Of all the products you have the opportunity to sell, arguably the most neglected is disability income insurance. The need is blatant for a wide range of age spans and income earners, and the product is affordable. Yet, too many good producers overlook the opportunities. What gives?
That's the age-old question — although it's not always asked in that way. For years, the industry and our society have suffered, I believe, because the need for income protection in the event of a disability has not been adequately filled.
But don't blame this month's panelists for those shortcomings. These three top producers are among the best in the business. Fielding my questions about what drives their passion for the market, the opportunities and challenges they face, and their practical advice for other producers looking to grow their DI business are the following: Robert L. Avery, CFP, CLU, ChFC; Peter R. Magni, LUTCF; and Larry Schneider.
For the first part of this roundtable, see:
Overcoming DI sales challenges
Q: What are the biggest challenges your DI business is facing right now, and how are you taking steps to overcome them?
Magni: There are several challenges I have observed in my disability income protection business. First of all, as some of my clients approach their mid-fifties, they do not see quite as much of a need to continue to protect their rising incomes. Since they have been protecting their incomes throughout the years and nothing has happened to them, they seem to feel they don't need to continue increasing their coverage. I counter that feeling with real-life issues, such as the fact that six of my physician clients in their fifties have been disabled in the past 15 months, all by illnesses. Since only two of these six will fully recover, they understand the importance of this great product.
The second challenge is the fact that younger physicians have so much debt they don't seem to think they will ever be free of it, which makes disability income protection not as important to them at this time. To overcome this mentality, I use examples of younger physicians who have been disabled as a means to get the point across.
These challenges certainly are not exclusive to the medical marketplace, but they permeate through the professional marketplace in general. In studying how to combat this lack of understanding for the need of this great product, producers need to get familiar with the Council on Disability Awareness, which provides very meaningful statistics in this area of disabilities.
