“Clients are aggressively looking online to get quotes for life insurance,” he said, noting that in Covr’s email insurance marketing, monthly consumer open rates increased from 11% before the pandemic to 31% in June. “Consumer interest is at an all-time high.”
Part of the problem, according to Kalen, is that “one-third of financial advisors” either don’t believe in insurance as a financial planning solution,, or prefer to refer their clients’ insurance needs out to someone else. Nevertheless, he said that the amount of insurance sold by people who identify as an advisor has increased by 50% over the past decade, while sales in all other channels – including career agents and independent life agents – are down by 10%.
“There’s a pretty steady shift of insurance advice coming from advisors versus those who would traditionally say that they’re insurance agents, and we think that’s a positive trend,” he said.
Covr currently integrates with financial planning platforms like MoneyGuidePro due to Kalen’s belief that insurance is best offered within the context of a greater financial plan. The platform is currently used by Morgan Stanley, Cetera and Navy Federal Credit Union, among others, to offer clients life insurance from providers like Prudential, Nationwide, Lincoln and Allianz, among others.
“We exclusively work with people who identify themselves as financial advisors first and insurance producers second,’ said Kalen. “Our passion is to simplify insurance so financial advisors have more confidence to bring those products to their customers. There are real trends that show that those that identify as advisors are embracing life insurance, long-term care and disability income insurance as part of their process with their clients, and that those advisors are more productive and manage more assets than advisors who don’t.”