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One of the most prevalent questions I receive from final expense agents is “…how do deal with lost sales opportunities and Free Looks cancelations.” Most of it is matching your prospect with the wrong carrier and the wrong product quoting too high a face amount with too high of a premium. It’s a simple answer…not so simple solution.

I know this answer sounds different from what you may have been taught “don’t leave money on the table” but, it’s just the opposite. After all, leaving without a completed life insurance application is leaving all the money on the table. The same is true for Free Look cancelations; what’s the point if the client cancels their policy after the first draft. It’s a waste of time for everyone.

While there is no exact magic number, a good quality mix of “A” rated carriers is best. We recommend contracting with about five life insurance carriers which will give you an opportunity to have a product available regardless of heath conditions.

While we have dozens of carriers available here are some of the things to look for when choosing your mix:

There are many reasons to sell Final Expense life insurance products. If you talk with those agents who are successful at it, it would cover several pages of reasons. Here we'll talk about the four most important:

1. The products used to sell final expense are simple for clients to understand and can be simple for agents to get issued. The primary products are simplified issued whole life. Meaning, there are no physical exams, often no height/weight restrictions, and are very forgiving on conditions.
   

If it’s one complaint I often hear from agents who work the final expense market its retention. After all policy retention will affect your commission, carrier contracting, and your time. If you’re paid an advance it can be daunting. Therefore, let’s discuss how to improve that aspect of the market.

Have you heard this one? “…don’t worry about chargebacks in final expense, it’s all about the numbers…you’ll have so many applications and policies in the pipeline you won’t even notice.” While that might be true if you’re submitting and placing 10-15 applications week in and week out, for the average agent doing half that amount (5-7 applications) it can feel like you are never getting ahead. Sending half your week chasing down NSF’s just to get policies back on the books.