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Researchers: Middle-age lifestyle factors foretell long-term care need

May 12 2006
Twenty years of data indicate there is a strong correlation between nursing home admission and the presence of certain unhealthy lifestyle-related factors in middle age.
Researchers at the Institute for Health at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, found that, by and large, the same factors that increase the risk of disease and early death also increase the risk of requiring nursing home care later in life. Most of these factors — including smoking, high blood pressure, physical inactivity, obesity and diabetes — are modifiable, according to researchers.

The risk linked to each lifestyle-related factor was higher for middle-aged people at the start of the study than for those who were elderly. For example, a middle-aged person (someone age 45 to 64 at the start of the study) with diabetes had three times the risk of admission to a nursing home over the next 20 years, the study found.

According to Investment News www.investmentnews.com:

Optimal benefit period for LTC insurance debated
Gary S. Mogel
April 25, 2005
NEW YORK - Long-term-care insurance with a two- or three-year benefit period often makes more financial sense than a lifetime benefit for most clients, according to several LTC-insurance experts.

Plugging gaps in insurance knowledge
Gary S. Mogel
April 3, 2006
NEW YORK - From empty nesters to young singles, one thing that adult Americans of all ages seem to have in common is an inability to incorporate insurance into their financial planning effectively.

That was among the key findings of a conference of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners here last Tuesday. The Kansas City, Mo.-based NAIC said that it has developed an insurance education program, Insure U, designed to fill in the knowledge gaps.

One of the biggest blind spots for the oldest group - the elderly and empty nesters - is their potential long-term-care needs. According to an NAIC survey, just 12% of people age 65 and older thought that they would need long-term care, despite statistics showing that about 60% in fact will need it.

LTC age 55 requirement is bunk, experts say
Gary S. Mogel
March 13, 2006
NEW YORK - Advisers who recommend long-term-care insurance only to clients age 55 or older are dropping the ball, according to experts in the coverage line.

Many boomers have bucks - but no adviser
Gary S. Mogel
March 20, 2006
NEW YORK - About half of affluent baby boomers don't have a financial adviser, and most who have an adviser don't have a written financial plan.

Canadian boomers are not aging gracefully - Generation hitting 60 is not as healthy as their parents
Heather Ennis
February 2006
Baby Boomers are in denial about their health, according to a new Heart and Stroke Foundation report.

In the past 10 years, obesity rates among Boomers have soared by nearly 60 per cent. More than half of them don't exercise and 20 per cent of them smoke. Despite intense research and education campaigns, Canadians between the ages of 45 and 59 are in worse shape today than they were in 1996.

"Baby Boomers, who should be the most educated, need to start getting off their seats," said Ottawa cardiologist Dr. Beth Abramson. "The numbers are staggering."

The report also shows Baby Boomers don't know how bad things are. More than half of them don't think their weight has any effect on their health and an overwhelming 80 per cent think they will live longer than their parents.

Canadians rank saving for retirement top priority
Carlise Peterson
January 23, 2006
CHICAGO - Canadians consider saving for retirement their most important financial priority, according to a recent survey from the Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto.

Website to offer support for advisers
Charles Paikert
January 9, 2006
NEW YORK - There's a new practice-management portal in town.
Industry veterans Kristofer R. Behn and David Drucker have launched Practicelifecycle.com, which offers financial planners and advisers a wide range of resources, information and contributions from well-known advisers.

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How MGAs Can Help Their Agents Sell More
By Wilma Anderson

Many sales organizations are accustomed to giving their agents sales training and providing agents with leads. This is good, but it’s only a start.

Over the years, the industry has developed an infrastructure to train agents how to sell life insurance and financial products. Most agents can adeptly conduct a sales interview and overcome typical client objections. But when it comes to selling LTCI, most agents are more or less on their own. Plus, the nature of selling LTCI is very different than with most traditional insurance products.
Agents who persistently fail to sell LTCI will become discouraged. Just as destructive to their morale is when they make a sale, but fail to get the case through underwriting because the agent didn’t know how to health-qualify the prospect.

Sales organizations need to be aware of agents’ ambiguous attitudes and conflicts. On one hand, agents want to sell LTCI because of its attractive commissions. But many don’t quite believe in the product and don’t know how to make the face-to-face sale. And while selling to the 60-plus crowd is challenging enough, it can be even more difficult to sell to younger people and explain all the new options in plain English.

You can’t expect agents to know how to sell LTCI without someone showing them how to avoid the most common client objections that can derail the sale. If you really want to build up your LTCI sales production, then you need to give agents the proper tools to do their job.

Training options
By Karen Henderson

“We learn.... 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, 50% of what we see and hear, 70% of what we say or write, 90% of what we teach.” — Edgar Dale’s Cone of Experience, as revised by Bruce Ryland.

How do we learn? What training works?

In order to answer these questions, it helps to know about our own individual learning style. One way to determine a learning style is to know whether we are left or right brained. The neocortex, the thinking brain, consists of two parts – the left and right hemispheres. We each have both, but generally one is dominant. It is always dominant unless you have worked to develop the other side of the brain. It will always be the one you revert to under stress.

The left-brain is analytical, linear and factual. It deals with words as words, and tends to see the trees, not the forest. Left-brain individuals communicate and learn best by using logic, words and numbers.
The right-brain is holistic, sees patterns and is metaphorical and intuitive. It tends to see the forest and not the trees. Right-brained people tend to pay attention to the tone of the voice, the nuances and the nonverbal expressions rather than the actual words being spoken. They are creative and emotional.

Whether you are left or right-brained, the ideal method of client communication is whole brain communication, gained in part through an understanding of the concept of emotional intelligence. According to http://empowerful.com/eq.htm “in the business world, we've relied solely on the rational mind - measured in IQ - for its analytical and reasoning power. While the rational mind is important for business success, research shows that emotional, social and communication skills are what truly help individuals perform. It's EQ - the emotional equivalent to IQ - that enables us to recognize and move toward opportunity and meet life's challenges. Emotional intelligence is whole-brain thinking that determines if we make lemonade when life hands us lemons. It determines whether we live from our life's passion or just pass the time away. And, it determines whether we work in harmony and collaboration or in discord and isolation.”

Along with the above each of us also has a preferred learning methodology. Research indicates that: 35% of people are mainly visual learners, 25% mainly auditory, and 40% mainly kinesthetic.

Visual learners process information through what they see. They think in pictures and have rich imaginations.

Auditory learners process information through what they hear. To them talking is a learning function. They enjoy listening, but also like to talk things through.

Kinesthetic learners process information by experiencing, doing and touching. They try things out, touch, feel and manipulate. They express their feelings physically. They like to move around and gesture when speaking, and may be poor listeners. They learn by role-playing.

Others prefer self-paced learning on demand.

Once you know how you learn best, you can choose the method that suits you:

• Seminar with visual support
• Individual coaching/role playing
• Distance learning/independent study

Remember that your clients too have their own styles for learning and absorbing information. According to the Health Insurance Association of America:

• 31 percent of LTCI buyers said they bought for logical reasons
• 69 percent said they bought for emotional reasons

This indicates that the purchase of a living benefit product is primarily an emotional experience/buy; the more successful sales approach uses stories and relationships – right brain – more than statistics and logic – left-brain.