Finance Manager 101: Selling Insurance

In this video, I’m going to tell you a story about how I learned to sell life insurance from a banker. And how I realized there is much more to selling life insurance than product knowledge and closing skills, there is a little thing called guilt… or responsibility if you prefer.

One day about ten years ago myself and my wife were at the bank renewing our mortgage. As a typical salesperson I was ready to be sold insurance and had the decline ready to roll, right on the edge of my lips. “No.” I wasn’t going to fall into the trap of saying, “I don’t need it,” and then have a back and forth about that. Or “I have enough insurance” and then have a back and forth about that. It was going to be a flat no. The same no you've heard from many of your customers.

Then came the trick, as I saw it, the amazing reason why banks close so much life insurance, more than most car dealerships. The cynical among you may point out that group insurance at a bank is cheaper than at a car dealership, but I guarantee that’s not the reason. There are two main reasons why banks have success selling a ton of group insurance. One is that they are viewed differently by the consumer. They have a firm established advisory relationship just based on who they are, a banker, and not a salesperson, which would be one reason to firmly establish your advisory role with customers, which, by the way, is the topic of a whole other video, but two, the amazing reason they had so much success selling life insurance and other insurances was that they just didn’t ask if you wanted it, they only gave you options. The classic assumed close.

Life insurance is for the people you’re leaving behind.

As my wife and I were going through the mortgage documents with the banker, the inevitable insurance page comes up. I was ready… definitely going to say no. Then here it came. “Mr. and Mrs. Feldcamp, did you want the full insurance with the accident, health, and life, or did you just want the life insurance on the mortgage?” and before I could get my mouth open my wife is asking “Do we need to take that insurance?” And there it was… I could see it all coming. Without missing a beat, the banker replies “No, you really don’t have to take the accident and health as it’s really only designed to protect you and your credit, so if anything happens, it’s only you that it impacts. But the life insurance is for the people that you’re leaving behind, in this case each other, and your children, and that’s why as a minimum people take advantage of the life insurance.”

Well, needless to say, we took the life insurance. I didn’t even have a say in the matter but really… I was sold. I would have taken it even if I was alone without my wife telling me that we had to take it. And that’s the cool thing about the best insurance close I had ever seen. First, the question wasn’t whether you’d actually take insurance or not, the question was, whether you took the full insurance package including accident and health, employment protection, near death experiences or whatever AND life insurance OR if you just wanted the life. No option offered for no insurance. It is implied, but not offered. Then the natural question that almost always comes: “Do I have to take it?” That’s the question you’re looking for because the answer in so many words is “morally… yes”… ”legally… no”. It goes something like this, like what the banker said. “You don’t need to take the full package as it really only impacts YOU if something happens, but the life insurance is about the people you leave behind so most people take it as a minimum, because it’s not about them”.

It is about tying into one of the strongest emotional elements that exist in most people: the feeling and obligation of responsibility.

And there you have it. Call it leveraging guilt, or responsibility, call it insidious if you like, but life insurance is about one thing, protecting the people you leave behind. It’s a responsibility. It’s not an option. When responsibilities become optional we’re all in trouble. This is not about leveraging guilt in the business office, but it is about tying into one of the strongest emotional elements that exist in most people, the feeling and obligation of responsibility, and let’s face it what could be a more responsible thing than life insurance? Something that provides no actual benefit at all to the buyer except in fulfilling their responsibilities to those left behind.

The best part about the whole thing is that the discussion inevitably becomes about the other insurance options available, and the penetration on those rises as well. The real lesson here is that in the sales world where there is so much focus on product knowledge and value selling, there is this entire undercurrent of natural human elements like responsibility, and guilt if you will, that can be leveraged, yes leveraged, in driving your penetration, particularly in life insurance. In case you haven’t figured it out already, emotion is the key element in closing, and identifying the emotional connection to anything that you sell is the first step in selling more of it. So get excited, or sad, about the rest of the videos coming at you tying emotion to increased sales in any area of your car dealership.