Three Reasons to Buy Life Insurance

 

If you are in your thirties living a happy life with a healthy family, it’s doubtful that you are considering life insurance. You are busy thinking about checking your alarm every night before bed. You have to make sure you get the kids to school on time. Maybe you’re even worried about the fight you and your spouse just had last night. You’re stressed about money; can you afford to go on vacation? What about covering your parents’ medical bills?  Despite all of these stressors, you count yourself lucky. You love your spouse and your children. Coming home brings you utter joy.

So, do you need life insurance?

Yes! Of course you should consider life insurance as a parent.

1. Financial Stability: If one of you in the marriage dies, the surviving partner will be stuck without no support. How could they stay in your current home, save for the children’s future,  pay off student loans, and prepare to retire in the future without the income from your salary? Life insurance is a way of covering this lost income and thus pay for expenses. With life insurance, financial stability is one less thing for you to worry about in the case of any tragedy.

2. Preparation: If you are hesitant about life insurance coverange, you may change your mind later in the future. This indecision will cost you thousand because premiums are based on metrics of age and your health. So, buying life insurance nearly guarantees  bigger problems if you wait until you’re older.

3. Live in the Now: Life insurance benefits those who are alive. Buying life insurance has nothing to do with you, even though it feels like it reflects your personal life.  Life insurance is protects your family and all of your loved ones by providing financial relief It’s about them, so make this smart investment as a powerful choice to let them know that you care about your family.

Live your life for the now.

How Can You Get Accurate Life Insurance Quotes?

 

Life insurance.  A way of protecting your assets for your loved ones in case of the worst possible accident.  You’ve seen the commercials – many agencies offer quotes – but how do you know you’re getting the best bang for your buck?

Life insurance sellers can ethically respond to the requests of their consumers by asking a few questions first.  Many sellers jump to immediately sending quotes and an application before listening to the needs of their clients. The best agency will reach out to each individual,  sending a brief needs analysis and having a conversation.  Then, the more complex issue of rate classes can be determined.

What exactly is a rate class?

A rate class is a bracket that displays the cost of coverage for applicants. This number is based on preliminary information in the quoting stage. The information is based on mortality information. So, rate classes are divided into three or four categories, or “brackets”: Preferred Best, Preferred, Standard Plus, Standard, with table ratings added.

The problem that’s out there in the realm of insurance is that many providers underwrite coverage of potential customers.  In order to offer accurate quotes, agencies must offer the desire and the skills necessary to determine which bracket customers best fit into.

Unrealistic expectations at the quoting stage can prepare customers for disappointment. So get a realistic quote to get on the right path.

The early stage of quoting is the perfect time to get the number that matches your situation. Only then will the numbers actually be meaningful to you. When asking for a quote, you are in a critical moment to discuss things that will help you in important fiscal decisions. Treat the initial steps not as a buying situation, but as a life choice. Don’t let quoting fears shy you away from buying life insurance!

 

This article was originally featured on SabrinaLloydAgencies.net

Physical and Mental Strength

Why do we Soldier up on Sunday?

When everyone else is sleeping the day away, this is when you can train yourself for success. When everyone else is relaxing and watching television, you can prepare yourself for dedicated, hard work. People fail in life because they get caught off guard. I look up to the sport of boxing for inspiration of how to prepare not only for my professional life, but personal struggles.

Muhammed Ali was a fighter.

Muhammad Ali

He got into the ring and did battle.  When he was in the ring, the audience saw his sweat and exasperation for ten, fifteen, thirty, even forty-five minutes. Just like the rest of us in our work and personal lives, no one sees the hard work Muhammed Ali dedicated to his sport.  But if the best fighters did not prepare for battle, they would never be successful.  You have to prepare yourself for battle. This is true not only for boxers, but for the rest of us.  We are all soldiers in life.

In life, no one sees how hard you have prepared. Are you prepared for the lights, camera, action, so you can come out winning? Are you going to be a CHUMP or a CHAMPION? It’s easy to simply exist through life. But to be a true soldier, you have to thrive. This is why we have to practice one, two, even three times a day to defend ourselves against the checks life throws at us. You have to train. You have to be committed.

Just like real soldiers, training is mentally and physically demanding.  You have to get support and preparation for battle in four areas.

• Mind
• Physical
• Support system
• Defense against failure

Training the mind and body goes together. The mind has to be strong for the body to be strong, and vice versa. Your support system implies who you’re fighting for, why your fighting for them, and if their supportive of you in return.

The last component is critical to your growth. Failure is why we prepare for success. No one wants to fail, so preparing yourself with the skills to defend against life’s obstacles helps us understand our fears. This is personal.

Through preparation and skill, you can defend yourself against any failure and be as successful in your life as Muhammed Ali was in the ring.

Transforming Hate into Positivity

“Hate. It has caused a lot of problems in this world but has not solved one yet.”

This is one of my favorite quotes from Maya Angelou.  So many people go through their day unhappy and hateful.  When things go wrong in our lives, we like to find a scapegoat.  Hatred affects situations as benign as teenagers blaming their parents for not buying them stylish new clothes. But the inability for people to forgive affects global issues as well, if you consider distrust and conflicts between nations that have existed centuries.  You can hate one person, but you may hate a whole group of people.  This balance affects our whole society.

Hate is a powerful emotion.  It creates a distaste for your surroundings.  When you hate your fellow humans, your brain will feel confused about how its supposed to engage with the rest of the world.  Refusing to forge paths of trust and forgiveness alienates you.

Think of our human society as a huge fortress.  Individuals live behind colossal, concrete walls formed on prejudice and hatred.  You have the power to destroy that wall using the power of positivity. You have the power to initiate connections through forgiveness, support, and gratitude.  Instead of an impenetrable fortress, we will create a nurturing home.

When you commit to seeing the world with a positive outlook, hate can transform into love and gratitude.  Remember my advice: If you don’t have anything nice to say, zip it!  Further, if you don’t have anything nice to say, think about something nice to say.  Fill your life with nice people and nice moments.  Kindness acts as a formidable defense against hate.  Energized to affect the world with hope and happiness, people infused with positivity will be the ones who solve the world’s problems.

If you’re struggling to combat a negative attitude, start small.  Turn to a stranger while waiting in line at the supermarket and ask them how their day is going.  Buy an unsolicited gift for your spouse.  Volunteer in your local community.  Getting through life is challenging!  It’s easy to get bogged down by your personal and professional life and their daily stresses.  But avoid hate and blame.  Remember that you have the power to change the word with positivity, not hate.

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Purchasing Life Insurance at the Age of 23?

Life insurance is an important topic to understand, especially as you mature and get older. First, what is life insurance? Life insurance is a contract between a policy holder (you) and an insurer. The policy holder pays an insurer a premium, usually monthly in exchange for a premium when that unforeseen event (death, illness etc) occurs. Contracts do vary so the language and processes can vary from time to time.

An article from newyorklife.com highlights why someone would purchase life insurance at the age of 23. Through asking a colleague, this 23 year old individual learned that because her colleague Bill’s father purchased life insurance at a young age, it allowed Bill to help get through and pay off college debt. Bill also disclosed that life insurance is not just beneficial to an individual who has died, there are benefits to it while you’re alive. Living benefits are benefits available to you while you’re still alive. You can use these benefits for anticipated as well as unanticipated life events. If you have a permanent life insurance policy, you can use these funds for things like purchasing a home, education bills, or even a wedding. Bill has not only used some of his funds to help pay for his school expenses but he’s also prepared to again use those funds to help for his wedding which he is now having at the age of 34, 11 years after he purchased his policy.

It’s very much okay to have your doubts about purchasing a policy at such a young age. It’s encouraged that you sit down with an insurer and maybe even a family member who has a policy. Ask questions, find out when they purchased theirs. Maybe even find out why they didn’t purchase one, they may have had different circumstances from you.

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Work Hard and Dream Big

In order to accomplish great things, you must first visualize big things. Without a solid plan and visualization, your goals are just daydreams, which rarely produce lasting results. Usually, daydreams do not include the working hard aspect associated with actually accomplishing a goal. For example, some will dream of owning a boat one day but don’t take the time to plan out how they focus in their career in order to actually afford the boat. It is essential to reprogram your mind to achieve positive behavior. One a goal is visualized, take the necessary actionable steps in order to reach this goal.

Just as if you see yourself as a winner and you’ll be a winner, if you see yourself as a failure, you’ll also be a failure. Without realizing it, we emulate our own images of ourselves. One of my favorite quotes is the following:

 

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words;

watch your words, they become your actions;

watch your actions, they become habits;

watch your habits, they become character;

watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

– Frank Outlaw

Looking at great leaders in the past, we can see that they did not see things as they were but rather as they wanted them to be. If Martin Luther King never dreamed that his children would go to amusements parks with other children or sit in restaurants, he never would have shared his dream with many listeners who had accepted unfair conduct. His dream was a visualization and he shared this with many.

If you are able to change your vision and picture what you want to see, you are on the right track. If you were to write a book on how to achieve a dream, the first chapter would be about building the mind. the next chapter could be about health and fitness. Organize the chapters into a compilation that will guide you to completing your dream. Write it down. Write down the outline of these chapters. After you write it and get it out of your head and on paper, you will be more likely to act it out and make it happen.
Dream it. Write it. Do it. Believe in yourself.

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Why Your Sales Reps Can’t Close

If your sales reps are failing at closing deals for life insurance or whichever service/product your company provides, the failure to close is not the problem. Rather, it is a symptom of a problem. The problem is most likely that sales reps are neglecting important activities in the earlier stages of the sales process. It is important to find and address the broken links in the system to prevent continuous struggle for your sales reps.

 

Finding the real problem

It is typical that sales reps do not make enough time to prepare for meetings. Preparing for meetings means planning agendas, conducting enough research, even checking the client’s’ LinkedIn or public profiles to find common interests or similarities to properly tailor the pitch.

Other common potential problems include:

• The initial prospects were unqualified and/or uninformed about the purpose of the meeting or why they should be interested in your service/product.
• The salesperson did not pique the interest of the client.
• The salesperson left without planning the next step: either scheduling another call or getting an agreement.
• The follow-up consisted of a series of emails that promoted products and did not address the client’s unique concerns or needs. (The follow-up had no call to action or a call to action that did not match the desire of the client).
• The sales rep had no idea why his emails received silence.

 

Start at the source

If your team is having trouble closing, analyze the sales process from the beginning. Examine the entire process for missing links. The following are a good set of questions to ask:

• How are sales reps getting leads?
• How are these leads qualified?
• Are salespeople asking the right questions to identify prospects’ problems/needs and composing thoughtful solutions?
• Do sales reps demonstrate product features or do they talk ROI?
• What is the plan for the follow up?

Rather than training your sales team on closing techniques, it is more worth your time and money to supply a healthy, working sales process.

 

The ROI of referrals

It is more often than not that the problem exists in the method. Hot leads should be the only leads in the pipeline. These leads usually come from referrals or trusted allies. Prospecting through referrals has the following benefits:

• You bypass the gatekeeper and score meetings with decision-makers.
• Your prospects are pre-sold on your ability to deliver.
• You’ve already earned trust and credibility with your prospects.
• You convert prospects into clients at least 50% of the time, usually more.
• You land clients who become ideal referral sources for new business.
• You score more new clients from fewer leads.
• You get the inside track on your prospects instead of allowing them to be picked up by competition.

 

Ditch the canned pitch

If you are finding your sales team in front of the right prospects after finding qualified leads and they still can’t close the deal, they are most likely not engaging in insightful discussion or asking the right questions. Thoughtful and provocative questioning has a huge impact on close rates and sales revenues. By probing leads with provocative and insightful questions, not only do they engage prospective clients and increase the likeliness that they will become clients, but it also provides more information about client needs and thus ways to improve the services offered.

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3 Places to Find Money for Life Insurance

Where is one going to find money for life insurance? Great question! For those in the life insurance industry like Lloyd Agencies, it can actually benefit both you and your client to help your client find the money for their life insurance plan.

Life insurance is not utilized as much as it should be, according to LifeHealthPro. Most clients think they don’t have enough money to pay the premiums. However, there are three sources of funds that most clients have but do not tap into.

1: IRAs and other retirement plans

IRAs are loaded with taxes. That money is better used to fund either Roth IRAs as Roth conversions or life insurance. Both options can transfer taxable funds to tax-free territory, permanently.

The leverage is better for life insurance than Roth IRAs. IRA funds grow tax-deferred, meaning that money will be subject to tax in the future, probably at a higher future tax rate on a higher IRA balance.

For a client that wants tax-free retirement funds and better control over future distributions, life insurance is a better panning strategy- especially if the IRA funds won’t be needed during life and the client wants to pass those funds to beneficiaries.

Life insurance is also a tax-efficient and reliable estate planning move because the stretch IRA might be eliminated. A good option is to take down IRA funds, pay the tax now, on a lower balance at a likely lower rate and then use the remaining funds (after taxes) to fund life insurance. That way, the family will end up with more tax free money. Optimum time for individuals to use this strategy of acquiring reasonably priced life insurance is when individuals are in their 60’s, there no longer a 10% early withdrawal penalty and before required minimum distributions begin.

2: Taxable investments and savings accounts

Taxable investments such as bank and savings accounts, funds and stocks can be leveraged for life insurance. Bank accounts that are earning virtually no interest are the best funds to use first, unless they exist for a reason. Otherwise these types of funds do nothing and earn nothing. Unlike IRA funds, they can be withdrawn without a tax bill. Life insurance can dramatically increase the value of assets.

Mutual funds may fall into the same category as savings accounts except there may be a need to keep some specific funds classes for asset diversification. Be careful with stocks. Before liquidating any stocks to free up cash for life insurance, you BETTER know the basis of these stocks. If they are highly appreciated (low tax basis), they should be help until death so heirs can get the step-up in basis. Look to sell the losers. This will create a tax loss that can offset other capital gains and free up funds for life insurance. Selling high basis assets or chronic non-performers are also great sources of funds. If you let go of your assets, you can make better use of the proceeds.

3: Dead assets

Dead assets can include stock that great grandma passed down decades ago. If these assets are not highly appreciated and are only held for emotional reasons, they might be better used for life insurance. Hard assets like real estate or personal property fit into this category as well. It is likely that the following generation will not have as strong emotional ties to these assets and sell them anyway.

Non-performing and tax-inefficient assets are bogging down clients and can be better spent on life insurance with a lower tax bill.

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Welcome to the blog of Sabrina Lloyd.  Here Sabrina shares current news about life insurance, motivation and Lloyd Agencies.