I realize the big policies are more fun to write than term life . It ’ s an amazing world that I was doing for fifteen years . Then I ended up becoming friends with a neighbor that changed my perspective .
Jeremy Hallett
The passion team
Anderson : Jeremy and I are two of the people in the business that probably think about this subject the most . We ’ re both passionate about life insurance and providing protection for families .
You hear people say that selling life insurance is a noble profession as we are saving families . Yet , we are not doing heroic acts by selling life insurance . The true heroes are the ones buying the policies . Our role is to get the word out on how to gain peace of mind through life insurance .
Hallett : I realize the big policies are more fun to write than term life . You write a six figure premium and there ’ s really a lot of commissions to be thrown around . The agents are happy ; and the BGAs are happy . That is the world we are in . It ’ s an amazing world that I was doing for fifteen years . Then I ended up becoming friends with a neighbor that changed my perspective .
Life lesson
As a BGA , what I wasn ’ t doing was being the insurance agent who talks to everyone he knows and telling them about life insurance . I didn ’ t want to be that salesman who calls on friends and family . So , I never offered my services or knowledge to my neighbor .
One day the neighbor announced he had stage 4 colon cancer . He proceeded to die over the next 18 months . I watched him suffer ; then I watched his family suffer from his wife having to take a second job to cover costs , to the child getting into drugs , and the family having to move out of the neighborhood and school district because they couldn ’ t afford to stay . Everything in their life collapsed around them because they didn ’ t have life insurance . And , they had me two doors down . This got me into focusing on how protection really matters more than making a whole bunch of money .
Not a sexy sell
Hallett : We realize term life is the least sexy , the least exciting product to sell . It ’ s not enough to get most people out of bed in the morning . We believe that needs to change . Americans are clamoring for life insurance now more than ever before .
Anderson : It goes without saying that people are more aware of their mortality now with awareness peaking in 2020 and 2021 , obviously due to the pandemic . Given this , it is so important , as an industry , to focus on explaining the importance of life insurance . If we don ’ t get out there now , the coverage gap will continue to get bigger . I can ’ t think of a more important objective for our whole industry . We all need to add just a little extra time in our work day to selling life .
Shinier coin
Hallett : All the best advisors , the people who are really good at life insurance tend to be really good at relationships , and if they ’ re really good at relationships , they have 17 different ways of making money . A lot of them end up moving into managing money . So many of our best agents move into that because when you have a $ 400,000 gross income into your organization with two staffers , and you pay rent along with everything else , making $ 8,000 a year selling life insurance from six cases doesn ’ t add up . Especially , when you take into account the work associated with the apps ; your clients complaining about the process and yelling at you … lot of effort for 2 % of revenue . That ’ s actually what we are dealing with as an industry . The process needs to improve now .
Nurturing the hero continued on page 28
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