Quora Answer: How Do You Convince Someone to Purchase Life Insurance?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “How do you convince a person to purchase a life insurance policy, as an insurance advisor?” 

As a financial services consultant, I actually do not convince people to buy anything.  Much of my job is about asking questions in a process of discovery we call the KYC (Know Your Client).  We live in a society where people are quite aware that they need insurance.  There is no need to convince people to purchase a necessity. 

On occasion, we all encounter people who do not believe in insurance, and that is quite acceptable to me.  I am in the business of financial advisory and wealth management, not product pushing.  We are involved in building long term business relationships.  That means servicing clients, and constantly updating them.  After a while, we all develop a reputation in this industry, and there are more than enough referrals to follow up on.  A good financial consultant is known for his values, and his clients trust his financial advice. 

People generally buy insurance products for three reasons: liability mitigation, wealth protection and wealth management.  If they do not buy from you, they will buy from someone else.  The solution is to be better than the other person, by offering better service and having superior financial knowledge.  While it is true that there are a lot of financial consultants out there, there are not enough good financial consultants.