Insurance agents in Singapore are known for some highly aggressive sales tactics. Frankly, they have to employ those tactics as the insurance market in Singapore is extremely competitive and selling insurance plans in Singapore to smart Singaporean consumers is almost impossible otherwise.
Whether you are an insurance agent in Singapore or looking to buy an insurance plan in Singapore, following are 5 tactics that so many agents successfully use and make sales. Knowing this can help either ways. If you are an insurance agent, you can see what’s working and can also think of some out of the box ideas other than these tactics. If you are a consumer instead, you’ll get to know how you are being sold. I’m not telling that these tactics are wrong or unethical. In fact, because most people buy from these tactics, these are the most important and workable things that you should know and find out if your insurance agent can answer these questions or not.
Many insurance agents open the conversation by asking commitment questions that are obvious to answer, hard to refuse and easy to be trapped in. They will begin with questions like “Do you care about your family?” or “Do you feel it’s important to save?” This is a psychological tactic that has a powerful coercive effect. If you say you do care about your family, or that you agree it’s important to save, you will want to be consistent with what you say. This makes it harder to object when you are asked to, say, secure your family’s future by buying the policy.
It’s in fact important that you must know the significance of securing your family. Insurance is no doubt one of the best gifts you can give to your family and whether or not the policy will help you securing your family is a very critical consideration to make while you are in the process of deciding which insurance plan in Singapore you’d like to go for. However, you must also ensure that as a consumer, you’re not getting trapped in the commitment questions. Remember that you are in a business conversation. You’re not talking to a friend, or trying to Impress an acquaintance. You don’t need to justify your Refusal to buy, regardless of whatever questions you may have answered Earlier. If you feel pressured (and this tactic will usually make you feel pressured), just say you don’t like being cornered and walk away.
Who won’t like higher return on their money. One of the things that your insurance agent in Singapore will almost necessarily tell you is that the plan he’s selling has higher returns. In fact, Insurance policies tend to show returns of about 3% to 5% (for endowment) or 7% to 9% (For investment linked policies). The agent will explain that this is much higher than a bank’s fixed deposits, and that you will need a higher return to cope with inflation.
The argument happens to be true for that matter and is also the reason why financial planning is so important for all of us. What your insurance agent isn’t telling is that these returns are not guaranteed. And even if the returns achieved what the benefit illustration shows, you are getting a lot lesser than what the portfolio return shows, especially if a policy has high distribution costs and commissions. For example, the investment portfolio may return 5% per annum but you will only be getting 3% per annum, once you factor in all these other costs. The key is to compare between various plans and policies and take an informed decision. Make sure to take advice from a genuine financial adviser/ insurance consultant and that you don’t focus only on returns but also the cost that you’re going to spend.
Many times, your insurance agent in Singapore will ask you “How much money would you need after retirement”? This is an interesting question and actually very important to answer, specially for people who do not expect any pension after they get retired from their job. Financial security after retirement is extremely vital and you must take appropriate details about the same from your insurance agent. Any insurance agent can work this out to be a ridiculous sum. With the power of speculative maths, what you need per month looking at your lifestyle can go in interesting numbers, sometimes as much as 200 millions. What you need to do is to make sure that you’re going for an insurance plan that matches with your financial goals after retirement. Be mindful about what you would need and so that you don’t get trapped in speculative mathematics.
Sometimes, insurance agents use the tactic of creating urgency telling the things such as: This is a special offer only for the next 5 days and the premium is increasing after that You will receive a special gift/extra something if you buy it right now under the festival special offer You’ll get freebies/vouchers if you buy it under the special offers Special offers are possible and companies do bring out them time-to-time. However, some insurance agents in Singapore create false offers to make sales. If you are told that there’s such an offer, verify with company website or official sources if such an offer actually exists to ensure that you’re not burned out. Even if they do officially exist, don’t let special offers rush you into buying. Remember that if the policy is wrong for you, you could be losing thousands of dollars (hopefully not hundreds of thousands) over the years. Small discounts on the premium, or a free coffee maker, will never be worth that loss.
These are really important to understand. Many insurance agents in Singapore would insist the best that they can and somehow get you to sign some form. Sometimes, they will also tell that you can sign it today and cancel later (under the specified period). Once you have signed, they will either tell later that there’s a cancellation fee of some sort or some agents will send a thank you letter explaining how wonderful was the conversation and how did you make their day by agreeing to buy. Basically, they’ll make you uncomfortable saying that you’re backing out from your promise/agreement, which is a psychological trigger many people feel not to break and end up continuing with the policy instead.
As you read through the tactics above, you know that so many insurance agents in Singapore are willing to sell insurance plan in Singapore by hook or by crook. They will try to create fake offers, play emotional/psychological tricks and sell plans that you might not be needing. Its extremely important that you remain cautious not just about choosing the insurance policy that’s right for you but a right insurance agent who can make all the difference in impacting your decision.
Fortunately, not all the insurance agents are willing to dupe you anyhow. There are people who have a history of genuinely helping people from a long period and building long-lasting relationship with them by help them getting the plans that can really protect their future. We have a handful of such insurance agents in Singapore who are genuinely interested in helping you. More information visit this link: http://thefinancialleaf.com/5-most-successful-tacticsinsurance-agents-in-singapore-use-for-selling/