Sell More Life Insurance By Getting Into Your Customer's Mindset

If you were on the fence about buying a life policy, what would someone need to say to reach you both emotionally and logically? How would you want an insurance agent to treat you as you make such a big decision?

Give some serious thought to these questions because the fact is, to sell more life insurance, you have to gain access to your customers’ internal worlds.

Michael Weaver, President and owner of Weaver Sales Academy, centers his philosophy around steering the client to come to their own conclusions. “Your job is to ask the right questions so the customer discovers they have a problem. And you just happen to have the solution to that problem.”

With over three decades as a successful captive insurance agent, along with his experience as an expert insurance agent coach and owner of Ntuk Speaking, Thomas Ntuk,, takes the approach of disturbing his customers into action. As you’ll see below, he likes to point out the worst case scenario and then help his clients come up with a plan to avoid that situation.

Following are more pearls of wisdom from Michael and Thomas about how to reach your clients on a deep level.

Don’t overwork your existing book by continuously reaching out about life insurance. Instead, get a fresh pipeline of hot, new leads from EverQuote.

Sell life insurance with these eight tips that help you get into your customers’ mindset.

1. First, address the customer’s immediate concerns.

In many cases, your client may not have contacted you to talk about life insurance. Perhaps they need home or auto coverage, and a life policy isn’t even on their radar.

Rather than pushing life insurance at the beginning of the conversation, wait until you’ve solved the customer’s immediate problem. They’ll be satisfied that you did a great job finding them good coverage for whatever they needed, and that trust means you’re well positioned to pivot to a conversation about life insurance.

However—and we’ll talk more about this later—you can absolutely prime the customer to talk about life insurance even as you’re dealing with the current concern. Start asking questions and making notes about the client’s family situation that you can refer back to once you’ve made your pivot.

2. Embrace discomfort.

Plenty of insurance agents (not to mention salespeople and public speakers) fail to inspire action in their target audiences. If you were a layperson listening to an agent describing a policy, but that agent didn’t bother to explain exactly how your life would change if you bought the policy, you’d probably be unlikely to sign on the dotted line.

Why would you care about something that, to you, comes across as abstract and complex?

Success comes, in Thomas’s words, when you can “disturb people to act.” He explains: “When people are comfortable, they don’t act. There’s no urgency to do anything. You must disturb them with questions or stories for them to act.”

Michael takes a similar—if a bit subtler—approach. He says the goal is not to be convincing, but to empower your customers to self-discover their needs.

“You can’t convince someone they need life insurance by talking ‘til you’re blue in the face,” he says. Somewhere in the customer’s mind—perhaps buried deeply, or maybe screaming just below the surface—is a worry that their family will not be financially secure if they pass away. Your task is to uncover that fear and then put the fear to rest permanently with a policy that gives the customer peace of mind.

3. Ask strategic questions.

Much of the incentive for buying life insurance is based in fear. After all, why would your customer even consider a life insurance policy if they weren’t afraid of dying and leaving their family with nothing?

It’s your task to (gently) probe until you find the root of your customer’s fear. When you know what keeps them lying awake at night, you’ll be able to help them solve that problem. In other words, this fear is the “disturbance” that will cause them to act on purchasing a life insurance policy.

As you speak with your customer, don’t be afraid to ask “Why?” or “Can you tell me more about this?” The more layers you can uncover, the closer you get to their real motivation for buying a policy.

Though the exact talking points will vary based on the flow of your conversation, it’s always a good idea to start by asking about the customer’s family situation. A simple question like, “Are you married?” may lead them to say, “Not yet, but the wedding is scheduled for next month!” Similarly, “Do you have any kids?” might help you uncover the fact that your customer just welcomed a new baby.

Major life events like buying a house, starting a business, getting married or engaged, and having a baby are all excellent reasons to reexamine insurance coverage. If you discover your client is a newlywed, recently took out a large joint business loan with their spouse, or just had a baby, you’ve got a prime opportunity to help make sure their family is covered if, someday, the worst should happen.

4. Prepare to face some objections.

Many people view life insurance as a luxury. It would be nice to have—who doesn’t want their family to have financial freedom?—but it’s always just a little too far out of reach. That’s why “I can’t afford it right now,” tops the list of objections you may hear.

The best way to handle this is to find something the customer can afford and go from there, even if the coverage isn’t optimal. If the customer claims they have zero wiggle room in the budget, you can still leave the door open for future discussions. Thomas tells his clients, “Whenever it becomes affordable to spend $15 per month, let me know. I’ll start with something!”

He also reframes the problem in the customer’s mind with one of his disturbing questions: “What’s most important to you? Is it finding the cheapest price or getting the best protection for your family?”

Another common objection is, “I don’t need life insurance. I’m already covered through my workplace.”

In this case, you can dive right into another disturbing question: “What happens if what you have put together for your family turns out to be not enough?”

The customer may change their mind right away, but even if they don’t, you’ve kept the conversation going. This gives you the opportunity to keep asking questions, keep digging, and uncover something that does motivate them to act.

5. Point out gaps and blind spots in existing coverage.

Often, clients think they have better life coverage than they actually do. This means you shouldn’t take “No” for an answer if your customer tells you they are already covered. Instead, offer to pick apart their existing policy to help them determine if it truly fits all their needs.

One prime example is when customers think their family will receive money in the event of a car accident death as long as they maintain a full coverage auto policy. In fact, many auto policies have no personal protection provision to pay anything to the family if the driver is hurt or dies in an accident.

If you comb through their current policy and point out this gap, you’ve accomplished two things: First, you’ve saved this person’s family the heartbreak and devastation of learning there was no coverage if their loved one died. Second, you’ve demonstrated your expertise and gained the trust of your client, which positions you well to cross-sell additional lines of insurance in the future.

6. Frame life insurance as an asset.

Some clients may think they don’t need a life insurance policy because they have independent wealth built up in investments, real estate, or other assets. They assume, due to the value of these assets, that their family will be well taken care of even after their death. In fact, this is an objection you may encounter fairly regularly if you work with affluent clients.

However, what if the market takes a downturn at the exact wrong moment? What if the customer’s grieving spouse is forced to sell investments or—worse—a cherished family home at a loss to cover expenses?

Life insurance policies provide liquidity during one of the most upsetting times in life: the death of a loved one. Thomas asks his clients, “Would you like to see your family have the same freedom and flexibility that other wealthy families have?”

By tapping into life insurance as an additional resource, independently wealthy clients can ensure the inheritance they’ve worked so hard to build won’t be depleted immediately after their death.

7. Allow your customer to make the best choice for their family.

Michael recommends offering three choices to each potential customer in the form of “good,” “better,” and “best” options. Simplify the options as much as possible so the choice is clear-cut, since most people will need to compromise between the policy term, the premium, and the payout benefit.

With everything clearly on the table, Michael asks his clients, “Out of these three options, what policy or policies would you want in your life insurance plan?”

The key is that you always want to start with higher death benefit options to make sure the customer can choose a full-protection plan if that’s what they want. “Always, always, always illustrate at $1 million in death benefit,” Michael says.

8. Maintain a strong ethical foundation.

Nobody wants to buy life insurance from an agent who comes across as sleazy or pushy.

You’ll make the most sales when your customers understand that you genuinely care about their wellbeing and the financial security of their families. There’s no substitute for authenticity here. Thomas says, “Agents must live with our consciences, not commissions or bonuses.” He also advises following the Golden Rule: “Do unto others what you would like them to do unto you.”

Here’s the bottom line: You must make purchasing life insurance a “transformational experience” rather than a transactional one, according to Michael.

The ultimate goal is to empower your customer to make an informed decision that financially protects their family. You do this by fostering trust, not by pushing or scaring them into a policy they’ll regret when the emotions clear.

If you want to sell more life insurance, perfecting your strategy is only half the battle. You also need a full pipeline of interested leads.

“If you had a 30-minute time block on your calendar every single day that was dedicated to prospecting, you would never have a problem producing and writing life insurance,” Michael says. Personally, he commits to asking at least three people about life insurance every day.

However, those goals are tough to meet if you're not sure who to call, even if you do set aside the time.

With EverQuote, you’ll always have fresh leads at your fingertips whenever you need them. Just sign up to receive high-quality leads, dial the phone, ask the right questions, and watch your life insurance sales take off.

Contact EverQuote to get started today.