A “good client” isn’t the one who makes us the most commission! We are like a retail store. With a good location, good products and fair prices, people will come through our store and some will buy, and some will not. It works out fine for us. A “good client” is a person we can really help!
A “good client” is serious about insurance planning and their responsibility to their family, is respectful to us and the planning process, and is easy to communicate with. We want to give you appropriate insurance planning advice, and product. We want to help you tie up loose ends in your insurance and estate planning and put the planning process behind you in a timely manner. We want to help you get the insurance-planning unfinished-business clutter out of the way, so you get on with achieving other goals and having fun! We want you to sleep at night knowing “continuity” is not a problem.
There are many ways you can help us enhance your insurance-buying and continuity-planning experience.
First, if you enter the insurance-planning process, please try to complete it. If you don’t, the topic will just hang around creating clutter in your life. Delays because of busy-ness are inevitable, but a delay not only slows-down the process of getting appropriate insurance in place, but it also sometimes causes us, and I am sure our clients, to “lose the plot”. If we are working actively on a file, we are always on top of your situation. If there is a gap, we must reconstruct things from scratch.
Second, communication is key. I have seen every type of communication style and pattern. I don’t want to change anybody’s style. But there are some styles of communication that don’t allow me to put together the best insurance recommendation for a client. I know you are busy. Most of our clients are busy. Most successful people are. But we still need to communicate if we are to put together the correct plan for you. I suggest:
- The phone is great! It lets me voluntarily answer your unasked questions (I know what you haven’t even thought of to ask yet) and we can expand answers and give you more information.
- Please let us know any concerns, thoughts, or questions you have. I know clients often have unanswered questions that we never hear about. Also, there is so much mis-information about insurance that you may be making insurance decisions with completely inaccurate information.
Third, don’t get bogged-down with overly-precise planning:
- Don’t worry about the precise premium. Until we finalize a plan we might not know which insurance company we will be using. Until a client has done their insurance medical we don’t know the exact premium a person will pay. If we say the premium will be X, it will likely be within 10% of that. (There are rare exceptions.) And if you are just shopping for rates, go online and do your research please before we do anything. We are not about shopping rates. We are about putting in place a good plan at a fair price and support and advice with other aspects related to your insurance and estate planning. And since we use many insurance companies our “price” is always close to or the least expensive.
- We may be doing an analysis for you that produces an “exact” amount, but planning of this nature is not an exact science because you can’t predict how life will unfold after an illness, injury, or death, and you can’t predict inflation, interest rates, or tax changes. So having insurance in place that is close to the “exact” amount is better than having none.
We recognize our responsibility to you and your family. We want you to have financial security and confidence in every situation, even the unexpected! If we communicate well between us, you will have security and continuity.