A Career with Permanence

A passionate belief, by itself, cannot validate a person's endeavors. We are reminded of that every time a suicide bomber strikes in Iraq. But when passion is directed toward making life better for others, it validates and perpetuates itself like nuclear fusion -- no external fuel required.

A 42-year career in life insurance, all of it spent in the Salt Lake City community, has given Louis B. Bigler, CLU, CSA, CLTC, validation both early and late. It came early, when his very first client, a local grocer, died suddenly at age 35, shortly after Lou had sold him life insurance. It came late, when Lou was inducted last June into the hall of fame of GenAmerica Financial, the company previously operating as General American Life Insurance Company.

This honor was especially appropriate because it recognized Lou for what he considers his proudest personal achievement: staying with General American for 36 years, including the past six years after the St. Louis-based company was acquired by MetLife. "I can't tell you how that honor lifted my spirits," he says. "It will always be a source of immense pride for me. I am so proud to be associated with the members of that hall, all of whom are personal friends of mine."

A Permanent Commitment
One of those members is Leo Schuster, Jr., of El Paso, Texas, now retired after more than 50 years as a general agent with General American. Leo was at least partly responsible for inspiring Lou to an ironclad belief in permanent life insurance, and he did it with the help of a practical joke.

At General American's Conference of Champions in 1970, Leo was a keynote speaker and warned about a congressman named Buford Jackson, a southern Democrat, who had introduced legislation to eliminate the tax advantages of life insurance -- tax-free buildup of cash value and income-tax-free death benefits. Rep. Jackson had pushed his bill through committee, and it had just passed the House and was on its way to the Senate.

"I was on the stand, scheduled to speak after Leo," Lou recalls. "I watched people's jaws drop and their faces drain white in shock. The whole audience took it in hook, line, and sinker. After a long, dramatic pause, Leo said it was a hoax. Then he launched into how we had become complacent about the tremendous advantages we had with this unique product called permanent life insurance."

In his hall of fame induction speech, Lou recounted Leo's prank and then presented "23 Good Reasons Why You Need Life Insurance After Retirement." (See the summary accompanying this story.) Lou has used that list of reasons to help him become a 34-year Life and Qualifying member of the Million Dollar Round Table, along with qualifying 25 times for the General American conferences.

General agents loyal to one company are on the industry's endangered species list, but for Lou, it comes naturally. His father, Louis B. "Burt" Bigler, Jr., was a general agent for General American in the 1940s and early '50s and sold many group cases back when group insurance was still a novel concept, especially in such places as Salt Lake City. Burt Bigler also owned and lived on a dairy farm in West Jordan, about 15 miles south of Salt Lake. Lou grew up on that farm and was headed for a dairyman's career until "intellectual boredom" set in and he decided to go into business. But first came education. He milked cows by day and attended night classes at the University of Utah -- 15 miles each way in a pickup truck with bald tires -- and got his business degree in 1963.

That same year, Lou started his insurance career with Home Life despite his father's efforts to talk him out of it. "My dad didn't think I was cut out for sales work because I was so introverted," he says. "The first time I picked up the phone to make a cold call, my hand shook." But he quickly learned the key to making it in life insurance sales. "The thing that saved me was my work ethic. I outworked everybody."

New York Life recruited Lou into its management training program in 1964. "In that management trainee class, there were 22 people," Lou says. "I'm the only one still in the business."

A turning point came in 1969 when New York Life offered him an agency management role, but not in his hometown. "I wanted to live where I was, not where they were telling me to live," he says. "So I decided to go out on my own. I flew to St. Louis to visit General American, unsolicited. They hired me on the spot."

Learning and Working
Lou founded his company, Lou Bigler & Associates, to serve the Salt Lake City community with life and health insurance planning. Over the years, he has expanded his practice to include investments, financial planning, long-term care insurance, and disability income. He earned his Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) designation in 1976 and has since added the Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) and Certified in Long-Term Care (CLTC) designations.

Constant study and learning, Lou says, is one of the three bedrock principles on which he has built his career. "I read every industry publication I can get my hands on," he says. The other two principles are a perpetual work ethic and a belief in the benefits of client service.

"My clients need my services now more than ever before," he says. "Everybody wants that consistency and constancy that aren't in the world anymore." That goes for agent-company relationships, too, which is why Lou stayed with General American and now places most of his business with MetLife. "If I've learned one lesson, it's that products change, but for the sake of stability and consistency you need to stick it out with one company. You can establish an identity there, draw on that company's reputation, and build relationships with the underwriters.

"I believe if you sell your primary carrier's products most of the time, you do yourself and your clients a favor."

At the same time, it helps to have wide-ranging contacts across the industry when an unusual case presents itself. As 2005 was ending, Lou continued to develop a sale of $20 million in face amount on a wealthy client with a large estate tax problem, complicated by health concerns. "It's been an underwriting challenge," he says. "The first underwriting came back as Table D, and the client didn't want to pay that big premium. So I've gone to different carriers for more underwriting. We'll split the case among several carriers. It helps that some companies are more aggressive on their underwriting right now."

Bigler & Associates has 16 producers under contract and scattered across Utah, but Lou remains the leading life producer in the agency. Helping Lou manage the business is his assistant, Diane Huseth, who joined the firm in 1983 and, Lou proudly notes, "always answers the phone on the first or second ring." Her administrative skills and detailed knowledge of all the firm's clients enable Lou to devote almost all of his time to sales.

The Man Everybody Knows
The sales come a little more readily when you've lived in the same town your entire life. Lou hasn't just lived in Salt Lake City, however; he has woven himself into the fabric of the community by serving in the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce, the Lions Club, and the local United Way. He also has raised funds for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

"Wherever I go in town, everybody knows me," Lou says. "When people serve me in a restaurant, I try to learn their first name. Most people in those positions aren't used to being recognized like that." Lou credits his late mother, Hazel, with instilling in him the instinct to show other people you sincerely care about them. "She lived the last four years of her life in a nursing home with a broken leg that gave her constant pain, but you never knew it," he recalls. "She started a Happiness Club in that home that was so successful, she was invited to lecture nursing students at the University of Utah about geriatric care. When she died, it was the first time the entire staff of the nursing home came to a resident's funeral."

No Substitute for Relationships
Throughout his career, Lou has relied almost entirely on referrals to develop new clients. He provides faithful service to retain the clients and form strong relationships over time. Lou turned 70 last year, and his clients are growing older with him, which is why he's devoted more time recently to learning about and selling long-term care insurance. Whether it's LTCI, life insurance, or investments, most of his new business comes from his client base.

"I've tried seminars and other marketing programs and tried expanding to other markets, but I discovered I was losing my focus and spreading myself too thin," he says. "All the marketing methods in the world have failed compared to getting referrals and building client relationships."

Long ago, the former introvert with the trembling hand learned an important principle of selling -- one he hopes to transmit to people coming into the insurance adviser profession: Believe in what you are offering. "You must have strength of feeling and conviction, a belief in your product," Lou says. "To me the three most important qualities in a salesperson are a steady eye, complete sincerity and honesty, and a forceful approach. Most prospects hesitate to decide because they fear making the wrong decision. Our job is to help them make the right decision. You have to be sincere and forceful in giving advice."

Lou also believes strongly in the power of storytelling to make sales. "We need to be better storytellers and present the emotional side of our business -- the heartbreak of death and disability, the satisfaction of helping clients and widows," he says. "You should always be ready to tell a story about the importance of being prepared."

Being prepared to retire is a primary goal for his clients, but for Lou, retirement can wait. Although he and his wife Judy take time to travel -- they have visited 28 countries -- and occasionally slip down to their second home near Las Vegas, Lou keeps selling, and his clients keep him hustling. "Some of my clients ask me if I'm going to retire," he says. "My answer is the same as Mehdi Fakharzadeh's response at the 1997 MDRT meeting. He walked on stage, looked straight up and said, 'Thank God I have a job!'"