How to market insurance

Successful marketing of life and living benefits insurance starts with putting yourself in the mindset of your prospect or client and remembering that every decision starts with an internal desire or an external influence.

Women, for instance, often have a high need for security for themselves and their families, so it’s not surprising 70% of women have a high value for life insurance because what they value and think about most often includes:

• relationships with our significant other, children, grandchildren, in-laws, parents, siblings, friends – basically everyone we interact with, including you and your business
• children’s accomplishments and well-being
• a warm, comfortable and orderly home
• seeing a need, helping and making the world a better place
• their ability to empathize and acting on it

The last two bullets go a long way to explaining the fact that there are 11 million businesses in North America owned and run by women. Of all the businesses generating in excess of $1,000,000 of revenues per year 25% owned and run by women.

Remember, too that:

• Women buy / spend 80% – 85% of all monies in the North American economy
• 30% of women earn more than their partners
• Higher earning divorced women are often given a court order to provide life insurance with their ex-husband as the irrevocable beneficiary during the children’s dependency years
• Married households are less likely to buy individual life insurance for the women of the house than they are for the men
• The cost of replacing all of the services provided by a full time stay at home mom can easily be $40,000 – $50,000/yr

Read: One in five Canadians unsure if they have enough insurance

When selling life insurance to women – be they business owners, high powered corporate executives, among the working rank and file or domestic engineers, remember that they prefer that your place of business smells clean, not of cologne or perfume, and that they like to talk about what they care about, so:

1. Invest time in building the relationship – focus on understanding their passions, values, and contingency plans

2. Be prepared to educate and answer lots of questions (provide brochures and other 3^rd party material)

3. Focus on the benefits, not how it works

4. Don’t talk down or patronize

Helena Smeenk Pritchard has over 36 years of experience in the insurance industry and is the Principal of Helena Smeenk Pritchard & Associates, a leader in “Insurance Know-How” training. Helena publishes a weekly free ‘Did You Know’ newsletter on her site.