Final expense life insurance is the easiest life insurance product to sell. Yes, that is a bold statement but a very true statement, if I don’t say so myself. When originally licensed, I sold mortgage protection life insurance. Coming from an industry like this, it was easy to learn how to sell final expense insurance. Mariana and I were used to selling term life insurance and universal life to people that were financially secure. These folks thought through their decisions and were hard to close. The senior final expense market is the complete opposite. Our typical prospect is older and in most cases, not very responsible. The fixed income senior market! In this article, we’re going to touch on the following.
How to market final expense
The typical final expense prospect
The best leads for final expense sales
How to work leads
Whole life insurance
The most common final expense carriers
How to sell final expense insurance over the phone
Building rapport
Finding the need for the insurance
Independent vs Captive
Separating yourself from the pack
Overcoming objections
Getting referrals
Our Typical Final Expense Sales Prospect
Our typical prospect is between the ages of 50 and 80 years old. In most cases, they either already have insurance or have had it once before. Think about it. These folks are getting phone calls and stuff in the mail from insurance companies all the time. Final expense insurance agents are knocking on their doors too. And then there’s the funeral homes. Funeral homes are contacting them through the communities they live in and socialize in. They offer the community a free lunch or sometimes just coffee and doughnuts to draw them in. The representative has a drawing with a free Walmart card, to get the folks to hang around for the presentation. They take down the prospects information for the drawing and use it as a lead. These are just a few ways that people market burial or cremation to seniors, and how to sell final expense insurance.
Most of my clients are on a fixed income. They are either receiving social security income or disability money. A lot of our prospects live in extremely unhealthy and unsanitary environments due their age and health conditions. They are often unable to keep their surroundings clean or take care of themselves. In many cases, they are financially irresponsible. The good news is that this all goes hand in hand as to why they need our services so badly. They’ve often made bad decisions in life and have never made any plans for their final expenses. Now they are left with no insurance or very little and are the position where they know they need us and are willing to make a sacrifice for the coverage. This is why you need to learn how to sell final expense insurance and get on leads immediately.
Final Expense Leads
When it comes to selling final expense life insurance, leads are the way to go. When you have enough final expense leads in your pipeline, you can make a lot of presentations. The key is to have lots of leads on a regular and weekly basis. If you’re learning how to sell final expense insurance, your manager should be teaching you how to work leads. Direct mail leads are always going to be the best. At least, the best way to get in front of a lot of people, without having to drive too far from home. It’s all about the data. Final expense direct mail leads are expensive but well worth the price. The trick it so know how to work them and overcome objections. When a strong system for working this lead, you should be able to make 5 plus sales off of 20 direct mail leads.
There are other leads too. Final expense FaceBook leads are awesome. I love that they come in “real-time”. We’re able to generate them for our agents for $20. That’s important because these leads tend to be as good as direct mail, which is a lot more expensive. Then there’s final expense telemarketer leads! You can usually get a decent quality telemarket lead for under $20. They may not be as good as the final expense Facebook leads or direct mail leads, but they will get you in front of people. Well, if you know what you’re doing and work them hard. My suggestion to working leads is to treat each lead as if you paid $50 for it. Call, it door knock it, text it, door knock it again! Each lead should be approached a little different and should never be pre-judged.
Final Expense Insurance vs Other Life Insurance
For final expense sales, we generally sell simplified issue whole life insurance. These plans are the smaller face amounts, usually up to $35,000. The underwriting is pretty easy as most companies will pull a prescription RX check along with an MIB or Medical Information Bureau database check. Most of the carriers will also require a point of sale interview too. The idea is for the agent to know if the client is approved before he or she leaves the prospects house. Not all companies have the same underwriting requirements. Some will only do a prescription check and some companies do not require the phone interview at the end of each sale. If you’re just learning how to sell final expense insurance, I recommend leading with a carrier that does the phone interview. If you’re a talented underwriter, you can lead with any carrier. Either way, it’s up to you.
You’re going to see companies that sell term life insurance and universal life insurance to final expense clients. The problem with these types of plans is that they are designed to be temporary, in most cases. Term life insurance can often increase in price during the term of the policy. Some plans can be switched over to whole life insurance after a specific amount of years and without any new underwriting. This is not the norm in our industry but can often be a better option for seniors on a fixed income. The problem is these products usually don’t pay agents very well and that is why you don’t see independent agents selling them. In most cases, the agent will replace them if possible. Universal life policies can often be good up to and over the client’s 100th birthday but we don’t see this very often.
Guaranteed Issue vs First Day Coverage Final Expense Sales
If you’re going to learn how to sell final expense insurance, you’ll need to know the difference between guaranteed issue and immediate or first day coverage. Generally, it all comes down to GI being designed for people that can’t fit into a first day coverage scenario. For final expense sales, you’ll be seeing people that have cancer and other ailments that are not normally insurable. HIV is also in that category. These are the 2 situations we see the most for people that only fit into a guaranteed issue policy. The good news is that there are a lot of people on Insulin with other issues that we can give first day coverage too. It’s all about how hard you study and learn. Having good final expense sales training can help too. When you add in competitive carriers and quality final expense leads, the sky’s the limit.
Our agents have access to a cheat sheet that is designed to help them place their final expense sales clients with the right final expense product. If your prospect has COPD, you’ll need the carriers for that ailment. There are carriers that approve people with specific heart conditions too. Agents learning how to sell final expense insurance must learn field underwriting. This will take time to learn but once you get the basics down, you’ll be able to put each prospect with a good final expense product. A mistake that new agents make, is giving up too soon on the underwriting. The last thing you want to do is put a prospect with a guaranteed issue carrier when they can get approved for immediate coverage. This will come down to the amount of time that the final expense agent puts into learning the product and field underwriting.
Final Expense Carriers and Products
There are a lot of final expense carriers to use if you’re learning how to sell final expense insurance. They all have their differences in their underwriting, pricing, and riders. Some require a point of sale interview while other either don’t have one or have an optional interview. Some final expense sales products have stricter underwriting than others while some may actually do no underwriting at all. As an independent final expense agent, the trick is to lead with a carrier that is easy to deal with and yet very competitive in pricing. Final expense sales training is important for any product that you chose. Just make sure you know what you’re doing right from the start. No matter what carrier or product you chose to lead with, it’s important to put time into learning how to use that product and what the underwriting consists of.
For a brand-new agent, I suggest leading with a carrier like Royal Neighbors, Mutual of Omaha, or even a smaller company like Security National Life. SNL is not in all states, but I bring them up because they were my leading carrier for years. All they do is check the prescriptions on each prospect and if the medication matches the questions on the application, your client will likely be approved as applied for. They also have an E-Application that gives you an approval while you’re still sitting down with the client. There are a lot of companies worth mentioning but that’s not what this article is about. Check out the list below that shows several final expense sales carriers. Some are better for face to face sales while others are really good for final expense telesales. Both are doable with the right final expense sales training.
Independent vs Captive Final Expense Sales Agent
The best way to learn how to sell final expense insurance will be to learn as a captive agent. That’s if they can give you face to face training and ride-a longs with fellow final expense agents. As far as I’m concerned, that would be the only reason to become a captive final expense sales agent. Independent agents tend to make more money and have the freedom to grow and change with the times. I love the idea of writing any product that I want. This also makes it easier to eliminate replacement situations for my clients. Unfortunately, our prospects tend to end up in front of a lot of insurance agents. One of the easiest ways to keep from being replaced is to have good competitive final expense products. Independent agents tend to have more flexibility in giving their clients first day coverage and better rates.
Independent agents also make the highest commission per sale. If you want to learn how to sell final expense insurance as an independent, you’ll have to decide if you can learn on your own or if you’ll need help. One of the pro’s of working with an agency like United Final Expense Services, is that we give our agents some of the highest commission levels in the industry. Our final expense agents also have access to one of the strongest final expense sales training platforms in the nation. We also work with several lead vendors and have access to fixed cost direct mail leads. When you have access to all the most common final expense leads and they are discounted, it makes it easier to be successful at final expense sales. Especially when you add that to the commission levels we start agents at.
How to Sell Final Expense Insurance Using Leads
The best lead to consistently work each week is the final expense direct mail lead. Working final expense telemarketing leads along with final expense Facebook leads works great as a temporary fix. You can also work these types of leads along with your weekly fixed cost direct mail leads. If you try to use anything other than direct mail as a primary lead, you will likely end up spinning your wheels. When you learn how to sell final expense insurance, you’ll find that working final expense direct mail leads is a game changer. I’ve worked them all and have worked with agents that have tried them all and it always comes down to this. The top producers are always consistent because they are working final expense direct mail leads. Final expense telephone sales agents are better off working final expense television leads. Most won’t as these are difficult to generate.
Once you have your leads, I suggest doing what you are comfortable with doing. If you are good on the phone, call to set appointments. When you’re not sure, just door knock them. If the prospect isn’t nice on the phone, go door knock that lead. You’ll find that most people who are rude on the phone can be very receptive in person. I can’t tell you how many sales I have on the books came from door knocking leads that wouldn’t give me an appointment on the phone. Here’s a tip. If you treat every single lead as if you paid $50 for it, you will likely do just fine in our industry. Just remember, always work each lead until you either get a presentation from the prospect or they kick you off their property. This is important for anyone who is learning how to sell final expense insurance.
Closing Words on How to Sell Final Expense Insurance
If you treat this business like it’s a new business and you’re the new business owner, you’ll likely do better than most. Agents that treat this like a job and not a career, end up failing and walking away before they even put in 100%. The first rule while learning how to sell final expense insurance, is to separate yourself from all the other insurance agents by being yourself. Share information with your client about who you are and why you do what we do. When you add in a good personal commercial, you’ll likely do better than the next agent. Don’t be afraid to ask for referrals. You can get referrals from most of the people that you meet with. You don’t have to sell someone to ask them if they have a friend or family member that would appreciate your services.
When you’re building rapport correctly, asking for referrals will rarely be an issue. Most people will give you objections as a knee jerk reaction. This is just how they deal with sales people. Part of the process while learning how to sell final expense insurance is to be prepared every time you go out in the field. Always, always, always, be prepared to overcome objections while you’re learning how to sell final expense insurance. Most agents try to wing it and just end up failing due to their lack of effort. If you put long hard hours into our business, you will almost definitely be successful at final expense sales. If you’re not sure where to get final expense sales training, you can always contact us at United Final Expense Services. You can always email Doug at doug@ufesonline.com