Referrals – An Obvious Place to Look

Authored by John Schraut Are you looking for qualified referrals?  Every time you complete an application for life insurance or an annuity you get at least one possible referral. That’s right! Your next prospect could be hiding in plain sight in the beneficiary section. A smart producer can take that name, find out the relationship to the insured and use the opportunity to ask for an introduction or referral endorsement, something like, “Do you mind if I give (beneficiary name) a call to introduce myself? Many of my clients have found it helpful if their beneficiaries have my contact information.” This eliminates the standard objection from clients when asked for a referral, “I can’t think of anyone.” They provided the name to you. Producers who follow up to turn that into a referral find that it is an easy way to get at least one referral on every application they complete.

Working Smart in a Tough Market

Authored by Jim Guynan Although the latest reports indicate that our economy is turning around, business is still hard to get in and then get issued. Insurance companies are under pressure to make sure all annuity sales are compliant and suitable; agents are taking more CE courses and product training before an application can be taken to satisfy this. Agents have to work smarter and more efficiently. Here are some ideas that can help. Qualify your prospects and referrals as much as possible as not to waste time on people that don’t need your services or don’t need them now.
  • Use the phone more! It is very important to see people, yes, but again qualify the quality of the prospect; qualify the appointment and qualify the sale. Cell phones have made our life easier; let’s use them to make our business easier.
  • Ask for referrals any time you help someone with a product or service.
  • Remember there is a lot of competition. Make sure you are the product expert for those lines you sell and know who to refer business to if it is not a line you currently offer.
  • Service to your client today is more important than ever; communicate with them regularly and effectively.

Income Rider Advantages

Authored by Jim Guynan Recently I heard that almost 60% of index annuities sold today have an income rider attached to them. Also, that the average time before the income is activated from the rider is only 1.8 years. What does this tell us about fixed index purchases and income riders? Simply, that more than half of the owners of fixed annuities are thinking about the future use of these assets as possible income sources and they are utilizing it in a new way. Before income riders became available there were really only two ways to access an annuity; a 10% penalty free withdrawal per contract year or to annuitize the annuity contract. Now there is a third option which is activating an income rider payout that will provide an income for the rest of the owner’s life. The advantage of this is that the owner does not give up control of the underlying fixed annuity in order to do so. What is interesting to me is that the average time to activate is so short. Many of the illustrations I run for agents show longer deferral times before income is needed. One explanation could be that only those people who need income now are buying the annuities. As time moves on, I believe that more younger people will become educated on the advantages of the riders and take advantage of the longer deferral.

Misconceptions Regarding Annuity Fees

Authored by David Corwin I read an article recently about annuity fees.  It spoke about most clients thinking that there are fees and that annuities are expensive.  In fact, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.  You will never find a fee on Indexed Annuities themselves, with the exception of GLWB’s of course.  That’s an income rider that guarantees an income to the annuitant for the rest of their lives. The perception that there are fees and that annuities are expensive was probably born out of Variable Annuity customers.  VA’s are the most fee-heavy annuity contracts sold to date.  The typical VA has charges close to 4.5% all together. Those charges are: Administrative Service Charge, Contract Maintenance Charge, Mortality & Expense Risk Charge, Underlying Fund Expenses and optional rider fees. They say that Indexed Annuities are complicated?  Indexed Annuities don’t have prospectuses and they don’t have fees, period.