If you've shied away from selling disability income (DI), now is a good time to reconsider.
Marketplace trends point towards new and improved opportunities to make disability income sales a steady and lucrative source of income for the savvy producer. And developments within the DI industry are resulting in better support than ever for garnering these sales.
Sales to boomers are booming
The single most significant market trend creating expanded DI sales opportunities today is the aging of the baby boomers.
As 82 million boomers enter middle age, they also enter their peak earning years and their years of greatest financial obligation. Along with their increased incomes and increased responsibilities comes a keen awareness of the need to insure their earnings.
Within the broad baby boomer category are numerous attractive niche markets.
For example, minority groups are growing. As the most highly-educated, most affluent minority, Asians are good prospects for DI. And the U.S. Census Bureau projects that Hispanics will make up over 20% of the U.S. population by the year 2000, a goldmine of buying power.
Societal shifts create new needs
Shifts away from the traditional breadwinner/homemaker family configuration are bringing home the need for income protection to new prospects.
Two-income couples have twice the need for income protection. The "sandwich generation," which is simultaneously supporting young children and elderly parents, likewise has heavy financial burdens. Single parents and divorcees as well as the growing ranks of nevermarrieds have no one to fall back on if they lose their ability to earn.
With the U.S. savings rate at an all-time low, few people, regardless of occupation or family situation, have enough set aside to sustain them through an extended period of disability. All these circumstances call for disability income insurance.
Target occupations changing and expanding
New and non-traditional ways of earning income extend the need for disability beyond traditional professional markets, and even change the requirements within established markets such as physicians and business owners.
