I Love It When the Phone Rings

It's a litttle bit before 9am
The voice on the phone says "Hi Jim, I have someone I'd like to refer to you. I think you can help."
Oh man, that is good stuff!

The rewards that come like this really get me fired up.

I love the hard cases. And I love it even more when people see that I give a project my best effort and I'll go much farther than other insurance advisors in helping the people that other agents will turn away from because it takes too much time, looks too hard, and won’t be a big commission...

Many of you who read this blog have done this for me too. Referred people that you care dearly for to me for help with insurance needs. I've got to tell you, it means a lot to me.

Sincerely, thank you!

Suitability? For Who?

Had an opportunity to go with one of my relatives to a Medicare Advantage Plan meeting recently. Pretty amazing stuff!


The guy who conducted the meeting said this "I'm big on suitability." For my relative all of her doctors were 'out of network' and her three most expensive prescription drugs were out of the plan formulary.

The MA plan representatives were still convinced that she was a 'suitable' fit for the plan. Wow!

Getting Ready to Heat Up!

It has been a really busy Summer and I believe we are going to move into an all-out-frenzy as this Fall and Winter arrive.
As a life and health agent who is mostly serving the 'Baby-boom' generation I can see the numbers of boomers continuing to rise. Each month as we look at the demographics the pool of new 65 year olds gets larger and larger.
While I don't have any empirical data to support this, I think I see a definite trend toward people who are still healthy continuing to work for a couple extra years past 65. People who are sick or employed in industries that are under economic pressure are retiring right on schedule.
I love to be busy doing good work! Here we go!

Sometimes you have to take the long way around

My second appointment Saturday morning was a real challenge.

I met with a husband and wife couple who are deaf.

The three of us sat down at their dinning room table with a blank pad of notebook paper and just muscled our way through the whole Medicare presentation in longhand.

I've long been known as a good communicator. But when people say this about me what they usually mean is "Jim likes the sound of his own voice".

To replace my voice with my sketchy handwriting for three and a half hours was scary. 

I write quite a lot but I edit and revise a lot too. When two people are reading the words as the ink dries you don't get to do that. Their spelling and penmanship were much better than mine.

My wife Jenna predicted that this would be a chance for me to focus on being economical with my words and message.

That it was. 

We got it done. Spent the needed time getting to know one another, did some proper 'fact-finding', worked through all the details involved in introducing the concepts and parts of Medicare, discussed their specific needs and opportunities... 

We did ultimately run out of time. We'll continue at another meeting soon. It will be good to have some time to let the information soak in and foment some questions.

I've shared on this blog before about how I often pray that God will make me able to serve the needs of the people who trust me to be their agent. This was one of those times for sure. 

It was a fantastic appointment!

Video Bar Project

Good day faithful readers!
Many of you have already made note of the enhanced 'Video Bar' on my blog page.
I literally stumbled across this animation creation software and felt an overwhelming urge to let it consume a bunch of my available time.
One of the things I like to do most here on my blog page is detail interesting cases I've worked on, elegant solutions to complex problems, concepts for resolving tough problems with clever application of insurance products. The animations lend themselves to this goal pretty well.
I'll be dropping more animations in as I can afford to allocate the time.
The links down under the graphic will take you to the YouTube pages for these two animation videos.
Enjoy!

First Up:

Louie Gets Engaged

Second:

Did You Hear About Kenny?

Every Need is Different

Had a very interesting appointment this week. Wrote a Long Term Care plan for a husband and wife couple.
I asked them my favorite insurance-guy question
"What is the job for the insurance?"
This couple have been quite successful as Realtors. Their answer centered upon how much they were not able to do for their children as they were building their real estate business.

"Our children bore a big burden as children, we want to be sure we don't burden them again in our elder-years if we can avoid it."
I thought that was a really beautiful way to express their specific concern. Can Long Term Care insurance resolve this need? In a very real way 'Yes'.


One of my favorite aspects of the Long Term Care insurance products is that they can be configured to accomplish other goals too. I could go 180 degrees the other direction and resolve a concern for 'I know my kids will want to be deeply involved in my care in my elder-years, I'd like for them to have resources to deploy in caring for me so they don't become over burdened.'
This was a good week. I was able to use my God given talent to help a family. 
That's good stuff!

I Like Dreaming

Woke from a dream this morning. I was selling life insurance in my dream!
I worked in the printing industry for so many years and never once did I dream about it. Not one single dream about a pixel, a pica, or a press-check.
Man, I love what I'm doing! And for the sales persons in the crowd, yes, I woke after the close!! Talk about your dream commissions?!