Have you talked to your fellow financial advisors about the secondary market for life insurance? Yes, they may be familiar with the concept, but are they aware of the real value the secondary market can help them bring to their clients?
If you have clients who no longer wish to maintain their life insurance coverage, you may want to assist them to dispose unwanted insurance policies in the secondary market through a life settlement.
This option is similar to a viatical settlement, but different.
A life settlement option is available to all policy owners, while a viatical settlement is designed for an insured person who is dying from a terminal illness within a prescribed period of time.
When you take the time to identify prospects for the life settlement market from among your clients, not only will you open up a world of opportunity for you, acting as an insurance intermediary, but you can put cash today into the hands of your client who in turn may use those dollars to meet other needs like long-term care.
Today is a great day to introduce your clients to a life settlement option that is suitable to them. To get started, engage in any of the following activities:
- Create a team of professionals who are “centers of influence,” including an estate planner, an estate attorney, a trust officer, and an accountant. Work with these professionals as your advisory board to help you identify prospective clients for life settlements, at the same time that you work with prospects from within your existing book of insurance clients.
- Become knowledgeable about life settlements, how the process works, and the opportunities that the life settlement provides your clients and future clients. Such knowledge will make you the inside expert on all matters related to insurance and will establish you as a valued member of your professional advisory team.
- Attend networking events of affiliated professionals. Ask for life settlement referrals from your colleagues. Develop mutually profitable relationships with your colleagues so your newly found expertise and your advisory board can assist others who can benefit from the life settlement option.
- Create advertising brochures and flyers for meetings and seminars to discuss life settlements. Host a monthly meeting and encourage professionals across different disciplines to invite their clients and acquaintances to this meeting to learn how they may benefit from a life settlement.
These activities should yield results that benefit existing clients, create new income opportunities for you, and help you expand your book of business with new insurance clients.
