You don’t have to be an expert on long term care or its solutions in order to have a serious conversation about the impact long term care costs can have on any well thought out tax, estate and retirement plan. Potential long term health care costs – which can run into the millions of dollars – must be discussed with your affluent clients and should be a part of your overall wealth preservation strategy. But how can you engage your clients in a serious, consultative discussion?
Part 1 – How to initiate a serious conversation with your affluent clients about long term health care costs
You are convinced your prospects need long term care insurance – but unless you’re having an extremely lucky day, your prospects don’t even want to think about it, much less talk about it.
So how do we get them to talk to you about a subject that is very high on the list of things they don’t want to talk to you about? To do that let’s get back to their primary financial goals and objectives:
- When they stop working they want an income that is adequate to maintain their standard of living.
- They never want to run out of money.
- They want to preserve their assets for the benefit of their families or charities.
So, let’s put it this way: which of the following statements to a client has the greater chance of setting up an appointment?
1. Mary, I’d like to talk to you about long term care insurance.
2. Mary, I’m concerned there may be a gap in your retirement plan and I’d like to talk to you about a new method to insure your retirement income (or preserve your assets for the kids, or make sure you won’t lose your income when you stop working).
In all probability statement #1 will get you nowhere whereas Mary would probably be delighted to talk to you about the subjects you mentioned in statement #2.
Click here to see conversation starters that you can use to start a serious discussion about the impact of LTC costs on clients’ incomes and assets.
