Disability

How to Sell Disability Income Insurance
by Larry Schneider

The common denominator for achievement among successful people is to do the things that those who fail don’t do. It explains why many of those who seem to have all of the natural talent fail while others succeed with obvious handicaps. Over the past 35 years of selling disability insurance exclusively, I have learned that I do my best when I stay with the habits I employed when I first started my second career after heading up a management consulting dept. for one of the Big 8 CPA firms.

It’s no secret that people don’t want to be sold anything. Prospects want to be in the position of buying before anyone buys, they need some reasons to justify the purchase. So what does it take to have someone purchase? It takes a variety of tools, perhaps it takes more tools to sell disability income insurance, than it does any other insurance product simply due because disability insurance has more language considerations (benefits/terms/formulas/definitions/ conditions, etc.). On the other hand, life, or annuity policies, are based on absolute values and premium rather than the “what if” language of disability insurance contracts. So product knowledge is one of the necessary selling tools. They say knowledge is power. Knowledge doesn’t stop with just knowing your company’s product. You should also be conversant in disability insurance probability statistics and other pertinent information in order to support the sales cycle and create the need. Some of the carriers provide charts and graphs to support your argument to convince the prospect to say yes after their (expected) initial objection.

What good is knowledge, if no one knows learns how knowledgeable you are. Therefore, prospecting is a very important part of the sales cycle, in view of the fact that you’re still bound to make some sales with enough exposure even with a minimum of knowledge. Here are the basic sales tools you need are made up of the following components:
• Attitude
• Knowledge
• Prospecting techniques
• Presentation skills
• Rebuttal skills
• Closing skills
• Application/paperwork
• Delivery
• Referrals
I will go in limited detail for just a few of the above:

Knowledge

Not only should you know your products inside and out, but you should also be prepared to quote contractual differences between those offered by the competition and yours. When I do personal production as an independent, I usually present up to three carriers to a prospect. This gives the prospect the feeling I’m not married to any one company in particular, which generates credibility. Which carriers I present, are dictated by the prospect’s occupation and objectives since different carriers may have different definitions for that occupational class, for example.

Presentation

What’s wrong with a canned presentation? Many years ago, George Whitmore did a one man show called “Give Him Hell Harry,” and said the same thing over and over, word for word, twice daily, every day of the week for two years (but also got paid handsomely for his efforts). There’s nothing wrong with using a sales presentation flip chart. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words! Again the presentation should be based on emotion. Minimize being a feature preacher. You should concentrate on selling the need, based on emotion, rather than only focusing on the logic or the dollar values of the contract.

Rebuttal Skills

Great, you got in front of a prospect and (prospecting) explained the product (presentation/knowledge), but you haven’t yet sold the concept. Remember, no one wants to be sold; they want to buy. Very few prospects -immediately say yes after a presentation no matter how good it was. You must be skillful enough to elicit their objections. Otherwise, you really have no way of continuing. Now that you’ve heard the objection, do you put your head down and run? Of course not! Instead, hopefully you’ve got several good rebuttals in your bag for anything the prospect can throw at you.

By employing these new found tools, you should immediately see an increase in commissions and your closing ratios, but more importantly, an increased satisfaction in the fact that you have provided a very important product to your client’s welfare – income protection, which all financial planners say, is the cornerstone of all financial planning!

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Larry Schneider is a disability specialist with over 35 years experience and is the owner of Disability Insurance Resource Center. He can be reached at: info@di-resource-center.com. More information on his company and his CV can be found in his website: www.di-resource-center.com or by calling: 800-551-6211 He is also an expert witness consultant for disability insurance claims which have been inappropriately denied and a national resource for hard to place prospects, as well as a brokerage for standard cases.

SIDEBAR:
Specifics of Knowledge:
1. Sales presentation
2. Disability probability statistics

3. Participation tables
• Other insurance in force
• Employer paid

4. Proposal Configuration
• Elimination Periods
• Benefit amount Base vs. base/social
• Benefit period
• Definition of total disability
• Options (FIO, Residual, COLA, ROP, AIR, CAT etc.)

5. Premium
• Level vs. step rate/graded

6. Competition
• Definitions
• Recovery/residual/recurrent/elimination period (continuous vs. stop-go)

7. Business applications
• Wage continuation
• Key-person
• Business overhead
• Buy-sell

8. Tax consequences of employer paid premium

9. Advanced marketing
• Comparison of individual vs. association/group
• Reverse Discrimination
• Split Dollar
• S vs. C Corporation (FASB 112)