Minorities and middle market underserved niches

Agents and advisers are overlooking an opportunity for new life insurance sales: the middle market and minorities, said Catherine H .Smith, chief executive officer of U.S. insurance at ING North America Insurance Corp., in Atlanta. Speaking at the 19th annual Executive Conference for the Life Insurance Industry in New York, she pointed to the 68 million uninsured Americans as a plum opportunity for agents and advisers, provided they knew how to access those markets. “Our ability to reach the middle-income family comes down to the distribution,” said Ms. Smith. “We’re seeing a diminishing number of folks selling life insurance on the ground.” Scores of seasoned agents and advisers are retiring, while those who stay in the business want to move into the small-business and affluent-client world, she said. But carriers can reach out through nontraditional channels, such as selling products on the Web or through a bank, or approaching prospective middle-class clients through their employers, Ms. Smith suggested. In these channels, agents or advisers can become educators. “This opportunity is less than fully tapped when employees sign up for benefits and don’t have the opportunity to do a good job understanding the benefits,” she said. Ms. Smith also pointed out the benefits of reaching out to minorities by recruiting multicultural talent. This way, carriers access a sales force that’s in tune with cultural nuances and can readily tap that underserved market. Insurers must also create marketing materials that are “in culture” and not just “in language.” She gave the example of an accelerated death benefit rider as part of a feature in a Chinese insurance brochure. When translated directly into Chinese, the feature was called a “die faster” rider.