Take "A New Look on Life"

Traditionally, life insurance is viewed as a necessary expense to protect your clients' families in case of the unexpected. But there's more to it than meets the eye.

With no funding limits based on the client's income, tax-deferred growth and tax-favored distributions1 coupled with the protection of an income tax-free death benefit, this asset may be an appealing solution for supplemental income, and efficient wealth transfer.

By understanding the power of cash value life insurance, your clients can take "A New Look on Life". Get started with the mobile-friendly, client-approved video that explains how cash value life insurance can be a valuable asset. Also visit the promotional website for more sales tools or contact the life sales desk for additional information.

Client brochure
"New Look on Life" client video
Producer brochure

ING White Paper: Valuation of Life Insurance Policies

Life insurance has become an important tool for advanced techniques used in the areas of estate planning, business planning, and executive benefits. Such techniques may include the transfer of an existing policy by gift or sale, or may include the use of a life insurance policy to create benefits for employment or retirement. In each of these situations, it is important to be able to provide an accurate valuation of the life insurance policy in order to determine the income, gift, generation-skipping transfer (“GST”), or estate tax consequences of the transfer or benefit at issue. Read more...

Bankrate.com: Just Another Solution

If you have never seen this website, it is a great informational tool to have handy as a link on your iPad or your website. This will give you current, local mortgage rates as well as the highest current rates for CD’s, treasury bonds, etc.

If you have clients thinking about re-financing or purchasing a home this is a good website to be aware of if you want to offer "value added" service by directing them to this site.

If you are in the annuity market, the bank interest rates on this site may help convince your clients that annuities are excellent alternatives.

Check it out: http://www.bankrate.com/

Contact MVP about this blog or anything else that is on your mind... mvpinfo@mvp4me.com.

Life Insurance is the Solution

Americans are facing new economic realities. Today’s safety nets are disappearing. Older generations are realizing that their children and grandchildren may not have nearly the same opportunities that we have today.

The industry is in a unique position to help families protect the long-term security of their loved ones using life insurance.

View this video from Transamerica to find out why it matters and what insurance agents need to know.

Increase Your Sales by Making This One Small Change

There's a tool many of us have forgoten about that has been around for decades and it's time to start using it again. The life insurance needs analysis is becoming the new trend because it's relevent and a recent LIMRA survey says they are incredibley useful.*

In fact, the LIMRA survey found that clients who receive a needs analysis at the time of sale purchased an average of $423,000 in face amount—almost twice the $215,000 average purchase by clients that did not receive a needs analysis! Not only will helping your clients define their need for an appropriate amount of life insurance increase your sales, but it is also the professional thing to do.

If you are ready to give this a try with your next client, MVP recommends these tools to help you get started:

• For a printable worksheet, go here


• For an electronic calculator that can be used on your computer, iPhone or iPad, go here

*To Shop or Not to Shop for Life Insurance: Turning Shoppers Into Buyers, Life Insurance Marketplace Research Association, LIMRA, 2011.

February is Insure Your Love Month

February is when we do special things for the ones we love, which makes it the perfect time to remind clients and prospects of their need to protect their loved ones with proper life insurance planning.

Check out the Producers Tool Kit from the LIFE foundation at http://www.lifehappens.org/insure-your-love-producer-kit/ to put together your own Love Marketing program during this campaign.

LIFE offers numerous online and digital resources from which to choose, and two ways to incorporate them into your online marketing outreach: embeddable or linkable. You can provide links to activities such as the romance-o-meter.
Romance-O-Meter

What if the Doctor is Wrong?

In the Health & Wellness section of 1/17/2012 Wallstreet Journal, the front page article is “What if the Doctor Is Wrong?” According to the article, evidence is mounting that second opinions – particularly on radiology images and pathology slides from biopsies- can lead to significant changes in a patient’s diagnoses or in recommendations for treating a disease. Some malignancies, including lymphomas and rare cancers of the thyroid and salivary glands, are notoriously tricky to diagnose correctly; test results can be inconclusive or return false results. A recent study found after a decade of annual mammograms, more than half of women will receive at least one false positive recall on a breast-cancer screening. And nearly half of malpractice claims at Harvard University’s medical institutions that resulted in serious patient harm or death in the past five years were diagnostic errors.

According to Thomas Feeley, vice president of medical operations at MD Anderson says, “When you get cancer, the first thing you may want to do is jump to get treatment with the first person you talk to. But, taking the time to get a second opinion about the diagnosis you have and a careful evaluation of what treatments there are can be lifesaving.”

The article goes on with more stories, facts and figures. But perhaps this is a wonderful affirmation of the Banner “Second Opinion Rider” and could help agents to be stronger in their commitment to their clients rather than focusing on just price?

All Banner policies include this valuable, free benefit and they are the only life carrier to offer MediGuide America's Medical Second Opinion program. A medical second opinion could change a dire prognosis for one of your customers by giving them access to an independent review from a leading medical center. http://www.mvp4me.com/documents/MediGuide-LAA1648-2012.pdf

White Paper: Valuation of Life Insurance Policies

Life insurance has become an important tool for advanced techniques used in the areas of estate planning, business planning, and executive benefits. Such techniques may include the transfer of an existing policy by gift or sale, or may include the use of a life insurance policy to create benefits for employment or retirement. In each of these situations, it is important to be able to provide an accurate valuation of the life insurance policy in order to determine the income, gift, generation-skipping transfer (“GST”), or estate tax consequences of the transfer or benefit at issue. Read more...

Financial Security for Clients — Now and Later

Laddering life insurance policies provides the right amount of protection your clients need, when they need it. They aren’t under-insured when their financial responsibilities are highest or over-insured as their financial responsibilities decrease.

Read this Laddering Case Study and see how laddering Colony Term UL 20 and Colony LifeLong UL policies forms an unbeatable team — affordable death-benefit guarantees to meet short-term and long-term needs.

Indexed UL's Top Selling Points

Have any of your clients recently paid off a debt or had extra money become available? Do they have a child that just started Kindergarten? Or graduated College? Perhaps their focus has been on paying off debts in order to save for their retirement.

What are they doing with the money for future savings? One solution would be to take money that was being allocated to such items that they has been freed up and use it to supplement their retirement by funding a life insurance policy. By taking this action the client would not feel any additional financial burden and would be helping to save for retirement and providing protection for their family.

John Hancock's new Indexed UL can help in this situation in that it can provide valuable tax-free death benefit protection along with ability to generate tax-favored income at retirement.
To illustrate this scenario we have included a Life Insurance in Retirement Planning (LIRP) Plus presentation and illustration showing the Indexed UL product and the potential of the product.

This flyer shows why NOW is the time to sell John Hancock's Indexed UL!