LTC Bullet:  Free the LTCI 5000

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Seattle—

LTC Comment:  LTCI specialists should break their chains and soar.  We can help, after the ***news.***

*** SPECIAL OFFER.  After you read today’s LTC Bullet including the testimonials about our clippings service, we’ll make it very easy for you to try a clippings subscription.  Two options:

  • Join the Center now or renew your regular membership early at this special, temporary Premium Member rate of $225 per year (usually $250) or $19 per month (usually $21) and we’ll add you to our clippings service and upgrade your membership.  Send a check or use PayPal.  (Best deal for Center members.)
     

  • Experiment with the clippings:  Sign up through PayPal at $10 per month (auto-payment) cancellable anytime and begin receiving only the clippings immediately.  (Best deal if you’re not a Center member.)

If you have questions or need help, contact Damon at 206-283-7036 or damon@centerltc.com.  He’ll add you to our clippings service post haste. ***

 

LTC BULLET:  FREE THE LTCI 5000

LTC Comment:  I asked Center Premium Members for their best guess of how many agents specialize in long-term care insurance.  Their answers ranged from 500 to 30,000, but most were under 5000.  My instincts tell me the number of agents who actually make a living selling exclusively or nearly all LTCI is 5000 or less.  But the actual number is not as important as the fact, and the reason why, it is tiny compared to the magnitude of the need.

The need is obvious, right?  Baby boomers will need long-term care.  They’re unprepared to pay for it.  The public safety net is fraying.  A new government LTC entitlement is out of the question.  Private LTC insurance—traditional or hybrid—is the logical answer.  But America can barely muster a few thousand people to sell the product.  What gives?

It doesn’t take a genius to sell LTCI full time, but it does take a special kind of person.  Generally, the agents who succeed have higher-than-average intelligence, a robust work ethic, exceptional perseverance and a strong sense of individual mission.  For whatever reason—a personal long-term care crisis in their own family or the satisfaction of having helped a policy holder through one—they believe passionately in what they do.

Bottom line, most people with the characteristics and drive to be successful LTCI specialists can (and usually do) make more money with less effort doing something else professionally.  That’s why the sense of individual mission is so important.  It separates the many who will dabble in LTCI sales from the few who will excel, prosper or at least hang on.

The challenge facing LTCI distribution is a given.  Sales are limited by the number of agents selling, which is limited by the number of job seekers with the skills, drive and fervor to do the job.  Today, however, high unemployment and underemployment make all forms of independent sales work attractive to many.  There is a large pool of potential salespeople.  The growing crisis of boomers caring for aging parents means more people will find their way to a motivating personal sense of LTC mission.  I conclude there are many more AMGs (altruistic, masochistic geniuses) out there who could do the job and would if it were a little less daunting.

LTCI carriers and distributors can do a lot to make the challenging LTCI sales job easier.  They can train, re-train, reduce paperwork, design helpful online tools, expedite application processing, improve products and do a thousand other things.  But one thing they cannot do is add hours to the 24-hour day allotted each LTCI producer.  Of course, no one can do that.  But what if we could convert some of those hours into more productive time?

Beyond passion, drive and good work habits, successful LTCI specialists need knowledge.  Long-term care is a complicated field.  Agents must know their own and competitors’ products of course, but also risk factors, field underwriting, aging demographics, LTC provider types and their challenges, Medicaid, Medicare, tax policy, caregiving, and myriad other subjects.  Nor does the knowledge base agents need stand still.  It changes constantly.  What producer has not been blind-sided by prospects, clients, or competitors who read something of which the producer is unaware that ruins the sale? 

Here’s a dilemma that faces every LTCI producer.  How much time shall I spend staying on top of news and background knowledge relevant to my work?  How much of my limited time shall I allot to call on prospective clients?  There is a built in bias toward consuming time on research instead of sales.  Searching the internet and reading lots of articles and reports is easy and enjoyable compared to picking up the phone, prospecting and selling, which is hard work.  Don’t too many agents spend too much time surfing the web and too little time lining up and closing sales?  Do you?

Reducing that temptation is why the Center for Long-Term Care Reform created our “clippings service.”  The Center’s main job is to read and understand everything relevant to long-term care services and financing so we can apply that knowledge toward influencing public policy, correcting poor media coverage, and keeping our members and readers in the know.  Our e-publications reduce the fire-hose volume of internet, academic and popular information to an essential trickle busy producers can consume in a small fraction of their time. 

Our clippings service works like this.  Steve and Damon Moses scan all the important information sources:  academic journals, government and think tank reports, popular media, internet content, etc.  We cull out an average of three key items per day and forward them in bite-sized emails with only a title, representative quote, a hyperlink to the original, and often a sentence or two of interpretive analysis.  Our clippings subscribers tell us this service is invaluable.  (See the testimonials below.)  We’re convinced expanding the clippings service to more producers can help them succeed and prosper in this challenging market.  So, we’re reaching out to all LTCI carriers (traditional and asset-based), distributors, and producers with an appeal to get on board with the clippings. 

Don’t duplicate our effort.  Use your precious time to help more families meet the challenge of LTC risk.  When Steve Moses contacts you with an invitation to the clippings, give it a try.  You have nothing to lose but your electronic chains.

 

Clippings Testimonials

I depend on the clipping service to keep me abreast of all LTC breaking news. It is a huge time-saver and contributes to my overall sense of confidence and knowledge as a LTCi specialist. I really think the service gives me an “edge,” and helps keep me one step ahead of my competitors. Conveying the insights I gain from the clipping service often enables me to more easily and relevantly educate my clients on the importance of LTCi ownership.

Honey Leveen, LUTCF, CLTC, LTCP
“The Queen of Long-Term Care Insurance”
Houston, Texas

 

I find your clipping service invaluable. It helps me stay current not only with industry news (carrier’s, legislation and such) but consumer news as well. Every agent should be reading these stories daily… their clients and prospective clients are. To offer the best service one must be informed. Thank you for all your hard work in providing this service and thank you for being such a strong and dedicated advocate for our industry.

Phillip W. Sullivan
President – SellingLTC.com
Rabun Gap, Georgia

 

Your clipping service has saved me hundreds of hours of research each year since we started receiving your clippings.  Using it makes me feel confident knowing that I’m on top of anything happening in the industry – from legislation to state movements to industry and insurer announcements.  And being on top of things is critical in our industry.  Any serious LTCi agent who doesn’t take advantage of this . . . doesn’t realize the value the service can bring to their production!  For anyone above the level of agent, this service has to be considered a must.  Thank you for your diligence in uncovering all the daily news a person in our industry needs! 

Mark Randall
LTCI Trainer
Park Rapids, Minnesota

 

Your clipping service is the best.  I seldom give out insurance company brochures to prospects, much preferring the third party endorsement of published articles that are far more believable than an insurance company brochure.  The news does a great job of creating urgency to act as well.  You bundle them and send to my inbox for me to use, wonderful!  I’m speaking to a group at lunch today and will be handing out an article that was published two days ago that you alerted me to.  Keep up the good work, saves me time, and makes me money.

Romeo Raabe
www.TheLongTermCareGuy.com
Green Bay, Wisconsin

 

In my entire 24- year career in the long term care insurance industry I have never seen such a spate of articles in popular media – including print, digital, radio, TV - highlighting long term care as one of the top worries of aging Americans facing retirement.  As a supporter of the Center for Long Term Care Reform and a subscriber to “LTC Clippings” I have been kept completely “in the loop” and fully up to date on the vastly increasing information flow about the need for LTC planning.  I can not only see what my prospects and clients are reading and hearing about the industry but also have good quality information to share with the “centers of influence” that depend on me for information.  The “clipping service” is just one of many benefits provided by the Center and I am grateful to Stephen and Damon Moses for providing a tool that has been so important over the years to the success of Franklin & Associates and Franklin Funding Reverse Mortgages.  

Barbara Franklin, CEO
Charleston, South Carolina 

 

You do a tremendous job of keeping us all up to date in the ever changing world of LTCi and related topics.  I value your resource immensely. 

Carroll Harper
President
Carroll Harper & Associates, Inc.
Southwest Harbor, Maine

 

I love the clippings . . . very informative and I'm impressed with the amount of info you are consistently filtering through.  I really enjoy the LTC comments, as they boil it down perfectly for me!

Jared Turner
Executive Chairman
Amada Franchise, Inc.
Laguna Woods, California (LTC provider)

 

I LOVE receiving your clippings, because . . . I'm able to get the info quickly and can pass it on to my colleagues. Honestly, without your service, I probably wouldn't be aware of half of the things that you serve up to me, on a “silver platter" as the saying goes. Thanks for making my life so much easier!

Susanne E. Howarth, CPA, CLTC
Director of Long-Term Care
TBG West
Culver City, California

 

Steve, you and Damon have been a valuable resource for me regarding all aspects of Long Term Care planning for my clients.  I believe there is not an article on the subject that you have missed.  Keep up the good work.

Eric Rubin, CLTC
Cedar Brook Financial Partners
Cleveland, Ohio