Case Study: Have You Got Your Lifeboat In Place?

When I joined the Life Insurance industry back in 1999, I was a young, ambitious, and impressionable advisor.??

I got coached by an old-school advisor who taught me to use some pretty dramatic analogies and metaphors when selling Life Insurance.?

Some of these included positioning Life Insurance as a lifeboat or the spare wheel that saved the day when you needed it most. Another rather elaborate analogy involved something around cork, the light, floating stuff that also corks wine bottles…(but more on that later)

All in all, I failed miserably at incorporating these analogies into my sales conversations.?

Not only did I feel silly using them (which probably showed when I did use them), I think clients don’t like being scared into buying anything, not even Life Insurance.?

But I must admit, corny as those analogies were, over the two decades selling Life Insurance, I’ve made my peace with them. I’ve come to see that there is truth in those metaphors and analogies.?

In fact, something happened in 2021 that caused one of these analogies to loom into focus for me:?

My client and a dear friend suddenly, unexpectedly, passed away.?

He was 53 years old and was survived by his wife, a son in university, and a daughter in middle school.?

He had been the sole breadwinner in the family and so, his sudden passing brought not only shock and grief but also a flood of questions and concerns with regards to the family’s financial situation.?

Here’s what my client’s financial situation was at the time of his untimely death:?

He had a high-flying job with a Fortune 500 company and had a great pay package with benefits. He was well-respected, rose through the ranks fast but was also, as with most executives like him, highly stressed out.?

He had a mortgage on the home they lived in, a couple of large-value Life Insurance policies in place, and a healthy, diverse investment portfolio including holdings with equities, stocks, and shares.?

But he had always handled the family’s financial affairs and investments himself and so, when he suddenly passed away, his next of kin had little idea about any of these investments and had even lesser of an idea of how to manage these assets now that he was gone. Continue Reading...