Kim stanley doesn’t think critical illness insurance should be a tough sell. The 44-year- old consultant and president of The Canadian Living Benefits Centre Ltd. in Brampton, Ont., believes CI insurance fills an important need in financial planning — and she has spent the past two years crusading to bring CI awareness to the public.

So when it comes time to talk to her clients about what would happen if they were to become critically ill — an uncomfortable topic for most people — Stanley is prepared.
“I understand CI insurance and I have a passion for it, and this comes across when I discuss CI with clients,” she says.

For Stanley and successful advisors like
her, two common elements stand out in their approach to selling CI insurance:
education and understanding.

Investment Executive spoke to four advisors from across the country, who say that taking the time to educate their clients about CI insurance and helping them understand its potential benefits goes a long way toward showing what role the product plays in their clients’ larger financial picture.

The straightforward approach works best for Brian Henley, president of financial planning firm Alec G. Henley Group in St. John’s.
Henley views CI insurance as a simple extension of the full range of financial planning advice he provides clients, and he approaches it in the same way he would any other product. “We talk to clients about insurance to determine, first of all, if there is a need and, second, if there is a want,” he says. “And sometimes the need and the want are two different things entirely.”

Henley says the majority of his clients have
an idea of what CI insurance is, but lack a clear understanding of what it can do for them in the event of a serious illness. In a calm, logical manner, he walks his clients through various “what-if” scenarios. What if the client lost his income because he became seriously ill with cancer? How would he pay for in-home care? Who would cover the mortgage payments?

By illustrating how CI insurance helps to cover some or all of these expenses, Henley enables his clients to understand how the product can enhance their financial security.

Still, he is careful to leave emotion out of it. “We don’t push buttons or pull on heartstrings — we don’t do anything along those lines,” says Henley. “We tie it all down to providing a solution for the client.”
In most cases, he says, clients are receptive to the idea once they have been educated — a crucial aspect of an advisor’s role.

“The fact is, it is an advisor’s duty to educate clients,” he says. “Whether advisors are dealing with small clients or large clients, they have to at least present the concept of critical illness insurance.”

Henley emphasizes the difference between creating awareness and flogging a product. If the “want” isn’t there — even after the client has been fully informed — the advisor’s job is done, he says: “We’ve fulfilled our obligation.”

Greg Abbott agrees. The 43-year-old advisor at Halsey Group in Victoria says that there is a fine line between being a salesperson and letting clients know their options. His solution? “Talk about the financial process and the goal, not the product,” he says.

Abbott believes that there are two ways to sell a product. One is like the stereotypical used-car salesman, who is simply out to make a commission. The other takes a more comprehensive approach and presents the product as a means of accomplishing a larger goal.

“When you are doing financial planning, you have to ask: ‘What are your plans? What do you want to accomplish and what is your timeline?’” Abbott says. “Then you have to ask, ‘What are the risks?’”

That’s where insurance comes in.
Abbott admits that he wasn’t entirely comfortable selling CI insurance until two years ago. He felt then, as he does now, that every dollar a client spends on insurance is a dollar that could have been spent on an investment and, therefore, insurance products should be chosen carefully. But he began doing some research on CI insurance in 2002, and soon after “test piloted” the product on six of his clients who had expressed an interest. Under the terms of the policies they chose, each would receive their money back in full if they didn’t make a claim in 10 years.