Fifteen years from now, when the silver tsunami of the baby boomers – some of whom will be you, your friends, or members of your own families – needs care all at once and can find affordable care only in giant public warehouse-like facilities, we will have no one but ourselves to blame. Yes – we are largely responsible for languishing sales of LTCI.
Does this sound too harsh? Well, how many readers own LTCI themselves? I'll wager the answer is little more than the 10 percent average for the public. To be successful, you must own what you sell. How can you speak with conviction about a product that you don't believe in enough to own yourself? There are really no excuses – you can write your own LTCI for almost nothing, since first-year commissions make up such a large percentage of premiums.
Last month, the top management of a major carrier's local agency invited me to inspire their producers to sell more LTCI. My contact explained that, prior to becoming the agency manager, he sold lots of LTCI, and is a true believer in the product. Among the producers at this agency, however, LTCI sales have been scant: He estimates that his entire large agency sells half as many policies as I personally sell in a year.
Everyone seems to realize the importance of selling LTCI in the abstract. Evidently, few understand that they'll need long term care themselves. We expect this from the public, but I'm annoyed with producers who think this way.
To change this point of view and increase LTCI sales, this agency wants its advisors to do joint work with me. I now have the time to do so, and consider it a pleasure to mentor and nurture advisors who want to master the LTCI learning curve in this manner. There's no excuse for producers to put off showing or buying LTCI just because it bewilders them. I have also offered not to take any commission on LTCI: I help these folks write themselves and their families.
In addition to giving the group a solid LTCI education, you'd better believe that I was very emotive about the need for LTCI. In fact, my contact stated that he specifically wanted me there because he hoped my LTCI passion would be contagious and spark a passion for LTCI in his producers.
And there's one less excuse for these agents to own what they sell: Their own LTCI policy has a special feature that will enable new advisors, whose finances are often very pinched, to own LTCI for virtually nothing. In Texas, you can buy Prudential's LTCI with a guaranteed purchase option, which offers a ridiculously low premium. This captures insurability, and costs less than it would if you waited to purchase with more costly inflation protection. When their personal finances improve, agents can convert to compound (or any other type of) inflation protection at attained age rates, with no underwriting.
Several advisors that day shared stories that illustrated the dire need for LTCI. But, just like the general public, they evidently don't recognize the need to own LTCI themselves. It appears that they believe the need for long term care is a societal problem that doesn't apply to them.
Only one person so far has taken me up on my offer to jointly present to clients, and we made a very successful presentation together. This is also the only producer in the audience of about 15 producers who owns LTCI.
It's the same scenario with my local health insurance trade association, the Houston Area Health Underwriters. When I teach CE classes on LTCI, I ask how many already own LTCI – and the answer is equally disappointing.
