Jul 27, 2015 | Life Insurance
By James A. Mallon October 31, 2014 — As 2015 approaches, I’m struck by the persistency of three glaring needs and the resounding calls to action they pose for producers. The new year will usher in new opportunities to help Americans with: • Providing death benefit protection for their families. • Facilitating sufficient income during retirement. • Providing safe harbor from the financial destruction that chronic illness and other contingencies can wreak. The challenge is clear: Recognize opportunity before it becomes common knowledge, and respond with modern, multi-purpose solutions to differentiate yourself and be worth more to clients than the commissions you are paid. Before the market fluctuations of 2008, the chatter in the pre-retirement corridor seemed to focus primarily on the potential for massive wealth transfer. Today, the conversation seems to center on three contingencies staring Americans in the face: dying too soon, outliving retirement income or grappling with chronic illness along the way. Research continues to point to the need for protection against such contingencies. In fact, according to the Insured Retirement Institute, nearly two thirds of recently surveyed Americans age 55 and older said they feared outliving their assets more than they feared dying. Nearly half of Americans ages 45-70 reported having no financial plans to protect them from outliving their assets and the escalating cost of health care should they live longer than anticipated. No matter what resources people have, they care about making sure their families are financially protected if they die prematurely, about having sufficient income to preserve their quality of life if they outlive their life expectancy, and about being able to...
