Gary Bleetstein, Senior Vice President, Agent Support Group
I have been in our business for over 35 years, and yes, the many changes have been extraordinary and I cannot express enough how important Policy Review, Best Practices and Best Interests go hand and hand in today’s marketplace.
There have been so many changes in product pricing, interest rates, dividend scales, and cost of insurance adjustments along with changes in term conversion options that in order to provide the proper services to a client in today’s market, it is vital that the advisor consider a policy review annually for each client, and this in turn will hope to satisfy Best Interests and of course the advisor will be utilizing Best Practices in our industry.
Some ask, why do we need policy reviews ? Well there are many answers to this question which include- change in health, change in dividends, changes in costs of insurance, missed premiums, term expiry, need for Long Term Care—- the list just goes on and on.
While the DOL Best Practice Rules do not specify Life Insurance as of now, we at ASG feel that the use of policy review only enhances the advisor’s connection with the end client and of course, in some cases can even result in a new sale and new commissions. While we do not encourage wholesale replacement, there are good reasons for replacements. These include term conversions as a result in changes in health along with possible Life Settlements, catch up premiums on UL type products, reviewing loans and using loan transactions for overloanded Whole Life, more need for LTC and tax free exchanges to LTC and Annuities where warranted.
While we don’t know what the new tax laws will look like, as well as we really don’t know what capital gains or step up in basis will look like, it is still always a good idea to review your client’s trusts, beneficiary’s and all important data on their in force life insurance contracts.
These are not new concepts, but all of us at Agent Support Group are here to assist you with any and all of your client Policy Review needs. We have a turn key process and have been doing this for many years with great success.
Using Policy Review will not only help you retain clients, it will add revenue and continue to grow this great business of ours for now and in the future.