Blog – DBS

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November 17 2020

Overcoming Common Client Objections to the Long-Term Care Discussion

Most people think that unpleasant things like serious illness are more likely to happen to others than to themselves. As a matter of fact, most Americans believe they won’t need long-term care, even though the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 70% of all individuals turning 65 will need some form of long-term care during their lifetime. While it’s understandable to want to avoid discussion about worrisome topics, planning ahead as a family to help protect wealth from long-term care expenses may help loved ones get the care they deserve in the way they want. Read Full PDF

November 6 2020

AG 49A Deadline Announced for December 14th

AG 49-A, the third phase of Actuarial Guideline 49 originally adopted by the NAIC in 2015, goes into effect for most carriers on December 14, 2020. This phase mandates that illustrations for all Indexed Universal Life policies placed inforce after the deadline cannot include interest enhancement credits or multipliers.

If you have any current cases involving IUL policies that offer enhancements or multipliers it is critical that you meet the deadline or risk having to start over with new illustrations. Not to worry as Diversified Brokerage Services is the place to go for information so the transition is EASY for you!

We have all the information at our fingertips including all the carrier-specific product details and important dates and deadlines.

The deadline varies by carrier, so please contact your DBS Case Design Analyst more details!

View FAQs

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October 28 2020

2021 Tax Estimates

We are pleased to bring you recently released 2021 tax estimates based on tax cost of living adjustments. When the IRS publishes the official numbers, DBS will make the official 2021 Tax Guide available for your use. With the election just a few short weeks away, it’s anyone’s guess as to which candidate will prevail on November 3, 2020. Regardless, whoever wins, there are sure to be changes to the 2021 numbers that appear in the DBS 2021 tax guide because Congress will need to figure out ways to handle the increasing deficit. Consequently, whatever the outcome of the election, advisors should prepare their clients for the changes that are likely to occur in the future. View Guide

October 9 2020

NAILBA Offers Virtual Conference – Open to All Financial Professionals

As you may know, NAILBA (National Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies) holds a conference every year that is an opportunity for the brokerage community to come together for 3 days to network, learn new things, and hear from some of the greatest thought leaders in the industry.

This year, the conference is being held as a virtual experience, and is being opened up – free of charge – to financial professionals.

NAILBA 39 will offer eight days of individualized programming spanning from November 2020 to February 2021. This year’s theme is “Engage”—an acknowledgement of the worldwide need to execute in a time of uncertainty. NAILBA 39: ENGAGE will deliver a number of OnDemand sessions for a deeper dive into relevant topics affecting the industry!

Please take a look at the offerings and choose to participate in some or all of the events. You can register for as many of the sessions as you’d like.

NAILBA 39: ENGAGE

November 19, 2020 – Feburary 24, 2021

View Full Agenda and Register Here

October 6 2020

Life Insurance During Retirement

The conventional wisdom among investment advisors is that if clients have planned appropriately, they will not need life insurance in retirement. It is commonly thought that upon reaching retirement, they will be free of debt, have plenty of assets on hand to replace lost income and leave to heirs as a legacy. This sounds like a reasonable assumption on paper, but not all assets are equal when it comes to transfer planning. To account for this, investment advisors with clients that have sufficient investment assets for retirement might still want to consider life insurance as an asset in a retirement portfolio. Read full PDF

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September 25 2020

Life Insurance as a Retirement Supplement

Early in our insurance careers, many of us learned that life insurance enjoys many tax-favored benefits. Specifically, we learned that unlike annuities, withdrawals from a life insurance policy are not taxable to the extent they do not exceed the cost basis of the policy. Furthermore, loans of any amount permitted by the insurance carrier can be taken income tax-free. Read full PDF

September 24 2020

DBS Announces Steve Grant as newest Field Relationship Manager

Diversified Brokerage Services, Inc. (DBS) is pleased to announce the addition of Steve Grant as its newest Field Relationship Manager for the Northeast Territory. Steve brings an important mix of experience in both the life insurance and long-term care insurance market, having worked previously for such life insurance carriers as John Hancock and Lincoln Financial. His passion is assisting financial professionals in the important discussions of both life insurance and LTC planning, making him a perfect fit for this role in working with financial professionals. Read More

September 17 2020

Create a Legacy Recovery Plan

While so many aspects of people’s financial lives have been shaken, life insurance continues to do exactly what it was designed to . . . serve as the foundation of a family’s financial security. While the value of many other financial assets have slipped, the death benefit of term life policies has remained the same, and the cash value of many permanent policies has continued to grow. Read Full PDF

September 17 2020

Transfer Tax Basics for Noncitizens

Over the past few months, there has been a renewed interest in estate planning topics. The increased interest is likely due to the combination of the daily coverage of deaths due to COVID-19, historic high federal exemption amount, and low-interest rates. Recently, some of my calls involved the application of U.S. estate tax laws to clients who are not citizens of the United States, but either reside or own property in the U.S. Individuals who reside in the U.S., but are not citizens, could face significant estate and gift tax problems. Read Full PDF

September 17 2020

5 Ways to Make the Most out of Life Insurance Awareness Month

September is Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM), a nationwide effort put on each year by LifeHappens, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about life insurance to help more families get the protection they need. You can celebrate with us — and boost your sales numbers in the process. Here are 5 great ways

Take Advantage of LifeHappens Marketing Tools

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Utilize the LIAM marketing tools already out there. Life Happens, offers many marketing materials you can utilize during September. For instance, they have customizable educational flyers, brochures, and graphics. They also offer videos, needs calculators, resources featuring real-life stories and their 2020 celebrity spokesperson Brooke Shields, and social media posts and images you can share.

Contact Clients for a Free Policy Review

Use the buzz about Life Insurance in September to offer free life insurance policy evaluations. Offer to walk through an individual’s current life insurance needs and compare your findings with the coverage they have in place. Setting up a policy review will help you determine if your clients’ current coverage still makes sense for them. If it doesn’t, you can ensure you’re the one to offer them help. DBS makes it easy with our “Quick look” tool that allows you to get a snapshot of each client situation by submitting basic information about the clients and their existing coverage. Then, you know whether it makes sense to consider a full-blown policy review. DBS can help with that too and provides a full analysis. Contact your DBS Case Design Analyst for more information!

Use Technology To Your Advantage

The DBS mobile app allows you to run a real-time quote for your clients so they can see exactly how inexpensive it can be to protect their family. As you’re discussing their situation, you can make changes on the fly to get them exactly the right amount of coverage. DBS has all the esolutions available at your fingertips including eDelivery, Accelerated Underwriting, FASTerm, and iGo e-app to make the process quick and easy. In fact, many of our carriers offer a completely digital end-to-end experience!

Use Social Media to promote life insurance

Use your social media business profiles to promote the value of life insurance to your clients. You can incorporate quotes from 2020 celebrity spokesperson Brooke Shields, facts about life insurance, statistics, and more. Many carriers have FREE social media graphics, along with ready-to-go post language, and be sure to check out the DBS LIAM page with helpful resources as well!

Educate, Educate, Educate

The numbers and statistics make a compelling argument for the value of life insurance, so the more you can reach out to your clients to educate them, the more they’ll be inclined to make a purchase. Using life insurance-related statistics will drive your point home and such information will help get your audience thinking about their own personal needs. LIMRA and Life Happens’ annual Insurance Barometer Study tracks the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of U.S. consumers and can be a wealth of information for you to use to better understand your clients. Consider the following statistics that illustrate a very compelling line of reasoning:

70 percent of people say they need life insurance, but only 59 percent actually own it.
22 percent of people with individual life insurance policies and 39 percent of people who don’t have life insurance believe they don’t have enough coverage.
Close to 40 percent of people wish their spouse or partner would buy more life insurance.
69 percent of people would feel the financial impact from losing their primary wage earner in two years or less.
24 percent of people who don’t have life insurance have insurance for their mobile devices.