4 Steps to Every Final Expense Sale

Sensible, simple, succinct, and smart. These four significant things are what every agent selling final expense life insurance should do for more sales. Do you know what they are?

It’s important to have your sales process ready before calling up a client. Discover how to talk about final expense insurance confidently. Use these insurance sales tips to turn more prospects into clients!

1. Ask the “Magic” Questions

To fully understand your clients’ financial situations, you need to check for any hidden coverage gaps. Asking questions gives you an idea of what type of policies they could afford.

What Are the Magic Questions for Selling Final Expense?

They’re the questions that dive into your clients’ health, family, current insurance policies, and assets. Using an “icebreaker” such as the one-page [Ritter Fact Finder](/documents/ritter-fact-finder.pdf “Ritter Fact Finder) helps you get the answers you need.

Once you’ve gathered all the background information, there are two sets of qualifying questions you should pose.

• “Have you or your family been involved with or assisted in paying for a loved one’s funeral? How were the expenses handled?”
• “Have you thought about your final wishes? If you pass without insurance, who will take care of your arrangements? How will they pay?”

These questions will help your client think about their related personal experiences and start considering if having some sort of final expense coverage for end-of-life costs is important to them.

2. Educate Like No Other

Research shows that 83 percent of Americans would consider purchasing life insurance if it was easier to understand, and 51 percent of Americans would rather buy life insurance from a person versus online.

As humans, we’re hesitant to leap into the unknown. Heck, sometimes, just figuring out what to make for dinner can be a struggle. As a well-educated agent, you can help your clients and prospects feel at ease. This will encourage them to meet coverage needs for their end-of-life expenses.

What Should You Explain About Final Expense?

Start by going over the basics. Highlight the stability of a final expense policy:

• Their rates will never rise.
• Their benefits will never get cut.
• Their policy will never be canceled, if the premiums are paid.

Then, talk about the different types of final expense policies out there. These include level, graded, modified, and guaranteed issue. You can explain what you believe they would qualify for and why.

A client is more likely to stay loyal to the agent who helps them understand the details. They prefer a detailed, educated, and patient agent over the one who pressures them to buy a product they are unsure about.

3. Pre-Qualify Sales-Qualified Leads

There are two phases to pre-qualifying your sales-qualified final expense leads. The first is qualifying them based on their health, and the second is qualifying them based on their budget.

By Their Health

Not everyone is eligible for simplified issue final expense insurance. Certain conditions can disqualify an applicant from coverage. These conditions may include, but are not limited to:

• AIDS
• Cerebral palsy
• Cancer
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• Dementia
• Diabetes
• Heart attack
• Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS)

Certain conditions can disqualify an applicant from final expense coverage.

If simplified issue final expense won’t work for a client, then a guaranteed issue policy is the way to go. Please keep in mind, guaranteed issue policies come with a higher premium.

If your client is mostly healthy or has some health issues that won’t preven them from getting a new policy, you can move on with a simplified issue policy.

By Their Budget

Qualifying for a policy based on health doesn’t matter if your client can’t afford it. Before you start writing, you must discover which policies fit into your client’s budget.

You can ask your clients what monthly premium they could afford to pay right now. This can help to protect their family later. If they aren’t sure, simply start saying available monthly premium amounts, from highest to lowest. We suggest using the 30-60-90 approach — “Can you easily afford $30, $60, or $90 per month?” Watch your clients’ body language and listen to their reactions to see which price is “right.”

Qualifying for a policy based on health doesn’t matter if your client can’t afford it.

Another way to pre-qualify final expense leads is to work backward. Ask them if they know how much end-of-life services cost. If not, inform them of the average costs of cremations or funerals.

Then, review available policy payout amounts based on your clients’ final wishes. You can also ask them how much coverage they’d be interested in having.

4. Use Final Expense Product Comparison Tools

If you think a client can get approved and afford the premiums for a final expense policy, you can enroll them into said policy. Doing so is a whole lot easier if you know each carrier’s product and underwriting niches.

That’s where having the support of an experienced, full-service field marketing organization, like Ritter Insurance Marketing, is helpful.

Ritter’s Final Expense Product Comparison Tool will tell you if a carrier:

• Offers preferred, standard, modified, graded, or guaranteed issue ratings
• Accepts paper applications, telephone applications, or has an e-App
• Features “Just in Time” contracting
• Requires a telephone interview at the point of sale
• Accepts the most common health conditions — such as previous heart attack, cancer, COPD or diabetes — and when
• Other notable benefits or restrictions

To view this info, all you need to do is register with RitterIM.com for free. Once you confirm you’re logged into the site, visit the More than Medicare Ritter Docs page.

Whether you’re new to selling final expense insurance or not, there’s always room to grow. Refining your sales strategy could be exactly what you need to sell more!

Want to learn more about getting final expense leads or ask for policy recommendations from an experienced professional? Talk with our Sales team from Ritter Insurance Marketing today!