Life Insurance Products are canvassed with the help of insurance professionals and not through any other medium. In other words, Insurance Agents / Advisors are the backbone of any Life Insurance Company and it is the Agents / Advisors, who procure new business on behalf of the Company. If you are confronted with a question that what are you doing in your role as an Agent / Advisor, you must have utmost clarity as below:-
- You sell life insurance policies to clients according to their needs and hence help people to plan their finance in a better way.
- You, as a Wealth Manager/Advisor help people to manage their wealth for investment, savings, and risk management.
There could be many more answers of similar nature but in my opinion the role of an insurance agent/advisor can be best defines as -
- A person promoting the principles of life insurance among the public and hence doing a noble and an excellent job.
- A person educating the clients about the need of insurance, different products offered by one's company and other competitive insurance companies, thus preparing people for selection of most suitable product.
- A person mobilizing the public funds through insurance premium which in turn is being used for nation building activities by different Govt. Agencies / Projects. Therefore, knowingly or unknowingly you are a partner to build the nation.
As a professional insurance Agent and financial Advisor, one should completely understand the Product that one is going to sell and the people to whom one intends to sell the product.
A life insurance policy is a harmonious blending of three elements viz. Risk Management, Tax Planning and Financial Planning or Saving Schemes. Out of these three elements, risk management component is the most unique feature because it indemnifies life to the extent of human value by providing insurance cover.
Therefore, it is desirable that the agent should focus more on the customers than the products, because people are also aware and capable to choose the best product from the market. But as an agent one should be very clear that (a) People are dying out of over eating (b) People are dying out of under eating or starvation (c) No human being is a perfect one (d) Not all individuals are healthy, but we have to insure all. Therefore, it is clear that the basic point is to focus on the customers.
While approaching the client for insurance cover, one comes across to know client's profession, income, family history, personal history, habits, record of his past illness, if any, his previous insurance, his present health status etc., as these are the vital part of an insurance proposal.
Please understand that health influencing factors are smoking, liquor intake, life style and common diseases. As an Agent you are compulsorily required to know about all, because above factors are vital part of insurance chain which goes like this-
Proposal --> Underwriting --> Policy --> Claim
Non disclosure of vital data will disrupt the chain and this is the weakest point of the chain which will contribute for occurrence of early claims. Such early claims will be examined throughly and if found inappropriate then one's selling capacity will experience a jolt when such claims are repudiated.
Therefore, one has to deter the habit of non disclosure. This will improve one's selling skills and the interests of the Life Insurance Company. There are chances to loose a customer on account of non-disclosure because at times one may aim at the end result i.e. s
It is desirable on the part of Agents / Advisors that they should not deviate from the vision and values of concerned life insurance company, with whom they are associated. Therefore, the means (methods applied for sale of an insurance proposal) should qualify the ends. This is of paramount importance.
