By Justin M. Jurs

If there's a common complaint among many advisors, it's not having enough
time to prospect. Yet, looking more closely, most producers are literally
surrounded by prospects. They are so close at hand, it's easy to miss them.
Here are a couple of examples of not recognizing the potential for new
business and the opportunity to serve client needs.
I had been attempting unsuccessfully to arrange an appointment with an
advisor for a number of months. He made it clear that he was satisfied with
his current brokerage relationship.

Although I was persistent in pledging "great compensation and service," he
wouldn't budge. It's then that I changed my approach, asking him what his
current brokerage firm was doing for him other than providing good
compensation and service. "What help do you need to grow your business?"
That question caught his attention.

He explained that he had literally thousands of clients and didn't have time
to review their policies. There was the door opener I had been looking for.
"If I were to come to your office and sit with you and review policies,
would you give me the business for any missed opportunities I discovered?"
He quickly agreed and we arranged to meet for a full day for the two of us
to sift through his files and run the numbers right then and there. When we
found an underperforming or lapsed policy, he picked up the phone and called
the client to discuss the status of the policy and to set up an appointment.
While he was on the phone, I ran a policy review on the next file.
When we took a lunch break, we realized that we had between 12 and 15 cases
for him to work on. The advisor was so pleased he scheduled another full day
to uncover more missed opportunities.

Another example is a large property and casualty agency that was literally
sitting on a gold mine. Like other P & C agencies, they had a life producer
working in their office, but had been gone for many years. As it turned out,
no one had touched the files since the producer had left the agency.
When I arrived at his office, the agent took me up to the filing cabinet
drawers filled with in-force policies--and that's no exaggeration. It turned
out to be a veritable gold mine.
In reviewing the first 20 files, we found almost $50,000 in target premiums.
While we continued to review policies and suggest suitable alternatives, we
also implemented mortgage insurance programs for their homeowner's insurance clients. We also called owners of term and lapsed policies that we discovered in the files to arrange appointments.

One particular file concerned a 47-year old male who had taken out a Whole
Life policy over 16 years ago. The problem was that since it was first taken
out, it had never been reviewed. The initial death benefit was $1 million,
and the policyholder was paying an ongoing premium of $5,000 annually, with
cash value in the policy coming in at just over $230,000. In addition, the
policyholder had drawn a loan against the policy for $80,000, which was
bringing the annual premium to almost $11,000 due to the interest.
I did some research and was able to do a loan rescue on the policy,
utilizing the cash value in the new policy to buy nearly $2 million of death
benefit at a Preferred Rate for the same $5,000 as the original policy. The
target was over $20,000.

With current cases taking up their time, producers have difficulty sitting
down and reviewing their files. They know that policy reviews are important
and some advisors feel a twinge of guilt about not doing a better job.
However, policy reviews inevitably turn up missed revenue opportunities.
Here's another example of what can happen while going through old files.
The client was a 55 year-old male and the policy had been taken out about 20
years ago. It was a paid-up at age 65 life insurance plan. The client had
taken out several loans against the policy.

The annual premium was $6,000 on a policy with a $400,000 death benefit. Due
to the accumulated interest on the loans, the client was faced with paying
nearly $10,000 a year well beyond to age 65 to keep the policy in force.
Further investigation also revealed that the policy owner had prostate
cancer five years ago. By using a table shave program, we were able to
surrender his current policy, take the cash as a lump sum payment on the
$6,000 annual premium until age 65 with a $650,000 death benefit guaranteed
for life. The target premium was $12,000, plus excess.

This is another example of a policy that was taken out, but the agent failed
to follow up. It also illustrates the value to the client and the advisor of
regular policy reviews. In this example, the agent solved a problem for the
client and earned a commission for his efforts.

Nevertheless, policy reviews are put off until later. So, when someone comes
along and is willing to work with them, advisors find the time.
Most amazing of all is that even clients with lapsed policies, as well as
those that have not been looked at for 15 or 20 years, welcome the
opportunity to meet with an advisor.

From the advisor's viewpoint, the files are filled with both gold and
goodwill. There are almost endless new business opportunities, as well as
the chance to help clients reach their financial objectives.

Justin M. Jurs is a brokerage manager for First American Insurance
Underwriters, Inc., a Needham, MA-based life insurance brokerage firm that
specializes in supporting agents in all 50 states with life insurance,
long-term-care, and annuity products from more than 30 insurance companies.
Jurs can be reached at 800-444-8715 or jjurs@faiu.com.