Illustrating that it’s not just about building wealth but protecting it

By Dana Mitchell, CLU, CFP

One of our youngest clients on claim — and probably one of the most severe, because if you’ve got a really young claim, then you’ve got a very long illness ahead of you — slipped in her front hallway. People always say, “What is the most common reason for a claim? And what’s the probability?” If the probability is one in a million, and it’s you, then that risk is really high to retain. Head injuries are really hard to recover from. I think of a friend that fell on the ice at hockey and hit her head and is still struggling. It can happen to a healthy person. Anything can happen is really the point from the slipping.

Framing income protection is not where we start. I think that’s really important. We always talk about wealth accumulation first — how we are going to plan and save for the long term. And then income protection kind of comes in after. It’s like, “Well, we spent a lot of time working on your wealth accumulation and we’ve got this great plan in place. What if something happens along the way?” We tie that to a plan we’ve spent time working on. The client can see this is just a quick thing that we need to make sure to look at, and it’s backing up a whole financial picture. I think having an income protection conversation that’s not part of a plan would be really difficult, and starting from that place would be difficult. But I think if you start from the overall goals and an overall plan, it’s an easier conversation to have.

Dana Mitchell, CLU, CFP, is a four-year MDRT member from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hear more stories that explain the need for income replacement in the December episode of the MDRT Podcast.