Don't Let Compliance Keep You Up At Night!

COMPLIANCE

Just the mention of compliance can make us want to hide and hope it will go away. By definition, compliance is "the act or process of complying to a desire, demand, proposal, or regimen or to coercion," so it's understandable why we often associate negative feelings or want to ignore this aspect of our business. Many advisors view compliance as a chore, not a lever to facilitate sales and reduce their future liability.

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However, compliance does not need to be the enemy and it does not need to be something we hide from or something we ignore. Compliance doesn't even have to take that much time or effort. However, in order for all of that to be true, we must have a repeatable process in place. We need a system.

Not only do we need a process for compliance we actually need to stick with that process, yes this might mean changing our behaviour! however by having a cohesive process for documenting how you reached a life insurance sale not only will you reduce your liability you will likely find that it can also be a sales asset, keep reading and I'll show you what I mean.

The CLHIA recommends serving clients through Needs-Based Sales Practices. A must read on the expectations of a compliant sale.

Needs-based sales practices are part of a customer-focused approach to insurance distribution. They are an industry expectation and a regulatory expectation and requirement in some jurisdictions.

PILLARS OF "THE APPROACH"

CLHIA States that these are the supporting elements that must be in place in a compliant sale

1. Client Expectations
2. Disclosure
3. Fact Finding
4. Needs Assessment
5. Advise and Recommend
6. “Reason Why” letter

As stated above if we really want to make compliance an asset, not a burden we need to make it automatic, we need to embed it into our workflow.

At Life Design Analysis we have felt this pain point from our advisors and have made it our goal to not only help you make compliance automatic and repeatable but also a system that will help you increase sales and value to your clients as a result of the same process. How do we do that keep reading to find out.

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How LDA Helps Keep Your Practice Compliant

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I'd Like to explore each of the pillars of the CLHIA Approach and describe how advisors can protect their practice while increasing sales using Life Design Analysis.

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CLIENT EXPECTATIONS

"The advisor and client should have a common understanding of the services that the client expects in the immediate transaction and ongoing relationship"

Setting expectations are a key element in a successful sale. Expectations can range from how you get compensated to what type of services you offer. A great way to ensure you include this in every client interaction is to make this information part of your custom "Mission Statement" in LDA. This can be found in your account settings in the case tab.

DISCLOSURE

Disclosure is one of the fundamental elements of trust and as such is an important element of a strong compliant sale. Disclosure can include things like the companies you are licensed to sell, conflicts of interest, and a reminder that your clients always have the right to ask for more information.

Just like the mission statement you can customize and include this kind of information in every LDA report you produce. This disclaimer is also found in the account settings and is fully customizable. (Remember your practice and services are unique so have a disclaimer that is as unique as your business)

FACT FINDING

Collecting the facts of the case and establishing the need are important to selecting the right product, the right amount of coverage and for the appropriate length of time. A very simple way to fact find is to use our sharable needs analysis link. This allows you or your clients to populate the facts of the case such as their liabilities and assets. (tool tips on the client side help them see average costs for typical liabilities such as final expenses)

NEEDS ASSESSMENT

Needs assessment essentially distils the liability a person has and the human capital they would need to replace less their current liquid assets. Life Design Analysis has needs analysis tools built-in that can even be shared with a client, this makes establishing and documenting the facts easier than ever. Many advisors love the ability to use our interactive charts to show how needs may change over time to highlight how much permanent insurance a person would need and how much could be term insurance. Not only does completing a needs analysis make you compliant, this article found that "Producers sell a lot more life insurance if they advise clients on their life insurance needs. In some cases, they can double the face amount of policies they sell compared to producers who do not provide a needs analysis."

ADVISE AND RECOMMEND

To create a compliant sales we must document how and why we came to a certain recommendation, we must perform a suitability analysis of the products and their current prices and how those products behave over time, often applying advanced financial calculations. The days of advisors picking a certain carrier because they are going to send you to Mexico are fleeting. Today we need to pick products because they are the most competitive on the market and because they fit the goals of our clients. To properly review and capture this information in an easy and repeatable process we need a system like LDA. Because of our exclusive partnership with LifeGuide, our advisors are equipped with the right tools to complete a full analysis that illustrates your recommendation, and creates a backup complete with notes if you need to reference the case in the future.

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“REASON WHY” LETTER

The reason why letter is a new requirement that will soon be mandatory for every insurance sale. Its purpose is simply to provide a summary of the facts of the case to establish why a certain product was selected or not selected. There are key items that can be found in a good reason why letter but they are all designed to make sure client and advisor are on the same page. In LDA you can select from a prebuilt fillable reason why letter or create your own template that you can use in any insurance sales presentation.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, there are many reasons to think of compliance as a chore however if we can adopt an easily repeatable process not only can we take the burden out of compliance we can turn it into one of our most powerful sales tools that opens your client's eyes to the value of life and living benefits. Remember as important as executing all the steps of a compliant sale is documentation them and keeping a record in the event of an audit. You don't need to prove you know the client or the product was suitable you need to defend the steps you took to get there. Life Design Analysis gives you a way to tie all of these elements on one place, you can even upload a copy of the in-force contract or any other supporting documents to your case file as well.

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Cliffs Notes

A quick Summary of how Life Design Analysis can help automate & strengthen your compliance process:

1. Shareable Needs Analysis
2. Compliance Templates
3. Documented Suitability Analysis
4. "Mark as Sold" Feature - Save all policy details (even YRT renewals and Whole Life Cash Values)
5. In-Force Policy Opportunity Notifications
6. In Force Autopilot - Creates cases off in-force policies automatically
7. Document Storage - Save contracts and other supporting documents right to the case
8. Reminders

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