LTC Prospect Education 101

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Assuming a prospect already understands long-term care sounds harmless until it costs you the sale. Learn how experienced LTCi producers structure prospect education so no client gets left behind.

In this episode of the Buddy Study Podcast, we break down how to build a long-term care education process that works whether your prospect is hearing about LTC for the first time or has already done their own research. From framing a holistic four-pillar planning conversation to reading whether a prospect is analytical or emotional, this session covers the foundational habits that keep advisors from skipping steps their prospects still need.

We explore:

• Why LTC education should never assume prior knowledge, no matter how confident the audience seems
• The four pillars of a holistic long-term care plan: family, self-funding, insurance, and government
• How to reframe "I'll self-fund" as part of a plan rather than an objection to overcome
• Why showing prospects the full menu of funding solutions builds trust and prevents missed sales
• How to read analytical versus emotional clients and adjust the conversation accordingly
• Using pricing tools to make cost conversations approachable instead of intimidating
• Why coaching clients to buy coverage they can keep matters more than maximizing benefit amounts

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Build a repeatable, foundational education process for prospects at any experience level
• Handle the self-funding objection with confidence, without invalidating the client's instinct
• Tailor presentations to different client communication styles
• Use available tools to make long-term care coverage feel accessible from the first conversation

CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 Welcome & Episode Overview
 4:06 The Four Pillars of a Holistic LTC Plan
 11:07 Family, Insurance, and the Elimination Period Gap
 14:11 Reframing the "I'll Self-Fund" Objection
 17:55 Why Showing Multiple Funding Solutions Matters
 21:05 Explaining Life Hybrid Plans on Group Webinars
 28:19 Reading Analytical vs. Emotional Clients
 32:39 Why Prospects Don't Care How Much You Know
 35:28 New Marketing Portal Filtering and Resources
 41:17 Cost-of-Care Stats and Planning Guide Resources
 46:27 Using the Quick Quote Calculator With Prospects
 48:52 Buy What You Can Keep & Wrap-Up

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🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.

Transcript

Welcome & Episode Overview

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of the Buddy Study Group for individual solutions. I almost said for worksight solutions. But I think the topic today has a lot to do with my experience with worksight solutions. So I want to have some education about education. I would also love to hear a little bit about how you guys do it. I think when we educate clients, we all do it a little bit differently. Um, and I don't think we've had many sessions where we've come together and kind of shared each other's educational styles or just thoughts on how we actually educate our clients and prospects on long-term care. So, what I mean by this comes from my experience in worksite long-term care is that over the last couple of years, I've done hundreds of webinars for employer groups. And when you do something that many times, you really start to think internally about the way that you do it because you're constantly just trying to get better each and every day. Um, but I realized when working with employer groups, these are not necessarily people who have voluntarily raised their hand about group long-term care before their employer started offering it to them. So, what I realized is that people of all different types of experience with long-term care join on those webinars. And the questions are really, really wide-ranging. Okay, so they can range from questions where I almost think this person is a long-term care professional because of how good their question is, you know, asking about um two of six ADLs or asking about indemnity versus reimbursement without sort of being prompted to do so. But then there are people who have very, very introductory questions. And when I started to get those questions more and more, I realized, wow, I I really can tend to blow past the stop signs when I present on some of these things. And I want to make sure I don't miss the most basic and foundational things about long-term care education. So I think if we can identify anywhere where we do that ourselves, um, and just sharing a little bit of our approach to education, whether it's meeting one-to-one with a prospect you know next to nothing about, or you're meeting with a client you've known a long time, or we get a lot of um people saying, I'm going to a networking event, or I've been invited to speak at an assisted living facility, um, or I'm speaking to a group of financial advisors, whatever it may be, we really gotta make sure that we don't presume anything about the audience that we're in front of, large or small, right? Um because as long-term care specialists, you have to be a bit of an insurance nerd. You have to be a bit of a long-term care nerd. And sometimes we get so stuck in our own day-to-day and what we have to learn each and every day to be effective, that we forget that we might be starting on step three when we really have to start at step one. So that was kind of the basis of the discussion I wanted to have today. I wanted to cover a couple really foundational points that really led me here to have this study group session. And I would love to hear from you all, even if it's just an idea of I generally try to cover the same bases every single time, and here they are. Um, so just to dive into

The Four Pillars of a Holistic LTC Plan

SPEAKER_00 4:06

it, one of the topics that I really want to make sure we cover is the fact that long-term care education really needs to mention, um, of course, about having a plan, but when you're offering an insurance product, it's one of many ways that you can plan for extended care, right? You don't want to necessarily pressure somebody into thinking that purchasing a long-term care insurance policy is the only way to plan for long-term care, number one. But number two, I really think it's important to talk about the power of professional care, and that a major part of planning is planning to fund that professional care. Now it I don't feel silly saying this, um, but it did feel silly to kind of step back and say, wow, I really have to put a focus on this. Um, some of you may have that same sort of feeling. Um, but funding professional care is so important. And a lot of this education comes up naturally in your guys' process, right? Because I know many of you ask about family. Um, you know, who do you want to protect if you have an extended care event? What would you like to protect if you have an extended care event? Um, and I think one of the ways in talking about family a lot uh in the planning process that we can put a spin on it is actually talking a little bit more about funding professional care, what that means, what that costs, and the ways that you can do it. Um so I want to show you a slide from one of our group Prezies. I've probably shown a lot of you this because I really, really enjoy using this slide. It is a very, very um just a solid to the point slide. And the way I run through this slide, because at this point we've already talked about family, at this point we've probably already talked about um professional care funding, professional care. We've talked about the plan to a degree. Um, but I will always want people to understand what does a holistic long-term care plan look like in my eyes. And so we have these four pillars on the slide. We have family, we have self-funding, we have insurance, and we have government. Now, I would say government is a little bit of a wild card. This is here to say it can provide some, it might not provide the protection that you think for long-term care. And it allows me to get a little bit into the Medicare versus Medicaid discussion. It's always important to um sort of dispel that common misconception, oftentimes before it can even come up. But I really like to talk about the first three pillars, and I like to say a holistic long-term care plan is generally using a little bit of all of these pillars in some way, shape, or form. And I think it's important to bring this up because these generally tend to work together and they complement each other's weaknesses with their strengths, right? So when we talk about family and long-term care planning, some of us may ask, you know, who is it that's going to be taking care of you if you don't plan to fund professional care? Oftentimes it's a family member, right? And that family member, number one, it's important to ask have you had this conversation with your family member? If I need extended care, I have named you as my caregiver and you will play the following roles. And have you asked if what they think of that, right? I think that's a provocative enough question for starters. But in many cases, whether it be for cultural reasons, we've discussed that on the study group before. You know, I've met with clients who culturally just believe that family is the primary caregiver, and that's it, and that's all, because that's the way we've always done it going back generations. I can totally understand and empathize with that. And I want to respect, you know, obviously your right to follow your cultural norms, but there's still a way you can kind of put a spin on that education. So professional care does not necessarily mean the absence of a family caregiver. What professional care can really do is to help change that family caregiver's role in your caregiving from direct, hands-on caregiver, you know, um, not maybe having to do as much of changing you, changing the bedpan, uh, giving you baths, things of that nature. Um, they may not be built to be able to carry you around the home, right? A lot of these things are generally what we want professional caregivers to be helping out with if we can, right? And the family caregiver can maybe take on a role that is still contributing to caregiving, there is no doubt, but maybe less of the hands-on, a little too intimate for family member-to-family member um, you know, contact for our liking. Um, the the family member themselves can start to work on things like laundry, like keeping the house it clean and in good working order, doing the grocery shopping so that you maybe have some time and some willingness left over to still be a family and you know, eat meals together and uh play cards instead of always having to be that hands-on caregiver and maybe saving that family member a lot of burnout, a lot of stress, a lot of strain on the relationship, a lot of resentment, because those things will come whether your family member is ready, willing, able, and totally committed to being your primary caregiver or not. Right. So

Family, Insurance, and the Elimination Period Gap

SPEAKER_00 11:07

that family bullet accomplishes a lot that I wasn't necessarily covering all the time when meeting with clients. I think it's so important to be able to cover that and and to cover the relationship between family and professional care, uh, either respite or changing the family members' role to something much more pleasant, manageable, and familiar to them as far as day-to-day activities go, still being able to help out with your caregiving, even being the overseer of the professional caregiver, uh whether it be interviewing and bringing um home health aides in or uh taking you around to view different assisted living facilities, um, the role of the family member is super important. And you know what? Even in the um insurance bullet, when we take that into account, right? Uh insurance generally has an elimination period. Of course, there are some without an elimination period. That can be something that um, you know, you find is um very valuable to the client. It may allow you to um choose between one product or another, but some uh insurance plans are going to come with a 90-day elimination period. Family can help you really bridge that gap as well as self-funding, right? So we get into a point where we're talking about the interrelatedness of these pillars of holistic long-term care planning. And you really, I think, drive home and understanding that it's going to take multiple different areas of planning to make sure that you're good for long-term care. And instead of just um giving cost of care numbers and scaring people into uh, you know, shoehorning one solution into their long-term care plan, talk about it from a holistic point of view. And I guarantee you, you will get people to really understand that it is about a plan beyond insurance. I think that's one of the most important takeaways going over something like this can really give. And um and can really help families, right? It can help families from a lot of that suffering that happens in an extended care event and can really make somebody more likely to move forward. So we talk about family as one sort of aspect, we talk about insurance and self-funding as um two sort of interrelated pillars that contribute toward funding professional care, right? And this kind of allows me to set up if I

Reframing the "I'll Self-Fund" Objection

SPEAKER_00 14:11

have somebody who is um committed to self-funding or their advisor has told them that they can self-fund, I'm already laying the groundwork to not be confrontational to that and say, hey, look, self-funding is actually part of a holistic long-term care plan. But generally, insurance is going to provide a number of different benefits that self-funding just cannot, like tax-free benefits, like uh benefit receipt that is irrespective of market performance, right? It's not going to put you in a position where you have to sell your assets low. It's going to um, you know, again, provide you out of the box with significantly leveraged long-term care benefit. And that self-funding bucket may take some time to grow. You know, you're you're essentially purchasing long-term care dollars at a discount with insurance. But not everybody, and I would say most people are not funding 100% of the cost of care with insurance. Actually, very few people are, whether they are completely unwilling to or it's infeasible for them financially, people aren't covering 100% of the cost of care through insurance alone. So self-funding is that natural complement to using insurance to fund professional care. They work very, very well together. Um, so I think just this aspect, it was important to put in front of you guys. You may talk a lot about this, but I just wanted to show you a different spin on the group side. This is kind of how we relate um these pillars to each other to say overall that there is more to long-term care planning than just insurance. And to get that perspective um really helps people to understand how they all work together and really, I think, can inspire people to have conversations with their family about their long-term care plan, right? Um, it is even worse when you end up in a scenario where the family member has been deemed the primary caregiver in a certain situation and they didn't know it, right? That's a pretty bad surprise and leads to a ton of strain. Um, so letting that family member know that you have a plan, asking, you know, I have XYZ ideas, you know, would you be involved if I needed care? That I think really saves a lot of future trouble. So that was really number one on my list of things like, wow, I really don't peel back um those layers of the onion enough in my everyday conversations with consumers about long-term care. So I wanted to make sure that I got that point across. But I think um number two, and I also encountered this on group webinars, is there are so many different types of long-term care insurance or non-insurance long-term care solutions that are out there on the market. Um, again, this might be one that uh many of you cover a lot, and I know many of you cover a lot, but I also know there are many out there who get comfortable

Why Showing Multiple Funding Solutions Matters

SPEAKER_00 17:55

with one or two pitches and just run with it. I think in many ways, not only could that do disservice to a client, I'm not telling you to read them the whole long-term care shoppers guide and then show them every product available on the market, but you do want to leave them with an idea of what options there are out there from an insurance standpoint, or again, even from a complimentary non-insurance standpoint. Um, funding solutions in general is what we formally call them. Um beyond just maybe doing them a disservice, you may actually be preventing a sale, right? If you're only working with like one or two different types of products and you say, I got this or this, take it or leave it, both are good, you know, maybe not to that extent, but you may be missing out on offering the solution that the client actually resonates with and gravitates toward. So I think it is important that even if it's brief, you show them the menu of options that are available. And I just want to be sure to highlight one of my favorite of all time marketing pieces that we have available in the buddy system, and that is the funding solutions piece. Um, I think this is also one of our oldest marketing pieces. This is old faithful to me. You know, if somebody comes to me, they're new with the long-term care market, just so simple, so easy to understand, but also comprehensive, right? We talk about traditional.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

I think we're gonna redo it though. I I think I think it needs a refresh.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

I I would be so happy with giving this thing a facelift because it's not necessarily that it needs it, but it is important enough to bring to present day, given how long it's been around.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

For sure.

unknown 19:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

But we talk about traditional long-term care, we talk about the top features, we talk about the limitations. So the great thing that this piece does is people may fall in love with some of the features of one plan or another, but maybe really turned off by the limitations, right? Or um, you know, any combination therein, right? Um, so it's really important, even just as a leave behind. You don't need to make this 30 minutes of the conversation and go through everything line by line. You can give a super quick summary of each of these product types and then use it as a lead behind, a reference, something of that nature, just to um walk people through the options. Or better yet, you could um just again walk through very briefly some things. You may get some signs of engagement. Oh, I've never heard of that. I like that concept. Because on the group market, the plan designs are primarily life long-term care hybrid plans. Do you know what

Explaining Life Hybrid Plans on Group Webinars

SPEAKER_00 21:05

the most common questions we get on webinars generally have to do with? Well, I already have life insurance. I thought this webinar was about long-term care. Why are you selling me life insurance? I already have enough life insurance. Can I buy the life insurance and the long-term care separately? And I completely understand why those questions get asked. Um, but at the end of the day, there's a lot of things that the life insurance accomplishes for the plan that make it a necessary addition, but the plans are still very long term care forward in nature. You will find, in many cases, far more value for the long term care benefit than you will for the life insurance. Some plans may be an exception, right? True life insurance with long term care riders will generally give you a lot of life insurance value compared to. Long-term care, even though you can get a nice bit of long-term care benefit. Uh Hancock's life care product, their brand new life care product, definitely puts a lot more emphasis on the death benefit. But for many, they're they're like, why is the life insurance here? So obviously you can go through live, die, or quit, but it also can accomplish other things, right? Like guaranteed premiums can generally be a part of these life hybrid plans because of the life insurance chassis and how the plans are actually priced. Um, so it's important to go through at least some of the high-level items and and leave them with an idea of what's out there. Um, you know, beyond this, there's reverse mortgage as an option. Obviously, we're not going to go out front with every client on you should do a reverse mortgage to fund long-term care. That's definitely not the way we would do it. And I would definitely recommend getting an expert involved, but the existence of such a solution still warrants mentioning, right? Self-funding is put on here, right? Again, if you guys are just railing against self-funding as an approach, you are not doing yourself any favors with getting clients to move forward with long-term care insurance. They are going to self-fund in some way, shape, or form. Um, even again, navigating a 90-day elimination period in some cases, or just excess care costs, they're going to self-fund. And if you tell them that that is not a long-term care planning approach, I don't think people like being invalidated and then being turned around and sold something that goes directly alongside that invalidation. I think if you can make it feel like a valid approach, which it is, you will get a lot more traction with people. So I think there's a number of things that these pieces do. Um, even some nice questions to consider here. Again, this is probably one of the big facelift items that we'll do because um pricing will generally need an update on this, but um what impact will the need for extended care have on your income? What type of care do you prefer? What solution um do you think you can comfortably afford long term? You know, um, talk about the different ways that premiums are paid, different payment modes, things like that. And and I think pieces like this and talking about things from a really holistic point of view opens up more opportunities for the client to announce their preference, right? Um, so not only are these things that we want to make sure we don't leave the client in the dust with, um, but it also opens up a ton of different opportunities for engagement of that client. So those were like the two major pieces I wanted to cover that um, let's make sure we don't blow past some of these foundational topics. And here are kind of the ways that I talk about them. But does anybody have anything that they want to add to their approach or something that they found over time? You know, hey, I kind of had this feeling that I wasn't talking about XYZ enough. And so I went back and started making that part of my conversations and it really became a winner for me. I'm really interested to hear. I want to become better presenters together if we can. And I would even ask you, Gretchen, is there anything um that you've noticed in creating pieces or in communications to consumers that you feel seems to hit home?

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Oh, that's a that's a great question. Um, you know, because something we talk about a lot is everybody's different and people respond to different things. You have, I mean, one thing we have experienced ourselves is you have people who are super analytical and they're gonna dive into every product detail and they're going to, you know, Google everything. And so you have that subset of of uh customer, and then you have the people who are more um sort of emotion-based. So it's gonna it's gonna be about their experience. Uh, do they have experience with long-term care um with a loved one? Um, how that impacted them. Um, they don't want to be a burden on their children or their you know, family and friends. And so you it, you know, I our um sort of uh I think goal would be to uh be able to provide different uh approaches to communicating with different types of people. But you really have to you have to listen in that conversation and you guys all know this. You you have to be a really a top-notch listener because you're you're listening for those those uh things that you can sort of key in on and to help people better understand what it is that they're purchasing.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

So such such a good point, and I think um it is really important that we think about being a good listener, not just as the absence of talking, right? Because I know people who are good listeners by closing their mouths while the other person talks, but things might not get taken away from that conversation that need to be, and things aren't followed up and converted on in ways that they should be, right? So it's important not just to um, you know, keep your

Reading Analytical vs. Emotional Clients

SPEAKER_00 28:19

mouth closed while somebody else is talking, but it's really important to try to do that inner work to say, okay, I need to file that statement away because that is something helpful about preference, or it's helpful about it's helpful to meet to understand what type of client they are. Are they analytical? Are they emotional? I'm gonna go through some basic things because we all have to go through the basics, but how can I actually tailor that from the person I'm in front of, right? I really want to get to know this person because there's so many solutions out there that there really is something for everybody. And we in general try to provide something for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yeah, and I I think that's that's um in my humble opinion, I think that's one of the really cool things about this side of the business rather than the group side, because you you do you can get into those more um in-depth conversations with the humans, you know, and you can you can find out a lot about them by just like you said, you know, just just listening and taking note of very um, you know, important key things that they that they tell you, you know, they have children, they have grandchildren, they're gonna retire soon. They're they've got 10 years before they retire. They're you know, they've got it, yeah, whatever it is. Um, you know, just uh this the individual business allows more opportunities for that.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Yeah, on on the group side, um, oftentimes you almost have to treat an entity, even a giant entity, as like a single person. That's a that's a different thing entirely. Um, sometimes it feels like you have to obviously you have to do your your normal thing, right? I mean, when we're even meeting with individuals, we have a process that we generally try to follow. But sometimes on webinars, it almost feels like um, you know, I'm babysitting and I'm I'm taking different toys out of the toy box to see, like, all right, what what toy does the baby like? Right. Yeah. And you you start to get engagement that you can really feel something that you are reviewing is definitely hitting home because 10 questions just came into the chat. And obviously, you can tell a little bit about a person's background, about a group's background or industry that tells you I may have X type of client on my hands. So that gives you an idea of maybe how to order things. Um, if it's an analytical group, I'm I'm putting a calculator in front of me. I'm still gonna talk about long-term care planning. I'm still gonna show the slide with the four pillars. I will just tailor the way I go over that slide to be a bit more analytical in nature, as opposed to a little bit more emotional in nature when I'm talking to a group that might be a little bit more um feelers. If we're talking to say an assisted living facility and their employees, um that's generally where I'll take that side. And um I think all of that is super important. Um, I just don't want people to make individuals or groups feel like they are left behind, right? If you start on step three and they haven't gotten step one, they're already starting with I don't even know where to begin, right? That's probably the worst place to be um in your stomach when you're learning something, uh, is that I feel like I missed chapters one and two. Um, so how am I gonna follow this? And it's like Steve Elliott said um in his buying line presentation, people don't necessarily care how much you know. They will ask about the

Why Prospects Don't Care How Much You Know

SPEAKER_00 32:39

specific things that they want to know, but if the whole time is just predicated on more knowledge, more knowledge, more knowledge, more knowledge, getting into the really, really fine details of something, it's highly likely that that prospect will at the end of the meeting say, Hey, you know, you were great, you've given me uh a lot to think about, or I definitely have to take a look at some of this stuff and think about it, and I'll let you know. That's generally a sign that you may have lost them. You get very limited time to grasp somebody's attention and capitalize on it and give them what they're looking for, right? So you do have to be to a degree either perceptive, persuasive, or both, right? To be able to capitalize on that. Different styles are are gonna lead to different outcomes there, but I think you have to understand who you're in front of. You have to listen to what they're telling you, and you still have to go over the basics, but you have to learn how to do it quickly so you can get them exactly what they want. And sometimes they'll start with a question. I say, go right in that direction, right? Who am I to say, I know you have a question, but I'm I'm kind of pretty good at this presenting thing. So I want to give my piece first and then then we'll get to you, right? If they're trying to take you somewhere, take them there, but always circle back just to cover the basics. Um, and that's that's done with the listening ear. So I think that's what I had planned to talk about. It's more of a sort of soft skills session or a a thinker's sort of session. It's like a little bit meta. We're thinking about the way that we are talking to people, but I think it's a worthwhile exercise. And um, I think let me know if there is anything that you think is super essential out there to make sure that you cover each and every time or a good one-liner you have, or a good piece you use, or um anything of that nature to your approach that you think works.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Yeah, we're um in the in the very beginning stages of for those of you who have access to the portal, um, the buddy system, uh, we're in the beginning stages of reviewing um some of the content that's in the marketing section. Um so, you know, if there's any piece in

New Marketing Portal Filtering and Resources

SPEAKER_01 35:28

there that you you really feel totally connected to and you've downloaded it or you've, you know, you've customized it, whatever, um, let us know, me or Jason, um, because we can we can make sure to um evaluate that uh as part of our process. Uh, because we we want to we want to give you uh collateral that will help in your sales process, whether it's a sales tool um or marketing collateral. Um and and I I don't want to fill that that um repository with a bunch of of stuff that's just sort of noise. So um, oh, you're gonna go in there?

SPEAKER_00 36:17

I mean, it did just get a facelift. I think I think we um went over it on the group side study group, but um I I think it's worth it to just give folks a look. Um you may notice it looks a little different. What we are aiming to do is not only make that repository more efficient, but give you ways to find what you need to present um easier, right? We have content coming out of our ears, but if you can't find what you're looking for when you don't know what you're looking for, um, I think the platform is only as good as that. The amount of content is only as good as that.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

So yeah, um, we do have a couple of ways to filter content. Number one, by the sales journey up here, you can actually click on that. So if I want some pieces that are helpful for prospecting, we've got a number of different handouts that you can provide for prospecting purposes, for getting people's ear, for getting people interested for light introductory education, right? Um, we have under the educate tab, again, one of my all-time favorites. There's there's that piece again. Um, and all sorts of different helpful articles. The It's Your Life Planning Guide, I find to be um really, really helpful as well with partnership with CLTC.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

CLTC, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Um propose is pretty similar right now. I think we're gonna be doing some renovating there as far as um product presentation and then um service. So you'll see these steps much more fleshed out with individualized content, and you can search by content type, you can sort by our newest pieces, you can sort by recommended pieces, uh, you can even pin pieces of content. So if you say, uh, I don't want to mess with all that filtering, I just really like the guide to LTC funding solutions, I can pin that. I really like the it's your life checklist, I can pin that and go to my pinned content. I pin the VA LTC benefits flyer because people ask about that every once in a while, and it always seems to help. Even on group webinars, I get questions about VA LTC.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Yeah, and um one thing I want to point out because what when you when you brought that one up, uh it reminded me a lot of these pieces are created um in collaboration with our top specialists. I think I see Diane or I saw Diane here, um uh Lori, Renee, I mean uh Rhonda. Um, so you know, or then of course Mark and Jason. So these these are pieces that that um came out of a need at one point. And so um, you know, that's that's the other important thing. It's not marketing working in a silo or sales working in a silo. We're we're trying to collaborate to give you what what you need.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Yeah, I I I think it would be very difficult to market if you didn't have an idea of what the people distributing the marketing materials needed. And that's how we how we like to do everything, right? That's how we like to build sales tools, that's how we like to develop marketing materials, that's how we like to have study group sessions. So um your feedback drives a lot of what we do because we know there is a lot to be able to offer the long-term care industry. Um, you know, as many of you as there are, as many carriers as there are, still, still, I would say undersupported as an industry. So if you find yourself with gaps, we can't grant every wish. Um, but just let us know, and we'll be happy to play around and see if we can find something. We may even ask you to give us your insights to actually contribute to the creation of that material. So glad we took that little detour. Um I think everybody is just super perfect at having these conversations. So we didn't have anybody kind of talking through. Oh, let's see, which piece is best at dealing with the most recent statistics with respect to long-term care incidents, the aging population, and costs. That's abusing that's a great one.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Probably the cost of long-term care. Um, the one that we have right now is from 2024, but it's still, you know, the one thing that always gets me is people get all excited when the new cost of care numbers come out.

Cost-of-Care Stats and Planning Guide Resources

SPEAKER_01 41:17

But it even if you're looking at 2024 numbers, it's still huge. It's a huge number. So you're you're gonna add 112 billion on top of, you know, uh an already existing.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Or $11 a month on top of a gigantic building.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

So um make sure you have individual click. Right. So we I know Joe's in the process of updating that piece, but it but there is a piece that yeah, that one that you can go in and and um download. Um the other one um is yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

I'll just do my Vanna White really quick.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

That's excellent, Jason. You're multi-talented.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

There's that one.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Um the other one is the um I have to get in there because I can never remember the name of it, but it was the one that I created um for Renee. Um it it'll just take me a hot second to find it. Um, it's called LTCI Planning Process ebook. It it it does sort of um it it explains the concept of your oh did you find it? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it has a pr pretty much a little bit of everything. So it talks about the cost of care, the risk, um, impact, why now is the best time to start planning. And then it shows them the steps, um, which I think is pretty cool too, because it it gives them an understanding of what they can expect as part of the process. So I that's one of my favorite pieces.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Yeah, this is good. I uh I don't visit this one enough, but I do like it a lot.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Yeah, this is cool. I I think this step by step is very, very helpful as a leave behind because you give them you give them seven steps and you expect them to just remember. You're just asking to give them a bad surprise. Something they can refer to, even if you point it out to them explicitly, is here's how the process is going to run, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

And it's something you can you can leave with them. So you can walk through it with a client, but you can also leave it, you know, send it to them.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Um, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um and then and then the other thing I I is you know, leave them with some kind of value, other value. Like um, Jason pointed out this the piece we did with CLTC, which is really a planning guide. It's kind of like an end of life planning guide. So you know just there's just tons and tons of content that you are more than welcome to to grab and you know utilize or customize or whatever.

unknown 44:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

I'm glad you asked that question.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

That was a great question, Jeffrey.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Glad we went over those pieces specifically because I think that's really what was at the heart of my inspiration to have this session was um you know we especially if you're new to long-term care, we really have to keep things in terms of the real life human impact as well as talking product. But you cannot forget the very, very basics. You got to pretend like I just walked out of the cave for the first time. I am a primordial long-term care prospect. Right. And what would you tell me if it was my first day on earth because it's my first day in your world if this is the first time I'm meeting with a long-term care professional. So got to make the most of it can't leave them in the dust.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

I will send you the it's complicated planning guide. Hmm interesting networking uh that that Chris said in the chat I will send you the it's complicated planning guide.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

I've heard of that.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

I have too yeah I go to a lot of networking group functions and we'll have a table at a senior care meeting on Friday. I'm thinking of a sample traditional LTC rate sheet so I can give some ballpark numbers. One thing I found is that people want to know how much rates could be and I've always had to say it depends yep as a long-term care specialist we have to battle the perception LTC insurance is expensive of course going to focus on family etc but in these quick interaction events I need to grab their attention yeah 100% uh I totally agree with you I think um one of the ways to be able to do that is actually our quick quote calculator so if you don't want to show them the full benefit buddy I would still recommend having a laptop and you can even you know pull this up on the laptop and say you know very simply based on age um based on gender based on your hypothetical claim age and a monthly benefit

Using the Quick Quote Calculator With Prospects

SPEAKER_00 46:27

here's what the costs are but start affordable right i if you come at it from a perspective of I am not going to sell somebody more than they can afford and I know a little bit of coverage can go a long way then you're not you're not showing somebody what it would be like to be undercovered. You're showing somebody what it would be like to get their foot in the door for long-term care planning when they otherwise might not have that's the perspective I like to take from that that's why I like to use something simple like the quick quote calculator um because that right away can get people interacting and will give you conceptual pricing but it will still leave items on the table. Like this is showing assuming a I believe six year benefit there's even room to start smaller than this but even at the defaults you know you show that this is something that can be relatively affordable not 400 bucks a month and still provide very meaningful protection right I think that's one of the things the quick calculator does really well too I'm not just sitting here and telling you it's $244 a month.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

I mean some people you know might just say done uh for me I say well that's you know that's quite a bit of Skrilla every month to put out for an insurance product what might get it right so to say at this premium we're looking at you know upwards of 500 000 and potential benefits if you need care that brings the two most important pieces together and um yeah that that's what I would recommend is showing them um yeah you said something I think it was you Jason call yesterday I can't remember where where what it was but um I think it was you that said you know really what you want to do or you want

Buy What You Can Keep & Wrap-Up

SPEAKER_01 48:52

to focus a a client not so much on long-term care insurance covering all of the cost that normally they're using long-term care insurance they're using like uh you know their long-term care insurance they're using some of their income or other assets to cover all of the costs so the you know we we often say the best uh long-term care insurance coverage is the coverage you will keep until you need it so you know yeah so I think that's important too when you're showing that calculator yep and that's something we make sure to say on every single group webinar as well uh thank you for bringing that up buy what you can afford and plan to keep right right uh the especially in the life hybrid market but I don't in in all long-term care insurance um the only people who don't get value out of the plan are people who you know buy it pay premiums and drop it I mean there's return of premium provisions with hybrid um and cash value and other types of solutions but at the end of the day it's it's going to get you at max your premium back and that means an insurance company has held on to your premiums you had the privilege of protection for that amount of time but at the end of the day did you did you get a ton of value besides what you had for the time you had protection in place.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

Right? Um so buy what you can plan to keep because uh especially for hybrids you're you're going to pass away need long-term care or both right so get something out of it I think that's a great point and that encourages hey I'm somebody who's about keeping it affordable right and that gets people in the door with you who you know in the future hey we had a conversation way back when I'm a client of yours from seven years ago and guess what I had a windfall and I remembered how important long-term care insurance is I want to be able to keep these assets protected I started with a small plan but can we do more right I'm I'm not just blonde smoke that happens to people all the time I hear about it getting people through the door getting their trust and really thinking about them at the end of the day giving them what they want giving them what they need it uh it pays dividends if you stay in this business for a long time so great questions everybody I think that was a great way to end the session really rounded out a bunch of things can I tell everybody what we're gonna do next Tuesday yes you can I think you know what we're gonna do next Tuesday but I think I do not you're gonna learn we're gonna do a shake the tree session uh how to prospect um with your current book of business both um in on the individual side but also can you shake the tree on the for the group side too so I think I'm gonna be interviewing Mark and Jason and we're gonna have we're gonna have a good lively discussion. Going to be a good one. I've got a couple of uh sessions in the works with some folks I know and love. So uh you'll just have to stay tuned for those. Thank you everybody for being here. Be well and we'll talk to you next week.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

Thanks everyone.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Bye