Selecting A Good Insurance Professional
Most shoppers of life insurance disregard major framework of selecting a knowledgeable insurance professional. A common assumption is that any financial professional is well qualified to consult and sell life insurance, and this is more often not the case.
There are certified financial planners, retirement planners, health and life insurance professionals and investment professionals who specialize as estate planners. Almost all of these professionals at some point in their careers license for specific life insurance products in the states that they represent clients. However there is a distinction that separates them all and that is what type of core business that they write for. In this case you would need to focus on the agent that sells solely Life and Health insurance, because his primary business is just these two product spheres and he or she is has no other profit motive to sell you parallel financial products as would the estate planner and the retirement planner. There usually exists a conflict of interest also if the insurance agent is not an independent agent; an independent agent represents many insurance companies, he is not a “captive” employee or representative of only 1 insurance company.
Choosing a life insurance agent that is independent is crucial especially when you need multiple quotes on your life insurance” and when the lowest quote is an insurance company that he does not represent because he is a “captive” insurance agent , there can be an expensive conflict of interest. The captive agent could alternatively sell you a more costly life insurance product in order to protect his commission. On the other hand, the independent life insurance agent will more than likely sell you the lowest premium policy with the best policy features to earn your business and a referral from your network of friends and family for more business.
After you have chosen a few independent life and health insurance agents, and you can find them in your Yellowpages. As opposed to the internet, which I recommend against searching there, the Yellowpages offers display advertisements from longstanding and local insurance professionals. They are usually established and have been selling life insurance for 10 years or more, well before the internet took over the insurance marketing paradigm. These agents will belong to very important professional insurance organizations such as NAIFA [National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors] and the most important ones : CLU [ Charted Life Underwriter] and LUTCF [Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow].
Membership to these highly regarded organizations is not inexpensive and not easy. An insurance professional would have to attend advanced life insurance courses some programs almost as long as a year and concluding with a comprehensive test in order to receive the designation, which in part transfers massive professional credibility to the agent. Seeing these credentials on a business card or advertising solicitation of your potential agent is a good thing, it is not over-promotion but yet a confidence booster in your choice of a knowledgeableinsurance professional.
Let’s face it, more than half of all independent insurance agents fail in their business growth during the first two years and eventually join a large well known insurance company. A fourth of all insurance agents in the large companies do not make it either. It is a very tough business—it’s all commission income for these agents. If your agent has industry specific credentials such as LUTCF or CLU, he or she has been around a while, and has placed enough life insurance to know how to determine the ideal insurance solution and quote you properly and fairly for the product.