How divorce can help insurance sales

Did you know that divorced women often are given a court order to put life insurance in place for a stipulated period of time with their ex-spouses as the irrevocable beneficiary?

As mentioned in a past column, 30% of women are out-earning their husbands. Logically these are the women and moms who would be facing life insurance mandated court orders that guarantee the replacement of the higher earning wife’s income in the event of premature death.

With the courts placing such a high value on life insurance and with women known to have a higher value for life insurance than men, what other life insurance, critical illness, disability and long term care insurance solutions might they appreciate you showing them?

They might well be open to buying individual life and critical illness insurance policies on their children and maybe they also want to buy life insurance on their ex- husbands. After all—the only thing the ex-husband has to do is sign the application and co-operate with the underwriting requirements…arguably not easily done in many situations. But you shouldn’t assume.

Remember too that if she is an entrepreneur, she may be very interested in collateral term insurance, or key person life, critical illness and disability insurance.

You should also keep the court’s high value on life insurance in mind before you automatically recommend Joint and First.

Helena Smeenk Pritchard has over 36 years of experience in the insurance industry and is the Principal of Helena Smeenk Pritchard & Associates, a leader in “Insurance Know-How” training. Helena publishes a weekly free ‘Did You Know’ newsletter on her site.