Westland Financial Services

A Case to Share July 18, 2019

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During the last few weeks we have worked on dozens of life, long term care, disability and annuity cases working alongside our Advisers.
If you are not discussing these issues with your clients then who will? 
 
Case 1– Long term Care Review:  Advisor had a couple ages 66 and 62 who purchased traditional long term care protection on their own a couple of years earlier from LifeSecure in CA.  LifeSecure is no longer accepting new customers in CA.  This wasn’t bad protection, but the clients didn’t even ask their financial planner about this because they didn’t think he did life and long term care.
These are great clients of his with a liquid net worth of over $2.5 million he was managing.  He was just too focused on managing assets and wasn’t holistically focused enough and decided to use Westland as his LTC and Life Insurance Expert Partner.  Now he can better serve clients adding this expertise to his arsenal.
We discussed the case and reviewed the current protection and looked for alternatives that may better serve these clients. After careful analysis we recommended a linked-benefit strategy through State Life – One America (Asset Care III).  We re-positioned $200,000 of IRA funds and gave them each lifetime long term care protection.  They are currently dealing with a close family member with Alzheimer’s.
There is a guaranteed joint life death benefit of $358,261 should care never be needed and the lifetime monthly level benefit was nearly 3 times the previous coverage out of the gate. This monthly benefit continued to be more than the traditional benefit through ages 98 and 93 since the traditional product had a 3% inflation rider. Westland produced a LTC Needs report and side by side analysis for client review.
Westland then assisted and hosted a client conference call to go through the recommendation with the client and both client and Advisor were thrilled.  Westland took the application and completed everything required to put this coverage In Force. The Advisor received 70% of the compensation – over $9,000 for business that would never have happened without his partnership with Westland.
Call Westland today about our Trusted Partner Program. Westland Trusted Partnership
Case 2 – Advisor had a client with a net worth of over $10 million who wanted to protect some of the gains from his investment portfolio. He was looking for a highly liquid short term indexedannuity. After doing our diligent research we recommended the Athene Protector 5.  A 5 year indexed annuity with solid rates and a Return of Premium (ROP) rider (cost 40 basis points).  The ROP allowed for full return of deposit anytime or cash surrender value, whichever was higher.  In addition, if the annuity was held through year 5, there was a 10% guarantee as a minimum return.  In short, the case was for $500,000 and after our presentation, the client decided to put in $1,000,000.  After 5 years, worst case was to walk away with $1,100,000 or account value whichever was higher.
 
Call or E-mail Sean Sahin to discuss a case today.
 
E-Mail: Sean Sahin
(800)238-8144 x120
 
Your Westland Team

A Case to Share April 29, 2019

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During the last few weeks we have worked on dozens of life, long term care, disability and annuity cases working alongside our Advisers.
If you are not discussing these issues with your clients then who will? 
 
Case 1 – Rising Income Options: If you have clients that need or will need supplemental income from their portfolio and not looking at an annuity with a rising income option, then you may be doing your clients a big disservice. 
 
Please allow Westland to assist with designing and incorporating a rising income option to achieve significant improvements with generating much higher accumulated incomes during retirement.  Our analysis routinely shows potentially 25% – 100% more income over a 20-30 year retirement.  
 
Case in point:  Client was age 70 and had a John Hancock (JH) Variable Annuity with an income rider.  The account value was about $153,000 and income from JH was guaranteed at $9,375 annual.  At age 90 her accumulated income distributions would be $196,875.
 
The rising income option showed a starting income of $8,577 annually. At a conservative 3.5% growth estimate, that income would be $16,489 by age 90 and accumulated income of $242,555.  This is a 29% increase in income.  Granted this is hypothetical vs. guaranteed, but most clients will jump at the opportunity for the increased option.  It could be much higher or a little lower, but in almost all planning simulations, it is better.
 
At age 95, the difference is 43% better.  
 
Her E-Money simulation showed a tight plan with a net worth at age 100 of only $22,000 with JH and an improved hypothetical net worth of over $286,000 with the 1035 change.  Compliance approved the transaction.
 
Call or E-mail Sean Sahin to discuss a case today.
 
E-Mail: Sean Sahin
(800)238-8144 x120

A Case to Share April 10, 2019

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During the last few weeks we have worked on dozens of life, long term care, disability and annuity cases working alongside our Advisers.
If you are not discussing these issues with your clients then who will? 
 
Case 1 – Premium Finance – No Collateral: A top financial adviser called to discuss a case for a high wage earner that needed life insurance protection now and wanted to add a significant supplemental tax-free income to his retirement plan.   Doctor Age 56.
 
A max funded Indexed Life Program was designed with a premium finance option to keep out of pocket amounts at a minimum.
 
Out of Pocket from Client $104,000 for 5 years
Premiums for life policy: $207,899 for 10 years (paid by financing company)
Initial Net Death Benefit: $2,922,000
Projected Tax Free Income at age 69: $82,000 Annual for life.
 
Expected death benefit at life expectancy (late 80’s): $1,000,000
 
You can do this!  One case a year could really boost your practice and help a client.
Compensation to Adviser: over $70,000
 
Call or E-mail Nancy Woo, Director of Life Marketing, to help you design a case today.
 
E-Mail: Nancy Woo
(800)238-8144 x103

A Case to Share March 7, 2019

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Case 1 – Premium Finance Case – this option can fit many client scenarios: A top financial adviser called to discuss a case for a high wage earner that needed life insurance protection and add a significant supplemental tax-free income to his retirement plan.  Doctor Age 51.
 
A max funded Indexed Life Program was designed with a premium finance option to keep out of pocket amounts at a minimum.
 
Out of Pocket from Client $100,000 for 5 years
Premiums for life policy: $198,589 for 10 years
Initial Net Death Benefit: $3,423,000
Projected Tax Free Income at age 65: $95,000 Annual for life.
 
Expected death benefit at life expectancy (late 80’s): $2,000,000
 
You can do this!  One case a year could really boost your practice and help a client.
Compensation to Adviser: over $65,000
 
Call or E-mail Nancy Woo, Director of Life Marketing, to help you design a case today.
 
E-Mail: Nancy Woo

A Case to Share February 28, 2019

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During the last few weeks we have worked on dozens of life, long term care, disability and annuity cases working alongside our Advisers.
If you are not discussing these issues with your clients then who will? 
Case 1 – Life Insurance Needs Analysis: A top financial adviser called to discuss a case where the couple did not have any life insurance and wasn’t sure even if life insurance was necessary.  After some discussion we had him run a couple of what if strategies using his financial planning software.
 
What if husband died today – Calculate expected net worth of his surviving wife at her age 100
What if wife died today – Calculate expected net worth of her surviving husband at his age 100.
 
Even though their plan looked solid with both living a long life, as individuals not so much.  
 
We found that with his passing the hypothetical took her to her mid 90’s – we could accept this risk with their real estate equity as a backstop. 
 
We found that with her passing, the hypothetical only took him to about age 81 and then the plan failed.  This was due to her Social Security and single life pension that would cease.
 
We then ran, various scenarios to place an affordable term life insurance amount on her that might make sense.  We found that if we put a 20 year $500,000 term on her and she passes anytime in the 20 year period, his plan succeeds. If she passed after the 20 year term with no insurance proceeds for him, then his plan still succeeds through his mid 90’s. This was an acceptable risk with their real estate equity as a back stop. 
 
Luckily this couple already had a LTC protection program in place, otherwise a significant LTC event for either of them would have been devastating.
 
Your Westland Team

Four Goals Financial Professionals Should Set and Achieve This Year

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Information from Partners Advantage blog posting

Each year, we typically see people setting new year resolutions. Unfortunately, most resolutions don’t hold up for more than a week or two, and we don’t think that’s right, especially if you’re a financial professional.

blog four goals

If you look at some of the most successful financial professionals in our industry, they all tend to not only set these four goals, they also continually measure their success toward accomplishing their goals.

Goal 1: Prospecting Goal

Hands down, the most successful financial professionals establish a yearly prospecting goal. In other words, they identify the total number of new prospects they’d like to get in front of this year. To accomplish this goal, you need to plan out your prospecting activities and set aside a realistic budget and follow-through. You can accomplish this plan on your own, but maybe it’s something you should be delegating to your assistant. If you think you can’t afford to hire an assistant, click here to learn the real truth behind one of the most value members you should have on your team.

It’s also important to leverage a prospecting program that has already produced results in the real world. There are many organizations and consultants out there ready to separate you from your hard-earned money on a program that just doesn’t work, so be sure to look at a prospecting program that has been vetted and can produce meaningful results. What do meaningful results mean? That really depends, but a benchmark you should be shooting for is 20 buying units (couples or head-of-household) per prospecting event. If you conduct just 1 prospecting event per month, your prospecting goal would be 120 units. At two prospecting events per month, that would lead to 240 units, but that only gets you so far, you need a lead conversion goal.

Goal 2: Conversion Goal

There are many financial professionals out there when asked, “how many prospects do you convert into clients” they’ll say they convert 9 out of 10, or something along those lines. In other words, they claim every prospect they meet converts into a client. While that very well may be true, the fact is most financial professionals have never tracked their results, and at the core of every sales professional there tends to be a cognitive bias – sometimes known as the certainty effect. This is when people over weigh outcomes that are considered certain relative to outcomes that are merely possible. Yes, it is possible that you will convert every prospect you encounter, but the reality is that the actual conversion is significantly lower, which is why you need to not only have a conversion goal, but also a metric to quantify your results.

The reason you need the goal and the metric is that you want to spend your prospecting dollars on the activities that generate the best results. If you conduct one prospecting program and it generates 10 buying units, but you only convert 1, whereas another prospecting program generates 5 buying units and you convert 4, which program should you do more of … assuming the price is the same for both programs? The answer is, it depends on how much revenue gets generated. If that 10-to-1 conversion lead to revenue of $10,000, and the other program that lead to four-out-of-five conversions leads to a total of $4,000 in revenue, it’s pretty clear which one is the winner. That’s why it’s important to set a conversion goal, which may be related more to the cost of the program and the revenue generated, not necessarily the number of people who convert.

When thinking through your conversion goal, you should also consider developing and sharing your sales process. If you want to learn more about why financial professionals need a consistent and repeatable sales process to obtain better and more consistent conversions, click here.

Goal 3: Educational Goal

Think you know everything in this business? Think again. If there’s one thing about the financial services industry is that there is always something new to learn. Whether that’s a new product, marketing approach, technology hack or business practice, the financial professional that puts ongoing education as a goal will always be able to provide more value to their clients. That’s because people achieve success not by accident. It’s a combination of hard work, risk-taking and learning.

For most of us, it takes twenty years or more of hard work and ongoing education to become an overnight success. Make on-going education a goal, whether that’s reading a new business book every quarter, developing or enhancing a skill, like speaking in public, or putting money aside to develop your staff. An educational goal will typically pay tremendous dividends in the end. Or perhaps it’s time to start thinking about taking on a business coach to take your business to the next level. A skilled business coach will guide you and educate you on successful strategies you can implement to achieve extraordinary success.

Goal 4: Referral Goal

Everybody in this business says they grow from referrals, but are they setting a goal and tracking a specific referral goal? This year, you should consider taking the steps necessary to make generating more quality referrals one of your top goals. The key word is “quality” referrals. This sounds like an easy task, but in reality getting referrals takes a lot of different steps. Click here to learn the three steps to create more referrals for your business.

Make this the year that you elevate and innovate your business by not only setting the four most important goals, but by also taking the time to measure your goals. While this is just a short list of four goals, what other goals should financial professionals be focusing on this year? Share your thoughts with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter!

A Case to Share November 29, 2018

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During the last few weeks we have worked on dozens of life, long term care, disability and annuity cases working alongside our Advisors.
If you are not discussing these issues with your clients then who will? 

convictionCase 1) 

We recently had a case where we looked at several Long Term Care strategies and recommended a MoneyGuard Solution as the one that was clearly in the client’s best interest.  However the Advisor almost lost the sale to a keen Nationwide salesman with a strong conviction and salesmanship for the product he was offering and he focused on the benefits of Indemnity vs. Reimbursement. We helped save the case with Care and Reasoning and being more convinced in offering what was in the client’s best interest. The opposition was a Nationwide Salesperson offering CareMatters – a product very similar to MoneyGuard and in many cases a very viable and solid solution.  We love both products.
However in this case we were trying to solve for the most long term care benefit and had to refocus the client on that goal and NOT that maybe her daughter might care for her 25 years in the future and she could pay her more easily through an indemnity based solution.
To the client…
Below are some additional thoughts to consider.
Reimbursement vs Indemnity should not be your focus.  The main point is making sure your family is coordinating care and not having to provide care.  When comparing apples to apples, MoneyGuard starts out at much more in monthly benefits and compounds to be a significant difference in monthly benefit available over time, especially at ages when a long term care event is likely to happen.
Below are some additional thoughts to consider about indemnity vs. reimbursement:
  • Not many differences that will truly matter
  • Your caretaker still needs to coordinate care and physically pay the bills each month and manage the claim and your finances
  • You will have to be reassessed as needing care services at least annually for indemnity payments to continue.
  • A reimbursement design allows for direct billing and direct payment, so a caretaker essentially supervises claim.
  • Even though indemnity plans allow for direct compensation of a family member, this can affect quality of care and the quality of life for the caregiver.  Are you are really considering and wanting a family member providing your care if you have insurance?  If so,
    • Is a family member going to be qualified to provide the type of care needed?
    • Will they physically be able to provide care needed?
    • Will they be around and available to provide the care when needed in the future?
    • Will family members all be in agreement as to what is needed for your care?
    • Will there be government requirements for caregivers to claim the income received from you or for you to provide workers compensation insurance, etc.?
    • Will there be pressure to use funds for purposes other than your healthcare?
    • What will payment and care coordination technology look like in 30 or more years.
NOTE: Women who cared for ill parents were twice as likely to suffer from depressive or anxious symptoms as non-caregivers.
Source: Press release (August 2002). “Reverberations of Family Illness: A longitudinal assessment of informal caregiving and mental health status in the nurses’ health study,” American Journal of Public Health, as quoted in Family Caregiver Alliance, “Women and Caregiving: Facts and Figures,” FCA, https://www.caregiver.org/women-and-caregiving-facts-and-figures (accessed December 16, 2016).
Other Concierge Care Bullet Points
  • When you need to go on claim, you are assigned a case manager who is a single point of contact for the entire family to assist in all phases of the process (paperwork, care coordination, etc.- no call centers).
  • Silver Brick Road – included with each MG contract, client and family can find providers based on geography, offerings, ratings, needs (what typically takes the average family 2-6 weeks takes 5-10 minutes!), articles, videos, Care Circle, Assessments, pre-planning.
  • Care Circle – keeps family and friends in the loop – anyone named in the Care Circle by the owner of MG receives an observation report by the Caregiver.  This Care post is an email blast sent to each member of the Care Circle each day care is provided, detailing what care was provided that specific day, what is going on, what they did, what to do now.
  • Assessments – puts a baseline on what to do – can also be a cognitive screen.  Insured can do on self or Care Circle member can do the assessment on insured, receive guidance and provide suggestions.
  • Next steps – we provide a list of the right questions a family should be asking potential caregivers.
  • Bill pay – a way to pay caregivers directly without the need of sending a check to the family who then has to deposit and write out more checks to caregivers.
  • Pre-planning – a service that allows you to plan for your care, develop a plan choose your care provider prior to being on claim.  Allows insured to fully develop a plan based on a future need because of a diagnosis that does not have immediate affect but eventually will (MS, Alzheimer’s, rheumatoid arthritis, etc. – debilitating conditions that can work slowly over time).   We save the plan in our system and when time comes for pulling the trigger for benefits there is no crisis management, the plan is already to go.
  • Family has White Glove Concierge Care and with the dial of a toll free number, they are put in touch with your Concierge Caregiver to guide everyone through a difficult time.
I sound like a salesman…
The only reason I would recommend Nationwide for you, is if you thought the slightly higher death benefit outweighed the loss of LTC Benefits. The Return of Premium Option is also better with Nationwide, but you are paying for this benefit and it is hardly ever invoked because you would have to give up your LTC Benefits and that almost never would make sense. And if you think you will need these funds back for some reason, then you are most likely committing too much of your portfolio today.  Plus, this type of coverage would be more expensive to reacquire the same protections at older ages. Surrendering is also not recommended when there may be loans available from cash value. If you didn’t need care until your 90’s, then in hindsight the Nationwide product would be better, but you would have to carry that extra risk for more than 30 years.
If you decide to stick with Nationwide no hard feelings.  It’s what you believe is best that matters and either Nationwide or MoneyGuard provide you and your family solid protection.  Having helped you decide to put a protection plan in place is most important to me.
Sorry to carry on, but this is an important decision for you.
She agreed on the importance of the decision and with thoughtful consideration stuck with the recommendation for MoneyGuard.
Please do not hesitate to contact your Westland team any time.  We are here to help.

A case to share October 16, 2018

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During the last few weeks we have worked on dozens of life, long term care, disability and annuity cases working alongside our Advisors.
If you are not discussing these issues with your clients then who will? 
 
IULCase 1) 34 year old to Generate $140,000 in tax free retirement income
Advisor had a client who asked about life insurance that could generate tax free retirement income and called us for assistance.  This is not unusual, your clients are seeing these ads and are targets every day for life, long term care, disability and retirement planning.  You must make sure your clients know you can provide these services.  Westland is your one-stop-shop to assist.
 
This client was a younger solid earner.  He could afford an extra $1,000 monthly to save toward retirement and had a new family that needed some added life insurance protection.
We created a solution with indexed universal life that would accept the $1,000 monthly and provide $400,000 of initial life insurance protection growing over time to over $1,600,000 of protection.
In addition, he would hypothetically be able to pull out over $140,000 annually to supplement retirement income at age 70 for 20 years.
 
Please do not hesitate to contact Nancy or I at any time.  We are here to help.
Nancy Woo: (800)238-8144 nancyw@westlandinc.com  
 
 
Hopefully, you are thinking of clients right now where you can add real additional significance and value to their family with protection and legacy strategies.
Call for your personalized case designs today.  We are here at your service.
(800)238-8144 x127

A Case to Share September 6, 2018

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Best Practice
Call Westland to discuss a case – we will gather information and then research options to recommend what  we feel is the best solution for your client.
 
Case 1) 
Recent discussion with a money manager and financial planning team who were evaluating a recommendation to address LTC Risk for a couple…
Husband (72) wife (62) second marriage $3,600,000 investment portfolio.  He had a solid LTC plan in place already and were evaluating options to address her LTC Risk.
After looking at many LTC options we created a LTC plan for presentation and it included a recommendation for re-positioning $140,000 into MoneyGuard for her with 3% inflation and that he keep his current plan.  She would receive the couples discount and have over $1,000,000 for care at age 85 (our target benefit after 23 years of inflation adjustment).
Effect on portfolio was net worth at age 100 would go from an estimated $9,200,000 to $8,700,000 using financial planner and money manager assumptions.

However, with a hypothetical LTC event factored in at age 85 and no insurance, portfolio value at his age 100 could drop portfolio value to an estimated $6,300,000 at age 100 for surviving spouse.

Money manager made the following comments to Financial Planning Team.

This may be an oversimplification, but it appears that the break-even on their expected rate of return for growth assets is around age 86 or so…if she goes to LTC. Obviously one doesn’t buy a MoneyGuard or similar policy for the death benefit, so the only remaining issue is at what point she would need LTC benefits, and how long that may last. If she lives beyond 86 and doesn’t need LTC, then the opportunity cost becomes greater than the potential of the LTC policy.

At that point, it becomes more of a non-financial decision about peace of mind and longevity risk. If I were making the decision for my own policy, I’d evaluate the possibility of needing the LTC, based upon family history, health, etc.
MY RESPONSE: It should be noted that everything in the MoneyGuard policy will be guaranteed by Lincoln vs. an expected rate of return that is hypothetical in your assumptions. Even with family history in her favor, you never know when something might happen, like a stroke, other debilitating sickness or accident.
There are many schools of thought on these issues and I appreciate your input. Some people are much more comfortable with self-insuring. However, as a holistic financial planning team, would you be okay with a recommendation not to purchase some protection and an event happened? I guess the answer could be Yes, if it never happens or happens after age 86 and the expected returns are met or exceeded, and the LTC event was as expected or less than expected.

What our analysis seems to indicate is that there is far greater downside risk for not much lost in upside potential. With the re-position for MoneyGuard protection, your values at age 100 for the older spouse show $8,700,000 Net Worth with or without our hypothetical LTC event. While NOT putting in place protection shows only about 6% more in upside potential to an expected $9,200,000 Net Worth at age 100. The RISK however, is a 32% potential loss to $6,300,000 if our hypothetical LTC event happened. So again, the question is; do you give up a potential gain of about $600,000 to eliminate a potential loss of about $3,000,000?

Here is another way of looking at this. You are betting $3,600,000 (today’s portfolio value) and are expecting a $8,700,000 pay off if we re-position the $140,000 today. Or do we bet $3,600,000 and might get $9,200,000 if we win (no ltc event) or $6,300,000 if we lose (having hypothetical ltc event). By the way… it is about a 70% chance that you lose and 30% chance that you win.

What will most clients be more appreciative of? If you help them prevent taking a big hit or squeezing out a little more yield?

I sincerely understand though that this couple should be just fine no matter the decision.

Sorry to carry on…

Tim
NOTE: The financial planning team highly recommended re-positioning the $140,000 into MoneyGuard. We are in the process of implementation.

If you do not have the time to commit for doing insurance work, then assign insurance work to an associate or allow Westland to assist.  What would you pay an associate? 50%?  Westland will be your associate for 25% or less depending on your role.  Best of all you are keeping it all in your control and not allowing any competition to creep into your practice.  We just become part of your practice just like an associate.

Please do not hesitate to contact Nancy or I at any time.  We are here to help.

 

A case to share August 9, 2018

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During the last few weeks we have worked on dozens of life, long term care, disability and annuity cases working alongside our Advisors.
If you are not discussing these issues with your clients then who will? 

1) Best Practice
Call Westland to discuss a case – we will gather information and then research options to recommend what  we feel is the best solution for your client.
 
Westland is here to support you and work to enhance your practice.  We want to help you help more clients with putting in place protection strategies that only insurance products can provide.  Advisors who do these simple tasks will see significant increases in production and client awareness that you offer additional services.  We have heard often that clients didn’t know that their advisor also handled LTC, Life, Disability or Medicare assistance.  Now you can have experts backing you up through Westland.
 
Best practices that will greatly help:
 
For client meetings; Use an agenda for every client meeting. 
 
Have topic bullet points for: Long Term Care Risk, Legacy Goal discussion, Life Insurance Policy Review, Disability Protection Strategy. 
 
Client homework: bring in most recent statements of your life, ltc, disability policies for your files.
 
Use Agenda’s for On-boarding new clients and for all Review Meetings. 
 
Super Value Add: Ask clients to bring in copies of all declaration pages for Property and Casualty (Home, Rental, Auto, Umbrella, Etc.).  List these on an insurance grid and keep it updated.  Note:We are happy to assist with creating and maintaining the insurance grid, for a negotiated fee (Sample Grid). In California, Westland does have an affiliation with a firm who will evaluate coverage limits and create a presentable recommendation report for your review. 
 
Other Value Add to consider:  Provide your clients a Home Appraisal report that you pay for.  Then you can be realistic when creating client financial statement – balance sheet.
 
Other: Review 401(k) and Health Insurance.
 
Have Westland help you create a Life Insurance Needs Report. (Sample Life Needs Report)
Have Westland help you create a LTC Needs Report. (Sample LTC Needs Report)

 

If you do not have the time to commit for doing insurance work, then assign insurance work to an associate or allow Westland to assist.  What would you pay an associate? 50%?  Westland will be your associate for 25%.  Best of all we are not competition.  We just become part of your practice just like an associate.
Please do not hesitate to contact Nancy or I at any time.  We are here to help.
Nancy Woo: (800)238-8144 nancyw@westlandinc.com  
 
 
Hopefully, you are thinking of clients right now where you can add real additional significance and value to their family with protection and legacy strategies.
Call for your personalized case designs today.  We are here at your service.
 
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