Ups And Downs With Sales

A few months back I ran into a nice lady who had purchased a life insurance policy from me many years ago. We had stayed in touch for a few years but I lost touch with her. Needless to say I was a bit surprised when she responded to one of my posts on Facebook regarding some new policies my agency was offering. 

After speaking to her for a while I realized that a lot of things in her life had changed since we had last spoken. She had made several career changes and was currently working for a non-profit organization. Her personal situation had changed as well, as she had a new beau who seemed to be a good guy. During our conversation she mentioned that the life insurance policy she had purchased from me years ago had lapsed and now she was in the market for a new policy.

Her concerns had also changed a bit over the years. Her parents were now deceased, but before they died she had been one of the principle caregivers in their later years. With that experience she had come to realize how expensive care in a facility was. Now she was in the market for some sort of life insurance, but she also wanted something to help offset the costs of long term care. The problem was that she had a limited budget to do all of the things she wanted to accomplish. 

One of her main concerns at the time was that Covid was sweeping through nursing homes and assisted living facilities. With this in mind, she really wanted to know that if she needed care, she could stay in her own home. 

Our Short Term Home Healthcare plan was the perfect solution for her needs. It was well within her budget, and even better, the application only has 3 questions, which meant getting approved was very easy. 

We still needed to resolve the life insurance part of the puzzle. This is where things got messy. She had gotten older (by about 15 years) since she had purchased the previous policy, so that made the rates go up of course. Even though the face amount of the policy she wanted was fairly low, we both agreed that a permanent policy would be a better fit than a term policy. 

I took her application and submitted it to the insurance carrier, and we got the ball rolling. Everything was going smoothly until I got a call from the insurance company. Apparently when the underwriter pulled her medical records there were some underlying health issues that had not been disclosed previously. 

This new information caused her premium to go up. I gave the client a phone call and broke the news to her. She was upset, but I'm pretty sure she knew her lack of disclosure caused this issue.

When I gave her the new numbers she said she needed a few days to think it over. The following week I called her and left a voice message, followed up with a few more over the next week or so, along with emails. I got no response. This wasn't good. 

After several weeks I got a letter in the mail from the insurance carrier. She had called in and requested that the company withdraw her application. Since she decided that she did not want to communicate this information through me I left her alone. I don't want to badger the lady and honestly I got the impression she was ready to drop the matter altogether. 

The moral of this story is that if she had been upfront with me on her health issues, we could have gotten her a more accurate quote from the beginning of the process. As a salesperson trying to do the right thing by the customer, it's important to get as much information as possible in the fact finding process. However, the client has to do their part as well. 

Chris Castanes is a professional speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. He's also the author of "You're Going To Be Great At This!", a humorous look at sales. For booking information, click here. He's also the president of Surf Financial Brokers selling life and disability insurance in several states.