Handling objections from corporate clients

When corporate clients aren’t seeing the value of life insurance, 2001 MDRT President Tony Gordon of Bristol, England, says those objections can be handled much like those of clients outside the corporate market. These responses in particular have worked for the 43-year MDRT member:

Tony Gordon

Objection: “We can’t afford the insurance.”

Response: “The premium is only 2 percent of the amount your family needs to keep the business alive. If you can’t afford the premium, then borrow it. After all, you can better afford to pay interest on 2 percent of what’s needed than leave your family to borrow and pay interest on 100 percent.”

Objection: “OK, but this is whole life insurance. I’ve been told I can buy term insurance cheaper.”

Response: “You are right. There are two ways we can arrange this insurance for you. There is the cheap way and there is the proper way.

If you take the cheap way, you pay an itty-bitty premium at first, but it gets bigger and bigger every year until eventually you are paying more for it than if you had done it the proper way. You’ll get to age 65, and the insurance company will laugh at you. After all, who wants to insure 65-year-olds? And if they are still prepared to cover you, what makes you think you will be able to afford the premium? So you’ve paid the premium for all these years. Now you’re 65, and you don’t get anything back because you wanted to do this the cheap way.

Now, if you take the coverage the proper way, you will pay a bigger premium at the outset. But now you are in the driver’s seat; you are covered as long as you want to be. If you still want to be insured at age 90, that’s fine; just keep paying the premium. But, if you decided you don’t need the coverage anymore, the insurance company will give you back your premiums. What’s more, they will pay you interest on them, as well.”

Read more ideas in Gordon’s 1988 Annual Meeting presentation.