The Annuity Gateway

5. Dig deep to unearth cross-selling opportunities
Maybe it's a life insurance policy funded by an immediate annuity. Maybe it's health insurance or Medicare supplemental insurance. When you're discussing one product with a client or prospect, be alert for openings to talk about others. Cross-selling opportunities involving annuities abound.

An advisor's job is to expose or recognize them by asking the right questions to "drill down a little deeper," Kauffman says. "It's often just a matter of asking a couple more questions: 'Have you looked at what your income needs are for retirement? Do you have any low- or non-performing assets?'
Those kinds of questions."

6. Offer free beneficiary reviews
To open a dialogue with clients and prospects, Kauffman suggests that advisors offer a no-charge review of beneficiary designations for retirement plans, annuity contracts, life insurance policies, etc. "They could need updating or have been done incorrectly," he explains, "in which case you might catch a problem and in doing so, create an opportunity to expose a need for a product like an annuity."

7. Provide an RMD Rx
Plenty of clients who are approaching or have already reached the age at which they must take required minimum distributions (RMDs) from their retirement accounts may be better served using that income to purchase some kind of annuity to leverage those dollars for wealth transfer/legacy planning purposes, according to Kauffman.

8. Since we're talking about asset-protection and long term care
The reality is, many seniors for whom long-term care insurance makes sense as an asset-protection tool may not want, qualify for or have the means to afford a stand-alone LTCI policy. In those cases, one of a new breed of combination or hybrid annuity contracts with a long-term care living benefit rider can make sense. The benefits associated with such a rider aren't as robust as most stand-alone LTCI policies, but some coverage is better than none. What's more, underwriting isn't usually an issue. And funds drawn from one of these hybrid contracts to cover long-term care costs get favorable tax treatment.

9. Show seminar savvy
Seminars remain a viable prospecting tool for annuity producers, as long as they're done right. The key, says Kauffman, is providing people with a service–solid, actionable advice and information–minus the sales pressure. Advisors who pick compelling topics and execute their events skillfully are apt to get consistently good yield from their seminar investment.

10. Leverage the Social Security issue
One of the hottest seminar topics today, Kauffman says, is Social Security–chiefly, how individuals and couples can maximize the program's benefits. "I spoke with an advisor recently who told me he's not just filling up rooms but has long waiting lists for seminars about Social Security. There's that much interest in Social Security planning among seniors."

Being able to provide people with situation-specific Social Security solutions–Kauffman's firm has designed its own Social Security benefits calculator for just such a purpose–"opens doors and opens the file to everything they have," he says. "Once you've explained the Social Security stuff to them, the next thing you're likely to hear is, 'Can you also take a look at this for us…?' "

Then it's time to put that annuity product know-how to work.