Introduction To How To Cross Sell Life Insurance
In my work, I have seen many insurance agents struggle with how to cross sell life insurance. When your primary role is within the property and casualty area of insurance, life insurance can take a different approach. The pace is different, the questions are different, and let’s be honest, when we don’t do something every day we can feel a bit rusty.
However, I still believe that life insurance is one of the most important insurance policies and it’s our responsibility to recommend it to clients.
There are so many positive outcomes when your client secures life insurance with you, including:
- Better quality client
- Increased retention (people typically don’t cancel life insurance)
- For some clients, it may drive discounts to other policies
- Boosted client trust
- Increased sales
- Better protection for your clients
However, life insurance is often overlooked on new business, renewals, and inbound service calls. I fear that we get so focused on the transaction at hand that we miss the opportunity to educate the client that you offer life and insurance and how it can protect their family.
So, why do agents and support team members miss life insurance opportunities?
- Uncomfortable with asking
- Not enough confidence in how to ask or what to say
- Focused on the work at hand
- Feeling of no time
- Forgetting
- Not clear on where to send opportunities or lack of faith they will get handled appropriately
- Non-life licensed team members aren’t clear that they can recommend it and then forward it to someone who is licensed
- No clear incentives or goals
If this is the most important policy people will ever use, it’s a great time to get the team more comfortable with how to cross sell life insurance.
In this blog, we will review the three most critical client interactions and how we can cross-sell life insurance during them: New Business, Renewals, and Service Calls.
Cross Selling Life Insurance on New Business
The best time to cross sell anything is at the point of sale. Why? Nothing has been screwed up yet! Now, I’m not saying that your team messes things up all the time, however, rates change, problems happen, and the more time goes by, the harder it is. Even if we just educate every lead that comes in that you do life insurance, you will boost your life insurance sales.
Remember, if the lead isn’t interested in your other quotes, they may still become a client if you engage them in life insurance. With your foot in the door, now there is a higher likelihood we will earn their other accounts.
Let me walk you through some tried-and-true ways to boost your life insurance sales on new business.
Presenting a Preliminary Life Insurance Quote with Every P&C Quote
When we quote new business, we need to ensure we have a sales experience, not just a quoting experience. Many sales agents could use some sales training to help them identify clues and cues to help them sell insurance.
With life insurance, we always recommend that you add a preliminary quote in with every new business quote. First, what do you have to lose? Second, they know you do it and they will have a rough estimate of what it costs. Lastly, if they don’t want it right now, you know they know to call you when they are ready. The life quote doesn’t take a ton of time to prepare, so let’s add it on!
Asking: Where Do You Have Your Life Insurance?
When working with life insurance, you want to make it a conversation. You will often get shot down if you ask the typical “Where do you have your life insurance?” question. Instead, if you rephrase it to where you have it, you engage in a conversation where you can pick up loads of detail.
Some agents get nervous because you don’t need this information to quote, and what if you lose the sale? You won’t, that’s stinking thinking! If someone asks why you need it, simply say you like to keep it on file in case you need to know.
Presenting Quotes With or Without Life Insurance Discounts
If you are Erie Agent or Auto Owners, you know how life insurance is critical to hit your sales goals and contests. When you present 2 options to your clients (which we always recommend in our sales training) you can entice people to learn more.
Just a friendly reminder – cross selling life insurance is about sales, not quoting. Many times, I see new business agents prejudge or assume that people don’t want it, can’t afford it, or they won’t qualify for life insurance. I like to remind everyone that in sales we ask everyone – when we underwrite we determine if they are a fit.
Cross Selling Life Insurance at Renewal
First of all, if your agency is late to the renewal review game, I can tell you – you are missing out. Renewal reviews help you increase coverage, get better contact information, clean up accounts, and most importantly, allow your team to get organized and plan what policies to cross sell.
When we think about how to cross sell life insurance, I 100% learn on renewal reviews. It’s amazing how much easier cross selling is when you have a simple and easy plan.
Three Ways To Ask About Life Insurance at Renewal
- Still my favorite: Where do you have your life insurance?
- Did you know we offer life insurance?
- In conducting the renewal review, I noticed Insert Client Life Change – this means it’s time to review your life insurance. (Remember you can get our Life Insurance Life Change Guide here)
On every single renewal review we should be educating clients about life insurance. We call this Cross-Education.
Sometimes, the word “sales” can turn us off. However, if everyone has the heart of a teacher, we can most certainly do a better job of educating our clients on what they need and how we can help. Remember, clients cannot get a life insurance policy with us if they do not know we offer it.
Common Client Responses To Life Insurance Questions
You will find that clients will give you a few responses to the life insurance question: Where do you have your life insurance? In case you face these scenarios, we want to give you some guidance on how to work through them.
I Have Life Insurance at Work
While this is great, there are several challenges with a work sponsored life insurance plan. It’s wonderful and should not be canceled, but let’s break down the reality of the situation:
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- What happens if you change jobs and have a pre-existing condition – you would no longer have life insurance
- What happens if your employer stops offering the benefit and you can’t get life insurance?
- What happens if the company is bought or sold and life insurance is no longer offered?
- The Most Important One: What happens if you have a medical issue and can no longer work? You wouldn’t have life insurance.
For these reasons, we always recommend having a policy you control personally to protect your family.
I Have Life Insurance Through My Financial Planner or Separate Life Insurance
Just a note on this one, some people may have purchased a policy online without much thought. It’s always a great idea to get a policy that you control. Here is a quick script to walk you through how to respond:
“That is great to hear that you are taking care of your family. One thing we always recommend is to review the term and/or amount. As your life changes, you want to ensure the policy is still enough to cover your intentions. Also, the carrier you are with offers a discount – you can’t have too much life insurance, right?
Don’t assume that policy is enough; you may be amazed at what you can find.
I Don’t Have Life Insurance
Well this is an opportunity! Not having life insurance means that most likely no one has ever brought it to their attention. Your goal when you receive this feedback is to go right into assuming they want a quote.
Just simply say. “Well let’s take care that today, I’m going to add in a life insurance quote just so we can see what we would be looking at.”
You can easily prepare 2-3 quotes at different coverage levels and present it.
Renewal is a great time to review life insurance with clients. Also, when you identify the life changes that may trigger life insurance through the renewal review, it’s a no brainer. In addition, you can protect the agency by documenting what you asked about it and the client was not interested.
Cross Selling During Service Calls
This is the perfect time to address the #1 reason why I hear service team members resist suggesting life insurance. Either they are not life licensed or they are not comfortable asking.
You do not need a life license to recommend life insurance, you need a strong passion for your client protection.
Don’t overthink life insurance! It’s as simple as asking a few questions. Then you can tee it up to the life insurance professional in your office. (Trust me they will love you!)
Life Changes = Life Insurance
Many service requests that come into your office represent a change. Someone buying a home, getting married, changing addresses, getting divorced, opening a business, having a baby, or purchasing a toy.
Every single one of these changes is a life insurance opportunity. Get good at listening to your clients and finding opportunities! If you want to get good at cross selling life insurance write down 5 major life changes – hang it at your desk, and every time someone mentions something, just ask.
How To Ask for Life Insurance on a Service Call
The next step is to identify how to ask. Generally, in this role clients are asking you questions. However, it’s an opportunity to shift the narrative. I love it when our clients do this one thing:
While I have you on the phone, if I find any coverage weaknesses or missing discounts, may I bring them to your attention?
This is brilliant for any cross sale opportunity – but if you are interested in how to cross sell life insurance, this really works. It works because you can look, educate, and encourage (LEE) the client to get that life insurance quote and you get permission upfront – the client is expecting your review!
Providing Your Team a Life Insurance Sales Flow
Most service team members want all the details to feel good about making the request. You will need to outline where the opportunities go and what the expectation is. The fear is always that the client will have a dropped ball or maybe they don’t qualify and it causes friction.
Make sure you outline who to go to with life insurance opportunities and the expectation to make contact.
Still Uncomfortable Asking for Life?
It is very hard to recommend something you don’t value, understand, or have. Most service people want to succeed but it’s still very fuzzy on how it works. I always recommend getting a life insurance quote for yourself and family. This is great because you understand the process, the general cost and how it works.
Here is our foolproof process to get better at life insurance!
- Get your own quote (even if you are not comfortable at your agency, get a quote somewhere)
- Just ask 10 people (once you get the reps in you feel better – have no expectations on the outcome)
- Make it a challenge to ask 2 people every day (what you do consistently adds up)
- Let it go (once you pass the lead, let the life insurance agent take over)
Conclusion on How To Cross Sell Life Insurance
This blog is a great starting point on how to cross sell life insurance. Once you start asking, you will see how simple and easy it can be! Don’t hold your potential back. Embrace it and see how many life insurance quotes you can get going. It’s the only policy we all know we will use.
Getting momentum on life insurance takes more time by the nature of the underwriting process. Work to break down the walls and get asking. Oh, and if you want to learn how to overcome objections, get more scripts, and have even more life insurance strategies, get our on-demand training
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