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A key approach to discussing long-term care insurance is establishing a team of advisers and showing how this best-of-breed team can strive to meet a common goal: helping clients take a long-term look at their financial needs.
Why do I collaborate? This approach provides me with new opportunities to extend relationships and build referrals. More importantly, my clients benefit from access to a team of professionals with a thorough understanding of the issue at hand. As a result, my clients can feel confident that they benefit from a concerted effort to help them protect their retirement assets, build upon established plans, provide new solutions, and address new challenges and opportunities.
A team consists of an accountant to bring tax law knowledge, an attorney with estate planning expertise, and a financial planning professional. The team can be formed in advance or as the result of existing relationships held by the client. Whichever the case, these few tips can help new and established agents alike begin the process of creating their own teams:
Tip 1: Evaluate the Possibilities
Before forming a team, have several conversations to determine if your client service and management styles are a good fit. Schedule some time to share information about your business goals, key clients and prospects, and communication style. Discuss how information will be shared, how contact will be made and maintained with the client, who will do the prep work, and who will run the appointment. Most importantly, determine the other team members' attitudes about long-term care insurance and the amount of support your proposals may receive.
Tip 2: Establish Expectations Up Front
Forming a new relationship should include a conversation about how referrals and additional opportunities to work together will be handled. Be realistic. Centers of influence can have many resources for long-term care insurance, including some that compete or are affiliated with your own services. Be sure to ask up front who else they work with. In some cases it's unfair to think you'll receive as many referrals in return as you extend. Ultimately, you want to try to deliver back at the same rate and, as always, meet or exceed expectations.
Also, many states today allow accountants to be licensed agents, and many accountants are a strong source for referrals and opportunities for collaboration. Since many CPAs have realized that it is difficult to deliver the breadth of information their clients need about long-term care insurance, they are more open to this collaboration to keep this business in-house. In working with licensed accountants or professionals, it is important to educate them about your product in advance and make sure they are on the same page. You'll find their established client relationships, along with their access to client financial data, will make this collaboration a strong asset.
Tip 3: Overcome Client and Teammate Skepticism
Just as a fact-finding interview will help reveal client needs when establishing a relationship, it also can determine if a collaborative approach will be effective in selling long-term care insurance. Some clients steadfastly may seek out a limited scope of capabilities or believe in keeping their various planning activities separate and, in their opinion, objective. While these cases may eventually grow into a team-based approach, it's best to start with a modest program, building trust and strengthening the relationship, and then touch base periodically to see if additional needs warrant additional assistance.
On the other hand, many seniors may be skeptical of individual advisers' efforts, not trusting that their actions are always in their clients' best interests. Early in the relationship, introducing the team approach may be beneficial. Stressing that the three advisers will work together and can validate each others' recommendations may provide seniors a level of comfort that this system of checks and balances will ensure the best solutions to meet their needs.
In this circumstance, be sure to understand the role you and long-term care insurance play, be flexible in how you contribute, and show the advantages of working with other professionals. To win them over, provide references from other lawyers or CPAs with whom you may have teamed up to work a case. To extend the relationship, consider how hosting workshops on trusts and estate planning and inviting other professionals to present can help you expand your expertise and show that you are serious about providing the best service for your clients.
At the same time, some attorneys with whom you attempt to team up may be skeptical that long-term care insurance even is necessary, instead believing that care can be self-funded. More than likely, you'll find their skepticism is based on misinformation. When trying to overcome a team member's objection to a recommendation, first take a step back and ask for more information about the other financial resources that would be tapped to pay for long-term care and what formal plans are in place to grow and protect these resources. This dialogue may help them consider long-term care insurance in a new light.
Tip 4: Be the Educator
Education is always at the core of our relationship with our clients and it is the number one asset a team can deliver. But first, you may need to educate your team members about the benefits that long-term care insurance can bring to a financial plan. Once this important first step is complete, the group must collectively do whatever it takes to accomplish the client's goal. Clients seek information and want to be sure the money they've worked so hard to earn is being protected.
As the financial planning professional, simply knowing the products you're recommending is not enough. When presenting your recommendation, be prepared to explain your research, answer questions on other products or trends in the industry, and provide thorough information.
Tip 5: Communicate Early and Often
It's important to stay in touch with the client and keep your team members apprised of new information and updates. New ideas, recommendations, and points of education should be provided to teammates before they are presented to a client, in order to give everyone an opportunity to stay in synch. Sharing information can also include newsletters, periodic e-mails with information on new regulations, or stories from publications that could spark ideas.
Tip 6: Keep Growing and Learning
Long-term care insurance is evolving. To keep your relationships growing, seek out new ways to promote your combined services. This could include joining local business organizations, sharing in networking opportunities, and participating in speaking events to discuss estate planning.
One of the best ways to keep learning is by participating in ongoing education programs and earning the Certified in Long-Term Care (CLTC) designation offered by The Corporation for Long-Term Care Certification, Inc. I know the time invested in yearly continuing education sessions has been well worth the effort and continues to help me grow my business. And at the same time, having the CLTC designation at the end of my name lets both potential and actual clients and team members know I am knowledgeable about and committed to long-term care insurance as a vital component of many seniors' financial plans.
Joseph F. Eppy, CLTC, founded Eppy Financial Group in 1993, an agency of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. His firm specializes in advanced estate planning, special needs planning, personal retirement planning, financial analysis, life insurance, disability income protection, large group benefits, annuities, long-term care, and business continuation planning.
