Imagine you’ve met with your client and gave great presentation explaining exactly how much life insurance they need. Your client’s been nodding their head in agreement the whole time.

As a financial professional, it would be really easy to pat yourself on the back and simply continue on to the next item on your agenda.

However, in many cases, you may find that unexpected difficulties arise when it comes time to implement your plan and purchase the life insurance policy.

As a result, it’s important that you uncover clients’ objections early on in the planning process. Here are four questions to accomplish this goal and get to the bottom of your client’s real life insurance objections.

Your Number Is X. Does This Makes Sense To You?

After going through my presentation, this is the first question I would ask. Almost every time, the client would say, “yes.”

What this told me is that, from a logical perspective, they understood everything in terms of my life insurance recommendation. They understood the number I was recommending and what it was designed to do.

What Percentage Of Clients Do You Think Take Action?

After my client would say “yes,” I’d usually respond along the lines of:

“It’s at this point in the plan, that nearly 100% of my clients say that it makes sense to them because I just mathematically walked them through how we calculated their life insurance number.

“But let me ask you this question: At this point in time, what percentage of my clients that all just said ‘yes,’ actually take action and move forward with this recommendation?”

Then I’d stop talking and let the client respond. They would throw out answers like 90%, 85%, and 60%, and eventually we’d get to the correct answer, which is about one third. This is an important lead in to the next question.

Why Do You Think That Is?

In other words, what you’re asking them is, “Why is it that nearly 100% of clients understand their life insurance recommendation and think it makes sense, but only one third of them actually move forward with it?”

The reality is that this question is asked from a third-party perspective, but the only way they can answer it is from a first-party perspective. They have not met the two-thirds of clients who did not move forward with the life insurance recommendation and therefore can not answer the question from any other perspective besides their own.

Now, you’ll hear the client’s real issues. This may include things like they just don’t believe they’ll need the life insurance, the life insurance amount seems too large, or they think if they died their spouse would simply get remarried.

There are tons of potential answers that could come here, but regardless of what does come up it’s important to let them air them out and truly listen. Once they’re complete, I’d take a deep breath, look at them and say...

Do You Think That Could Be An Issue For You?

There are two potential outcomes from this question. The first is that they say that it is an issue for them and you then have a chance to have a conversation about it.

The second is that they say no. In this case, I would ask if they could think of any other reasons why clients don’t move forward with the life insurance recommendation. Then, again, I’d follow up with, “Could this be an issue for you?”

I would continue this process until I felt comfortable that we had truly aired out the real issues. Once I felt satisfied that I had addressed them to the best of my ability, I’d then close out the conversation and move on to the next item on the agenda.

The Gift Of Understanding

Regardless of the issues your clients raise about life insurance, getting them to open up is a huge accomplishment.

The mistake so many reps make during their presentations is that they only scratch the surface when they check in with their clients. It becomes so much harder to implement the plan down the road because of everything that's been left unsaid.

Asking questions, truly seeking to understand, will not only help you better understand your clients – it will also help your clients better understand themselves. This happens naturally when they are forced to verbally articulate their thoughts. Regardless of whatever action they take, this alone is a tremendous gift that an advisor can give their clients.