Do your life insurance sales need a boost?

If you’ve clicked thru to our site, chances are the answer to this Million Dollar question are YES! And if you’re not interested in learning How to Succeed in Life, please click away.

After September 11^th, the anthrax scare, War in Afghanistan, the SARS outbreak and the Iraq War, one might have expected an dramatic upsurge in individuals and households buying life insurance. Well---one would have been wrong.

With the exception of the three-month period following September 11, 2001 (4Q2001), United States life insurance sales have headed down, down, down. 

Who says so? MIB. Not the Men in Black MIB. The Medical Information Bureau tracks 95% of all individual life applications. In 2004, U.S. life insurance application activity reached a five-year low. And life insurance applications and sales have continued to flat-line throughout the first half of 2005. The second quarter of 2005 saw 4.0 less life sales activity than the Q2 2004 period.[1]

Why have life insurance sales been life-less?

It’s a complex answer—and one Roche Securities Sales can help you figure out! Suffice to say that life insurance is SOLD, not bought. Unlike its product cousins—property and casualty insurance which are BOUGHT--life insurance has always been SOLD in America.

Examine the birth of the U.S. insurance market in the 1800’s and you’ll find that there were powerful cultural and religious taboos against LIFE insurance. One famous fundamental preacher declared, “We believe that Satan never fitted so keen and sharp-pointed an instrument to pierce the soul of a saint as LIFE INSURANCE.” In the early 1800’s, many good people thought it was “wicked” to insure their lives and that insurance was a form of “betting” against God’s graces.

If not for the persistent efforts of agents and life companies’ marketing, America’s life underwriters never would have achieved the size and scope of the life enterprise. The life insurance industry can be neatly divided into two eras—the Pre-Agent Era when life insurance floundered and the Post-Agent Era where life insurance gained its proper role as a duty to provide family protection.

Today, one of the bright spots has been application activity in the age 60+ group. The 60-and-older age demographic has experienced a huge surge in life insurance activity—an eight percent increase in year-over-year sales. (Take that Suze “Psychobabbler” Orman who said on YAHOO!, “If you do not have kids or no one is financially dependent on you, you do not need life insurance at all.”)

A MIB spokesman, David Aronson, said, “The 60-plus age demographic continues to roar. An 8-plus percent increase in activity is large…it seems the level of disposable income at that age bracket is substantial. When you’re looking at that age, you typically look at estate planning, but now it’s estate preservation.” [2]  

If you are a General Agent (GA) or sales manager, ask us how to best position and prospect the senior market in your market area.  Call us at 612-929-6866 or e-mail us today. 

Although life sales have been down, they’re not OUT. You can SUCCEED IN LIFE and in Life Sales with the right combination of knowledge, desire and conviction. To succeed in life…sales, you need to pick up the pace of life app activity because sales activity drives life sales. Click here to learn more about How to Succeed in Life - Life Sales.