ample opportunity to:
- Ask questions like, “since our last meeting, is there anything that you have been thinking about, planning for, or are there any major changes in your life that you would like to discuss?”
- Ensure that your client understands the coverage that they currently have in place, as well as if it’s affordable and provides the necessary level of protection.
- See if their health has changed or a life-changing event, such as job promotion, a new baby in the family, a house or cottage renovation, has occurred.
- Explore whether client circumstances, needs and goals have changed, making different or additional policy or coverage solutions worth discussing.
- Discuss any policy benefits that may have been added since their initial policy purchase.
- Talk about new strategies like retirement funding or charitable giving.
- Evaluate whether their policy has been performing as intended, and the effectiveness of the overall strategy.
- Verify policy ownership and beneficiary arrangements based on their current planning objectives.
- Confirm if they have made any recent changes to their wills or power of attorney, and/or would like to identify a ‘trusted contact’ that you can be in touch with should they become unable to communicate reliably, due to frailty, health, capacity or financial exploitation issues.
- Remind them of the value you provide and the services you offer.
- Reintroduce conversations and solutions from previous meetings.
- Ask for a referral.
When is the best time to do a policy review?
The good news is that there is no specific time frame or guideline – what matters most is that you do it and continue to do it on a regular basis. Ideally, you should set the stage with your client at the start of your relationship, letting them know that this is part of your service and how such reviews can benefit them.
Otherwise, you can always include policy reviews on your meeting agenda or when you provide your client with the Reason Why Letter at policy delivery, positioning it as: “A periodic review of your insurance policy is part of the ongoing service that I provide. This check-in will help ensure that you always have the right solutions in place for your needs.”
How can PPI help?
The right tools can help with managing client expectations and your PPI Sales Team is here to support you. Here are some of the tools and resources available to help you connect with your clients:
- Qualifying Advisors have access to the AmpLiFi platform – use this to automatically identify opportunities such as term conversions, re-writes, policy anniversaries and client birthdays within your inforce policies. Then, create and share tailored, compliant client presentations and track engagement.
- Many carriers allow you to run inforce client listings right from their websites – PPI can help you to identify new opportunities within those lists.
- Use PPI’s Toolkit Direct to run a current Insurance Needs Analysis and comparisons (Advisor login required).
- Work with your PPI Sales Team to refine your sales process.
- Use PPI’s Your Link Between platform to send prospects and clients interesting articles to start the conversation about their insurance needs. You can also use these articles to connect to your clients on social media and recognize any changes in their lives via THEIR posts – be sure to keep social media in mind, it can be a great client service tool!
- Take advantage of PPI’s Financial Planning Pyramid template to show clients the steps needed to build a financial plan and achieve their goals. (Advisor login required)
- Use PPI’s Financial Checklist template to help guide the conversation about the products and services you offer – this plants a seed for future discussions. (Advisor login required)
- PPI’s Reason Why Letter template is a great way to establish and confirm the next review meeting in writing. (Advisor login required)
It’s clear… there are many good and important reasons to schedule regular reviews with your clients. The bottom line? Put a system in place that works for you specifically, start simple and create a process. And if you need help, give your PPI Sales Team a call – we’re here for you!
- 2021 Insurance Barometer Study Reveals Common Misconceptions That Prevent Americans from Getting Life Insurance They Know They Need. Loma.org. April 12, 2021