Podcast Center
Video Center
Webcasts
Resource Center
Events
October 16, 2012 at 11:11 AM
It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But, of course, you know that already, assuming you’ve purchased groceries, flipped on the TV or walked down a cosmetics aisle at any point in the last two weeks.
Every October, there seem to be more pink ribbons, more pink-clad 5K run-walkers, more pink-themed yogurts and lipsticks and sweatpants promising to give a percentage of their proceeds to the cause. Breast cancer may be a terrible disease, but it has phenomenal marketing skills.
I can’t help but compare BCAM with last month’s Life Insurance Awareness Month. You, of course, knew it was Life Insurance Awareness Month. (I hope.) But did you know any non-life insurance producers who knew it was?
Maybe it’s an unfair comparison. After all, LIAM is mostly geared toward informing agents, who are expected to then inform consumers. And besides, breast cancer is an unasked-for condition that has affected millions, and life insurance is merely a product. It would be ridiculous to walk a 5K for iPhones or to buy a t-shirt in support of … t-shirts. Same goes for life insurance, right?
Well … maybe. Life insurance lives in a weird space somewhere between cause and product. (A pause? A croduct?) On one hand, it has improved the lives of bereaved families for centuries. For many, it can mean the difference between a comfortable existence and an impoverished one. And study after study showing the growing life insurance coverage gap proves we’re not getting that message out to people often or widely enough. On the other hand, life insurance is something that has to be shopped for and purchased. Agents earn a commission from its sale, and insurance companies are far from nonprofits.
That leaves our industry in an awkward position when it comes to raising awareness. If we promote life insurance awareness as a cause, are we educating people for their own benefit? Or are we trying to sell more policies for ours?
It seems the best workaround to this hybrid dilemma has been a hybrid approach, at least at the agent level. I’ve spoken with many successful producers who sponsor genuine causes in their hometowns — golf fundraisers, charity races — and then use the opportunity to (non-aggressively) boost education about life insurance needs, too.
