Banking was the first career for Susan Catherine Paterson, FChFP. Then, when she lost both her mother and brother to cancer within 12 months of each other, she wanted to do more to help others prepare for the unexpected. That led her to a career as an insurance advisor who specializes in risk mitigation for businesses. It’s a path that took her to MDRT in 2004 and then Top of the Table.
“When you suffer loss, you often walk away and say, ‘How can I do something so if someone goes through a similar experience, it wouldn’t have been as difficult as it was for me?’” Paterson said.
The challenges of small businesses
Bigger businesses may have a chief financial officer or accountant on staff, so they often understand more about potential risks to income. With smaller businesses, though, such as a plumbing business, it can be more difficult to reach the owners. Risk mitigation may be a new concept, and “they have not even understood that there are risks,” said Paterson, of Loganholme, Queensland, Australia.
Her challenge then becomes how to help clients who do not understand they need insurance, who work long hours and may not have a lot of cash flow because they’re reinvesting capital back into their business.
Paterson tells clients, “You’re growing really fast, but that’s actually exposing you on several levels. Let us help you protect yourself.”
She educates them about “investing in protecting all of the growth they’re making over the long term. If they want that business to keep growing, they need to learn the discipline of making sure they are protecting themselves, their families and their business partners along the way,” she said.
Storytelling
“When we talk to small business owners, we like to share stories with them about other businesses. Storytelling is always such a great way of explaining the importance of insurance. We tell them we insure other businesses like this, and these are the experiences we’ve seen other businesses go through.” Paterson discusses the disasters that can befall a business when one of the business partners dies without buy-sell insurance in place, for example. “It’s a really good way to get messages across.”
Why young family members should be insured
Intergenerational insurance is critical as well, Paterson said. “You can insure yourself and your business, but you need to insure your family members too, since their health impacts you.” What’s often overlooked is insuring for the long-term care of young adults, since there’s a huge impact on the business owner if they’re called away from their business to provide care. This happened to Paterson herself when an accident left her daughter’s partner comatose. Insuring young family members, “is probably the most cost-effective investment they can make — and it leads to total protection,” she said.
Centers of influence
Finding small business owners to work with, especially when getting started in this specialty, is a crucial step.
“Accountants are a wonderful source of new clients,” Paterson said. Paterson will go into joint meetings with the accountants’ clients and confirm what the accountant has advised about potential business risks. “It gives the accountants more credibility,” she said. “In fact, we often spot risks the accountants may not have thought of, such as key person risk. Outcomes from joint meetings with accounts are very strong and very long ongoing client relationships.”
To learn more
- Watch Susan Paterson in “How to work with accountants to find clients.”
- For more ideas on how to find clients, read “How to find the clients you want.”
- Watch more on how to work with business owners in “3-dimensional planning for business owners.”
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