All Insurance Agents Are Not Created Equal

Now that I have been in the life insurance marketplace as a producer for just over 31 years, I wanted to look back at the various different products that have made up the life insurance marketplace. 

When I was fresh out of college and joined a major life insurance company we were taught as young agents there were two types of life insurance: term insurance and the mighty whole life insurance.  We were taught whole life insurance was clearly a better solution for most all client scenarios and the biggest benefit of term insurance was it is was convertible to whole life insurance in the future. All the young agents had activity goals, the number of potential customers to call on, the number of referrals to potential customers, and of course the most important goal of them all: how much premium you sold. We had weekly sales meetings where senior staff would chide those who did not sell enough premium and honor and praise those agents who sold the most premium. We had monthly sales contests with trips to various exotic places, and the granddaddy of them all an annual dinner where those in the agency with the highest amounts of premium were revered and applauded.

It has been a long time since I have been to those meetings and been in that environment. I left the major insurance company and started the Pinnacle Benefits Group, LLC and decided that I was going to do things the right way. The right way was to always put the client first and to sell only products that I completely understood and would buy myself. As a point of reference I do not believe in Whole Life Insurance. I believe Whole Life insurance is an inefficient product to use as an asset accumulator and that there are only two reasons to buy life insurance and two products that should be sold:

1. The need for income replacement of a breadwinner and the best solution for this is term insurance.

2. The long term need for estate liquidity and the best solution for this is guaranteed universal life insurance (GUL).

I was blessed a number of years ago to meet one of the finest men I have ever had the privilege of meeting in Joe Leone.  It was Joe who was instrumental in having me meet as many of the wonderful people I now work with in the fee only planning marketplace. I miss Joe dearly and think of him often. I believe I work well with those in the fee only marketplace because we share the same vision and belief of the life insurance marketplace.

I hope that you enjoy the rest of your summer as June is quick, July is faster and August just seems to fly by!