Disclaimer: I am not a clothes fanatic. I’m really pretty simple when it comes to fashion.
When I moved to North Carolina almost 8 years ago, one of the first things I did was update my wardrobe. I bought a few suits, several shirts, slacks, and shoes. Man, I felt like a million bucks. I remember I was rocking the three-button suits with cuffs on my slacks, and I had a few shirts with a collar bar. Look it up, it’s pretty sweet. Keep in mind, this was 2008, not 1990.
A few years later, I had lost around 25 pounds and couldn’t fit into these clothes anymore. Plus, when I started shopping around again, my eyes were attracted to the slim or tailored style of clothes, two-button suits and colorful socks. That was all good, except I didn’t particularly like the fact that I only got a couple of years out of the stuff I bought in ’08. Nonetheless, because of my weight loss, the wardrobe replacement was necessary – it wasn’t really an option to keep what I had. I would have been swimming in it!
More important than keeping your wardrobe up to date is to remember to thoroughly and consistently review your clients’ life insurance policies. Too often we find that advisors do not have a system to review what their clients or prospects have in the form of life insurance, and too often those clients or prospects go elsewhere for advice. Your clients and prospects are looking to their trusted advisor to make sure that the life insurance that they do have is the right type, the right amount and structured in the right way.
Consider a client purchased a UL policy 20 years ago, but because of high interest-rate assumptions and unrealistic illustrations at time of sale, the client’s current values aren’t anywhere close to what was projected. Worse yet, the policy is at risk of lapsing in the next few years. Even worse than that, 10 years ago the client went through a divorce but never removed the ex-spouse from the primary beneficiary designation. Picture someone walking around your neighborhood or office with tight-rolled jeans, lots of hairspray and a Cyndi Lauper t-shirt – not just on 80’s day, but every single day. What a train wreck that would be, right?
That’s what this policy looks like to me. What’s even more concerning to me, however, is that it took 20 years for this policy to be reviewed. At the very least, when the client went through the divorce, their advisor should have addressed the beneficiary situation right away. By doing that, the advisor would have been able to suggest an alternative solution to the existing policy as well.
Just like other financial tools and products, life insurance needs to be reviewed, maintained and adjusted to meet the ever-changing needs of clients. Lives change, jobs change, people get married, they get divorced, they have kids and they retire. Products change, mortality changes, and insurance pricing changes. As advisors, it is our responsibility to review these policies so that our clients and prospects don’t have to go through the Cyndi Lauper train wreck.
Over the last few years, I haven’t made much of a change to my wardrobe. I’ve added a few things here and there, but since I’ve maintained my weight and I still dig what I have, I haven’t had a need to replace what I have. But just like a life insurance policy, you bet I’ll be reviewing what I have every year to make sure it’s still what I want and keeping up with the times.
To continue to provide your clients with the best policy for their situation, utilize our Comprehensive Policy Review.