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Term Life Insurance Business in 2023: What It Takes to Capitalize on Current Demand
By Brian Barnes
Consumers wish it were easier to buy term life insurance. The application and purchase process can take weeks; it requires an army of statisticians, underwriters, and, in some cases, bodily fluids, from the applicant. When it’s finally over, neither the applicant nor the agent has any real insight into why the applicant received their specific policy and rates.
Finding improvements to this process can contribute to a financial planner’s ability to retain existing clients and acquire new ones. Indeed, a report from Grand View Research1 noted that technological advances paired with investments in the market by financial planning institutions are key contributors to the growing consumer demand for term life insurance. This demand is expected to exceed $1.126 trillion by the end of 2023, presenting an opportunity for financial advisors to better meet client demands by offering a streamlined term life application process alongside their traditional financial planning services.
Taking advantage of this opportunity will require real work and effort. But it’s absolutely attainable, particularly with the right partners. To get started, we recommend that advisors focus on three key things.
1. Leveraging Technology to Increase Operational Efficiency
Technology exists to make your life as an advisor easier. From the adoption of the right customer relationship management solution to online customer portals, communication and collaboration tools, and HIPAA-compliant document management systems designed specifically for the insurance application process, the right technical stack should deliver more benefits than pain. For many advisors, outsourcing these capabilities to a trusted partner is often more cost-effective than purchasing, implementing, and integrating these disparate systems on a one-off basis.
2. Finding Product Variety and Competitive Pricing
Adding insurance consultation to a Fee-Only practice is more straightforward than it seems and can open new opportunities to connect with existing as well as prospective clients. While online sites can allow customers to compare the costs of competing insurance products in 30 seconds, that’s hardly enough information for the average person looking to secure their family’s financial future. As an advisor, your understanding of the client’s unique financial situation allows you to provide an informed recommendation regarding product type and coverage amount. This insight generates long-term loyalty by ensuring that your clients’ financial needs are met under one roof with the custom approach they have come to expect. Consulting on insurance coverage can also help you get new prospects in the door by offering a holistic set of financial services that are crucial to building a secure financial future.
3. Building the Right Partner Ecosystem
No single advisor can manage life insurance applications for even a handful of their clients without sacrificing valuable face time with others and time spent on other aspects of financial planning. For this reason, it’s critical to build a network of industry-specific partnerships that help you offload the time-consuming back-end work of term life insurance fulfillment while still allowing you to maintain full ownership over your client relationships and real-time insight into your clients’ applications.
Some advisors are beginning to partner with new, internet-based “no medical exam” vendors to manage their term life overflow and business, but these often fail to provide positive customer experiences, as many Americans do not qualify under these vendors’ strict guidelines. As a result, we recommend connecting with partners who offer a wide variety of digital policy options, from accelerated underwriting to fully underwritten term life insurance and who couple these offerings with the expertise of their own licensed agents. This helps ensure that your clients are getting the coverage they need with the top-tier customer service they expect.
Find the Right Partner
At the end of the day, the success of your term life insurance practice is based on the strength of your customer relationships and your ability to deliver real value at all points along the journey. Without the right partners at your side, however, it’s very difficult to accomplish. By partnering with digital platforms that allow you to offload the administrative burden of term life insurance fulfillment while also maintaining insight into every step of your clients’ experiences, you can tap into growing consumer demand and provide a more holistic set of services that will ultimately improve your customer satisfaction and retention.
Brian Barnes is the head of growth at Policygenius Pro, a term life fulfillment platform that helps agents and financial advisors streamline life insurance sales. Partners receive access to many insurers, coverage types, and policies, including accelerated underwriting offerings.
image credit: istock.com/ilkercelik
