They would probably have a holiday named after me if every customer walked away completely satisfied but you just get more customers when almost all of them do. It’s OK because personally I think we have over done the holiday thing especially because if the holiday falls within 3 days of a weekend it can easily turn a one day memorial into a 5 day weekend.
Today I took one on the chops when a client said she just wasn’t satisfied with the life insurance rate that I was able to get her approved at. She wanted $300,000 of 30 year term to cover her mortgage. Going in after shopping it I had quoted $113 a month and she was good with that because the company she applied with before had declined her life insurance application due to information in her medical records. I reviewed the records and shopped it based on my take of the information. The company quoted table 4 and approved at table 5 because there was something they didn’t like that I had missed in the 300 page attending physician statement. The end result was that for the original amount it would cost $132 a month. I talked with her and she said that was too high and could I show her some options. I gave her options of a 20 year term at $89 a month or $250,000 of 30 year term at $111 a month, two dollars under her original budget.
She thought about it overnight and emailed this morning that she wasn’t going to accept anything. She didn’t have insurance before, was declined on her last attempt and is now blowing off a good offer. True story that it didn’t come back the way we had hoped, but (as the case manager said), “Seriously!” Is something better than nothing when it comes to your heirs and beneficiaries? Yah! Is something really close to what you wanted within your budget better than nothing when it comes to life insurance? Yah! Is it stupid to turn down an offer for life insurance rather than putting it in force and shopping for a better rate (which I told her I would do) from a position of having coverage in force? Yup! Not saying she’s stupid or anything like that, just that what she did is akin to a camel walking 40 miles through the desert and passing by an oasis knowing that the next one is another 40 miles, just because the temperature of the water wasn’t quite right? Just a few degrees colder please. Camels don’t pass up water……….people pass up approved valuable protection…………
You know why most of my customers are extremely satisfied? It’s because I fight, scratch, dig and fight some more for every one of them. Their goal is my goal and I don’t just give it a whack and hope things work out. I just went through an analogous experience buying flooring for my house. I live in a small town and there are three flooring stores here. My wife has run back and forth between the three for a few weeks now trying to get an apples for apples price from them and yesterday they finally all got on the same page ($4.80 per square foot) and we were able to pick a winner. We let them know we were shopping from the get go and we really wanted to buy locally, but sharpen your pencils and double down because for us it’s a lot of money and we’ve saved for a long time to do this. So Pam called the winner and said we were ready to order and she was told that because of how popular the new product was, there literally wasn’t any left in the country and if we got on the back order list right away we would be looking at three to four weeks before we could get it. The other two stores agreed.
That really messed up our plans since the local stores knew our time frame was to be done and moved in by the end of April. So I asked my wife for all the information on the product and went on the internet this morning and found out that while the warehouse was empty it was because it had all been purchased by big stores. A little research and I found it for $3.68, in stock with free shipping. A $2000 savings. Now I get that stores are in the business to make a profit, but just like my work for the lady above, if you lose the sale you make $0. Even if the local stores had bought it through this big box store and only made $1.12 a square foot that is $2000 which in my accounting back ground beats $0 every time.
Bottom line. I haven’t been in sales ever in my life insurance career. I work in a service business and if I don’t do everything possible to offer a customer the best service available, well, I don’t deserve to make a living in life insurance. If you have questions or are considering going without just because you can’t have life insurance exactly the way you want it, call or email me directly. My name is Ed Hinerman. Let’s talk.
My 20 years of experience give me the knowledge and leverage to find reasonably-priced life insurance for people who have been declined or are paying more than they need to.
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