Are they even qualified to buy?

[TripleH]

One of the most important things is eliminating the time wasters and make sure you are actually sitting with someone that is qualified to buy and make monthly payments.

I ask a couple key questions:

Do you use a traditional bank or local credit union? (I just want to know if they have a bank account)
Do you collect Social Security or Disability? (If no and they have a job you're good)

For me those are the two key things I need to know in order to proceed with my presentation and get into the underwriting side of things and digging a little bit deeper

Sometimes I see agents who are sitting with someone for an hour, do their presentation and find out they have a Metabank prepaid card (which has TERRIBLE persistency) or do NOT even have a source of income.

Get these questions out of the way, you do not need to ask the questions and harp on them. You can ask the questions and just keep powering through with your presentation.

 

[tribetime32]

Good stuff Holden! Overcoming objections BEFORE they actually come up is something that separates a struggling agent from a succesful one in my opinion. I did a training on preemptively overcoming objections a couple months ago. Start the video around 12 minutes in for the training portion. I apologize in advance for the horrible Cleveland attire.

 

[TripleH]

Good stuff Holden! Overcoming objections BEFORE they actually come up is something that separates a struggling agent from a succesful one in my opinion. I did a training on preemptively overcoming objections a couple months ago. Start the video around 12 minutes in for the training portion. I apologize in advance for the horrible Cleveland attire.

That's a great way to put it! Content is key for agents to listen

 

[HoosierLife]

 

[Newby]

Those are not bad suggestions, but I would also add another question. What health care do you have?

this leads to 2 things, 1) they may be Medicaid qualifiers, which at that point you have to be very cautious about selling the policy. If they are Medicare it is best to have a son or daughter who doesn’t have midicaid be the owner and payor

or 2) they have MEDICARE, Tricare, group or private insurance, which you now know they probably have a paycheck coming in somewhere.

if they are on SSA alone, they might have only the SSA debit card, which poses a slight issue. Ask of their SAA goes directly to their bank account or the SSA direct card.

So you are advising all the FE agents to not sell policies to people on Medicaid (you called it Medicare but Im sure you had to mean Medicaid) unless they have a son or daughter that is not on Medicaid who is available to be the owner of the policy?

Is that your final answer?

I’m going to say that is not good advice. You are killing a fly with a hammer. You are taking a small problem and making it a huge problem.

 

[Baseball7]

Key question....

“Ms.Johnson before you sit down can you grab your direct express card and your Lincoln Heritage policy so we can get this upgrade processed.”

#rapidprequalification

 

[shonceman]

Key question....

“Ms.Johnson before you sit down can you grab your direct express card and your Lincoln Heritage policy so we can get this upgrade processed.”

#rapidprequalification

 

[shonceman]

Since I can collect cash payments, my prequal basically goes:
“Here, breathe on this mirror.”

 

[HoosierLife]

No, I am saying that people on Medicaid (QMB) or state benefits can lose their benefits if the insurance passes certain thresh holds. If they are not the owner and payor but just the insured, it will not have an impact on their benefits. I see a lot of people lose their benefits that they need because agents are more focused on making a sale and commission rather than looking at the whole picture, at least in my city they are very strict when it comes to the asset limits.

 

[Newby]

No, I am saying that people on Medicaid (QMB) or state benefits can lose their benefits if the insurance passes certain thresh holds. If they are not the owner and payor but just the insured, it will not have an impact on their benefits. I see a lot of people lose their benefits that they need because agents are more focused on making a sale and commission rather than looking at the whole picture, at least in my city they are very strict when it comes to the asset limits.

You can sleep a lot easier tonight. There are easy fixes.
1. If their policy is just to cover the funeral/cemetery stuff all they have to do is irrevocably assign the policy to their funeral home once it becomes a problem for Medicaid. It takes around 5 to 8 years or more for most FE policies to build up $2,000 in cash. So when that happens, just take it to the funeral home 10 minutes later Medicaid is 100% fine with it. No look back period on funeral home assignments.

2. If they have a larger policy that’s going to have excess money over the funeral and their cash value has grown to around $2000 they can just take a policy loan and immediately spend the money on personal items for themself. New mattress, chair, refrigerator, home or auto repairs, new tires, etc. Keep a paper trail and Medicaid is fine. The rest of the policy is still intact.

The main reason your suggestion is not great is because very often Medicaid is multi-generational. It’s a lifestyle choice for many families. Plus the difficulty of getting the son or daughter on board and present in a timely manner.