Why You Should Get an Insurance Review

My name is Dr. Mark Parisi. I am a healthcare professional and licensed insurance producer. I specialize in insuring healthcare professionals, wellness consultants, and small business owners against death (including COVID-19), disability, critical illness, and terminal illness (including COVID-19) and providing tax-free retirement saving solutions. I have "skin in the game," so to speak, as a practicing healthcare professional myself with three adult children who are all frontline healthcare workers. It is no understatement to say that I am absolutely passionate about serving the niche that I serve.

In working with clients who frequently own small businesses or are healthcare professionals or wellness consultants who are employed by major healthcare corporations I frequently hear the refrain when prospecting, "I really don't need life insurance - I have owned a policy for a long time" or a related reply, "I'm good for now - I work at a place that has great benefits."

As a sales professional, I have been deliberately trained not to immediately accept a "No, Thank You" at face value and always look for opportunities where I might convert a "No" into a "Yes." The scenarios I have described above where my clients may have owned a policy for a long time or have group life insurance benefits through an employer provide two such opportunities where I frequently have been able to turn "No's" into "Yes's."

Here's why.

Clients who have older life insurance policies often have forgotten the specific coverage and benefits they signed up for 5, 10, 15 years ago or longer. Many of these clients are shocked to learn when I review their coverage with them that they had signed up for a Term Life Insurance plan that offered only a death benefit and that the period of coverage is set to expire in less than five years. Now, they are facing the need to replace their coverage at much higher costs. They are also dismayed with the fact that the death benefit of $400,000 that seemed so substantial when they were much younger - when they may have been newly married, but before having children and a substantial income to replace - now seems grossly insufficient to replace their lost income if something was to happen to them tomorrow.

Other clients I work with know that they signed up for Permanent Life Insurance but did not realize that their whole life insurance policy did not offer coverage for such important things as disability, critical or terminal illness - often referred to as "Accelerated Death Benefits," or "Living Benefits" in industry-speak because the policy owner can become the living beneficiary of their own life insurance policy. It was not too long ago that this type of benefit had to be added on to a policy as a rider at additional cost. I have found that many clients with policies ten years of age or older do not have this added rider; and, therefore, they have no coverage for these things. Many clients I have talked to did not even realize that newer life insurance products offer these so-called "Living Benefits" standard on most Term and Permanent Insurance plans.

Lastly, many of my clients have not looked at the policy illustration that was sent with their individual policy packet. When I review this illustration with them in fine detail - and compare it to the illustration I have prepared for them on the newer life insurance products - they are very disappointed to learn that they are not benefiting from the more innovative (and higher earning) interest crediting strategies that are typical of many of the newer permanent life insurance plans. This allows their cash accumulation to grow substantially and offers protection against downside market risks so that they do not lose money.

My clients who work as employees where they claim to have "great benefits" are often surprised to learn their "great benefits" are actually woefully insufficient when really examined in detail. Many of my clients did not realize, for example, that they have group life insurance coverage is not the same as owning their own individual policy. Many are shocked to hear that these policies can be cancelled if they leave an employer. Still other clients are disheartened to find out that the policies they have are based on benefits only if they die as a result of accidental death or suffer traumatic injury resulting in dismemberment or loss of vision (these are referred to as "Accidental Death and Dismemberment Policies").

Also, my clients often do not fully understand how the "conversion" of these group life insurance plans into individual life insurance policies works. When they discover - as most of my clients do - that their group life insurance plans provide grossly inadequate coverage - they begin to understand that the conversion of the plan into an individual life insurance policy will not solve the problem. On the topic of coverage, the average client I work with that has group life insurance coverage through an employer has less than $250,000 of term coverage. What this means is that if the client dies within the term - usually 10, 15 or 20 years - the plan will pay out up to whatever the death benefit is to the beneficiary. These policies usually offer no "Living Benefits" or cash accumulation. The problem here is that for many of my clients - most of whom work as professionals earning $60,000 or more post-tax - this death benefit is just a drop in the bucket of what their families would need if they were to die or become critically ill or severely disabled tomorrow. Think about this. Take the case of a 37 year-old nurse who earns $60,000 post-tax, is married, has three children, owes on two family vehicles, is still repaying her student loans, and has all of the associated expenses of raising a young family. If she died, became critically ill or severely disabled tomorrow, her family would be out $1.8M of income that she would have earned over the next thirty years until her full retirement age of 67 if nothing had happened to her. In many cases, the workaround for this sort of problem is precisely to supplement group coverage with additional individual life insurance coverage to fill in the gaps.

Of course, the solution to the problems I have highlighted above is to understand your current life insurance coverage. This is the where the "insurance review" comes into play. Think of an "insurance review" as a simple check-up of your existing coverage, benefits, and value for your money. I perform these type of insurance reviews absolutely free of charge with no strings attached. There is no obligation to purchase anything. I have done insurance reviews where I have heaped praise on my client for being so proactive about getting really good life insurance coverage and ended up telling them that I could offer them nothing better than what they currently have. I will say that more typically I find holes (sometimes gaping) in coverage, benefits, and value for the money spent. Here, I am often able to offer plans that address whatever deficiencies we find.

My only frustration worth mentioning is that many prospective clients do not take advantage of getting an insurance review. They view this as a "sales tactic" and often look at it with skepticism as a "sneaky way" for a sales person to try to get them to buy something. The truth is that all licensed insurance producers are bound by a strict code of ethics that demands transparency when reviewing coverage and insurance suitability. This is why insurance producers must be licensed and carry errors and omissions coverage. My job as an insurance broker is simply to educate and provide information to my clients. The decision of what to do with the information I provide is always up to my clients and there is never pressure or "strong-arming" involved.

My hope is that more of you who read this article will consider getting an insurance review to ensure that you're getting all of the coverage, benefits, and best value for your money.