Marketing Disability By Direct Mail

[LGilmore]

DI is one of the toughest sales in this business. Not that the product is bad, it's excellent. It's a combo of tight underwritting, pricing and client reluctance that makes it hard.

I agree with every other experienced agent has posted here. The best prospects for DI are self employed, they don't suffer the delusion that workers comp will cover everything.

 

[VolAgent]

This will let you know what your facing.

Go down the local supermarket and find the peaches.

Take every peach and inspect it for the slightest blemish. Any imperfections at all. Set those in one pile. Those that are perfectly defect free go in a second pile. See how many perfect peaches you can find, that is how many will pass DI underwriting and might want to buy.

You want defect free peaches, you have to get them from the tree (med, law, dentistry, pharmacy school, etc.). They you have to convince them to buy on a limited budget.

 

[Vegas Guy]

I should have been clearer. I would be sending the letter to the wife, but not attempting to sell her the disability insurance. The phrasing of the letter would be directed at the family.

We have pulled some initial criteria of:
- Household income above 150k.
- Confirmed homeowners.
- The married woman would be between the age of 35 and 50.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I sell more C.I. than D.I.

Just a lot easier and also as a rider than a stand alone.

Mark,

My ultimate goal is review their life insurance policy. I like your input about CI.

How about trying a letter based around CI coverage in an attempt to get the wife to call.

What are your guys thoughts?

 

[AOKING]

Don't think it would work, but it is worth a try.

 

[dgoldenz]

You're probably wasting your time and money. I'd look to an existing book of clients before doing this. If the response rate for life insurance is 1-2%, the response rate for DI is probably 0.1%. Getting people to realize how important it is to protect their income is difficult enough....getting them to do that with a direct mail piece without ever talking to them is even tougher.

 

[pbbaseball]

You're probably wasting your time and money. I'd look to an existing book of clients before doing this. If the response rate for life insurance is 1-2%, the response rate for DI is probably 0.1%. Getting people to realize how important it is to protect their income is difficult enough....getting them to do that with a direct mail piece without ever talking to them is even tougher.

Agreed! I sold DI for 9 yrs. Tough sale, those that can't qualify want it, those that can qualify don't. No matter how many statistics you throw at them, it will never happen to them.

If your intention is to review their life insurance, I'd send a letter saying that. Cross market the DI to current customers.

If you have to sell DI, instead of primarily trying to get the attention of doctors, lawyers, etc... I would recommend going after truck driver owner-operators, mechanics, beauticians, and daycares. All places you can walk up to and approach face to face without a gatekeeper.

A lot of them don't have health insurance, can't afford it, don't want it, will never get it. But don't mind spending $150/mo to make sure they are paid if they are out of work. They don' t care if the doctor or hospital gets paid. And unless they are required to have it for a business loan, most won't have life insurance.

 

[b61mack]

you could give it a test try,