Whether you are an individual life insurance agent or a life insurance agency owner, selling life insurance can be challenging, but it can also be gratifying and financially rewarding. The life insurance sales industry is highly competitive, with 409,950 life insurance sales agents in the U.S. in 2020, which translates to one life insurance agent per 1,234 people. To succeed in this industry, you need to have the right strategy and approach.
If you have been selling life insurance policies for some time, you likely have a strategy that works for you. However, even the most experienced insurance sales agents need a refresher from time to time to stay on top of their game.
Life insurance agencies can also benefit from going back to the basics to help support agent recruitment and retention. Continue reading the following tips that can help you and your team improve your productivity.
Why Sell Life Insurance?
Selling life insurance is not for everyone! However, you may choose this career if you are ready to face the challenges it brings. In 2020, the median wage for life insurance agents was $52,180, while the top salespeople with outstanding selling capabilities earned over $127,840 during the same period.
These figures show that life insurance marketing is a rewarding career with high earning potential. The low barrier of entry in the life insurance business makes it highly attractive for millennials in particular. You can become a certified life insurance professional without acquiring a degree.
On top of that, you can benefit from numerous advantages that may compel you to continue your career in the insurance company.
- Benefits include:
- High commission
- Significant career growth opportunities
- Flexible schedule
- Ongoing income with renewals
How to Sell Life Insurance Successfully
The first step is to learn the fundamental rules and regulations to become a successful life insurance agent. Learn about state-specific insurance licensing requirements and put in all your hard work to attain a life insurance license. Visit the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) website to explore more about the pass rates for state-wise insurance exams.
Lean on Referrals
Your insurance company will provide you leads; you may get lower commissions, though. That’s why referrals are such an ideal option. Reach out to your clients for referrals. If you already have happy clients, ask them to refer your business to friends, family, and coworkers. You can generate life insurance leads and nurture them over time with the right knowledge, skills, and expertise.
Keep Up With Changes
If you are an independent agent, you will have to find new leads on your own. Cold calling can be an effective sales strategy that helps in lead generation. Keep in mind that your current client’s needs will change as their life changes. Life-changing events like marriage, divorce, and having children may change their life insurance needs.
Many of your clients may have started with term life insurance, so don’t forget to revisit the policyholders after the first year of purchase to discuss the benefits of buying a whole life insurance plan. Help your clients understand different types of life insurance plans such as term life, whole life, or universal life insurance.
Understand Your Target Audience
Once you enter the insurance industry with a key skill set, it’s time to study and understand your market. Get acquainted with the goals, challenges, and key expectations of your audience and understand how your product can solve them. Knowing who your target audience is can help you customize your marketing strategies.
For example, the key audience for term insurance is buyers between the age group of 25 and 45. This is the age group where major life events such as getting married, buying a home, building families, and more take place. With a higher debt-to-income ratio, this age group typically possesses a lower net worth than their older buyers.
As a life insurance agent, learning these facts can enable you to understand market demographics and trends comprehensively. This will help you understand your buyers better, such as what they are looking for and how you can serve them with the best life insurance policy that fits their needs.
Consider Specializing
Before selling your product to the clients, thoroughly learn all the features, benefits, and other aspects. Rather than exploring all the products that the company offers, opt for specialization. Consider specializing in one product as this gives you a more in-depth understanding of the product, competitors, and the target market’s pain points.
Insurance reps are more likely to sell confidently when they specialize in a few niche products. Master a product and be prepared for any questions that your client may ask you before buying the policy. With a thorough understanding of a product, you can better assist and convince the buyers to purchase it immediately.
Your client may ask you about the difference between term life insurance and permanent life insurance policies. So, before they hop on to the next question, you‘ll be able to explain that the former might seem inexpensive, but the benefit of buying permanent life insurance is that you earn cash value and other benefits — all because you choose to specialize.
Try Cold Calling
Cold calling is a common sales technique where the sales agent contacts the potential buyer to gauge their interest in buying a life insurance policy. For effective calling, create an efficient insurance script to use during calls to engage potential clients from the start and keep the conversation moving. Creating insurance scripts requires hard work, but the results are rewarding.
Establish credibility and try to build rapport as you move forward in the outbound call. Understand your prospect’s pain points and align your offerings to your customer’s expectations to pique interest. During your first call, you shouldn’t expect your lead to convert, so you’ll need to nurture the lead seamlessly via constant efforts to reach conversion.
Build trust by reviewing your client’s personal life insurance goals, as this is crucial to a cordial agent-client relationship. Building relationships with your clients will open doors for more upselling and cross-selling opportunities as they will likely approach you for all their insurance policy purchase needs.
Invest in Continuous Learning
Life insurance is a dynamic industry that transforms rapidly with the shifting lifestyle and changing industry trends. Stay up to date with the industry and continue expanding your knowledge to become a trusted source for your clients. Theoretical knowledge about various insurance products is not just enough; emphasize real-life examples.
Reading books, attending seminars, exploring training material, building links on LinkedIn, or learning sales tips on social media may help you gain a deeper understanding of various life insurance policies, and hands-on experience will help you generate more leads. As you mature as a life insurance agent, you tend to learn things through experience that no books or tutorials can offer.
Also, learn useful tools to stay updated and set yourself up for success. Learn how some of the popular life insurance CRM platforms help keep track of customers while helping you manage the book of business. Learning insurance quoting tools such as iLife will help you build your business while generating qualifying leads that expedite the sales process.
Unlock the Tools You Need for Successful Sales with iLife
Managing leads and optimizing your sales process can be challenging for experienced life insurance agents. For seamless business management, life insurance agents need a tool to simplify complex insurance sales processes.
iLife has numerous advantages that can help your insurance agency grow and succeed, including:
- Increased Efficiency and Productivity: With iLife, you can automate repetitive tasks, such as data entry, and focus on activities that drive revenue. Your team can manage their leads, chat with prospects, and follow up with clients – all from a single platform.
- Life Insurance Quoting Engine: With iLife, you can get appointed with a variety of leading carriers and compare policies without leaving the platform. And sharing illustrations with clients is a breeze!
- Customer Relationship Management: With iLife, you can keep track of all your customer interactions in one place. This includes emails, phone calls, and notes, ensuring that your team is always up-to-date on their clients’ needs.
- Insights and Analytics: iLife’s robust reporting and analytics features provide real-time insights into your team’s performance, so you can track progress, identify areas of improvement, and make data-driven decisions.
- Life Insurance Agency Management: iLife also helps agency managers attract top agent talent and manage recruitment pipelines. Perform all management tasks from one platform!
Sign up with iLife and increase your insurance sales by building an online presence.
