First and foremost, if your appointment is for Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug Plans (MAPD) or stand-alone Prescription Drug Plans (PDP) then you are not allowed to discuss final expense with your client during that initial appointment. It is imperative that you make a separate appointment with that client to discuss final expense. This is due to CMS rules and regulations specifically for MAPD and PDP clients. For Medicare supplement appointments, however, you are free to discuss final expense life insurance without having to make a separate appointment.

It is important to market other appropriate products to your clients, when following rules and regulations, to help increase persistency. Typically, the more products you have with a client, the less likely they will be to buy from a competitor. Final expense is a great option as it has both simplified issue and guaranteed issue underwriting options and can be a quick and painless process. Some final expense companies will even give your client an instant decision based on how they answered questions on the application.

As an example, you enroll your client into a $0 premium MAPD plan which saves them $75 per month. You could utilize those savings to offer that same client a final expense plan that they can pay the premium for with the money that you saved them. This is a win-win situation for the agent and the client. The agent gets an extra sale by layering in the final expense, while the client gets some added protection in the event they die. Many agents miss the boat on these opportunities due to a few reasons:

1. They didn’t know that they could offer final expense.
2. They never had the discussion with their client(s) about the exposure of burial costs
3. They didn’t prepare ahead of time.

Pinnacle Financial Services is your one-stop-shop for all your senior insurance needs. We have all of the top carriers and contracts in the industry to ensure you are providing the client with the best plans available. We have dedicated sales, training, and support to help facilitate any business you need to write. Don’t hesitate to reach out today!

At Pinnacle, we understand that life insurance underwriting can be very tedious and strict, even for clients that are in the best of health, so we need to take that into account to make sure that we’re offering the correct type of plan based on the client’s budget and health conditions.  Selling Guaranteed Issue Final Expense as part of what you have available to offer your clients is a must.  Having something for everyone is only prudent when conducting your business.

Guaranteed Issue final expense plans are the solution for clients who cannot qualify for underwritten life insurance. These are permanent life insurance plans that have absolutely no health questions and your clients are automatically accepted regardless of their health. Perhaps they have multiple health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, or Alzheimer’s disease and they have been declined exhaustively by multiple insurance carriers. This is the perfect type of plan for that client. Perhaps they were recently diagnosed with cancer or currently have cancer. This is the perfect type of plan for that client. 

Guaranteed Issue final expense plans generally offer face amounts that range from $5,000 to $25,000 and automatically include a limited death benefit for the first 2 years of the policy. This means that if death occurs in the first 2 years of the policy, then the death benefit will typically be ‘return of all premiums plus interest’. If death occurs after the first 2 policy years, then the full death benefit will be paid out to the client’s beneficiary. The 2-year limited death benefit is automatically included in order to offset the ‘no underwriting’ feature of the plan. 

At Pinnacle Financial Services, we have multiple guaranteed issue products that you can offer your clients.

Simplified underwriting means that your client does not have to take a medical exam or submit medical records of any kind. Clients are given a few simple yes or no health questions to answer. The type of plan that they can qualify for will be determined by the yes or no health questions that were answered on the application. The insurance company will then perform a MIB (Medical Information Bureau) prescription history check on your client to verify the validity of the questions that were answered on the application. If everything checks out, then the policy is set to issue. That’s the extent of the underwriting for an immediate death benefit final expense plan.

Now, you may think “What happens if my client is unable to get through the yes or no health questions?” or “What happens if they’re declined? Does this mean that they have no chance of getting approved for coverage?” The answer is absolutely not!

For these clients, there are plenty of carriers that offer what is called a guaranteed issue final expense plan. Guaranteed issue means that they are automatically accepted regardless of any health conditions. These plans have an automatic 2-year limited death benefit where, if death occurs in the first 2 policy years, the death benefit will return of all premiums plus 10% interest. If death occurs after the first 2 policy years, then the full death benefit will be paid out. Most guaranteed issue plans offer coverage amounts that range between $5,000 and $25,000.

Pinnacle Financial Services has everything covered to make sure you can get your clients in a plan that suits their needs. We offer easy-to-use final expense quoting software, unique lead programs that get you in front of clients, and dedicated sales and support to help with every case. With the uncertainty of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) changing the insurance world for the foreseeable future, you need a partner in success. There’s no better time than now to join us at the top!