What is a final expense FMO (field marketing organization)? In the simplest terms, a FMO is an organization that provides insurance agents and agencies with marketing and administrative assistance. Basically, a FMO makes your job easier.
Final Expense FMOs can offer benefits like sales training, customized CRMs, quoting tools, and marketing materials. The right FMO can help you grow your business and offer you support along the way.
Selling Final Expense Insurance
Final expense insurance, or burial insurance, is an insurance policy that helps beneficiaries with funeral costs. Selling final expense insurance can be a lucrative business, especially if you partner with the right FMO.
The Difference Between Life Insurance and Final Expense Insurance
Both final expense insurance and life insurance policies can pay out if the beneficiary dies. How much and when depends on the individual policy. It’s your job as an agent to educate your clients about what type of insurance they need to cover expenses after they pass away.
Final expense insurance can only be used for funeral, burial, and/or final medical bills.
Life insurance can help loved ones pay other expenses, such as the client’s outstanding debts like mortgages but it might not cover funeral expenses. These policies can cover a certain time frame (term life insurance) or they may cover the beneficiary until he or she passes away.
Your clients may need final expense insurance even if they already have life insurance, because some life insurance policies may not cover funeral expenses.
How to Sell Final Expense Insurance With a FMO
In order to sell final expense insurance, you must first be licensed in your state. You’ll have to pass life insurance certification and training. Each state has different requirements. You might have to attend classes, or you may be allowed to study at your own pace. After you successfully complete training, you’ll take the state exam.
Pro tip: If your FMO doesn’t offer Errors and Omissions (E & O) insurance as part of your contract, you must buy it. E & O insurance is a liability policy that protects you if you make a mistake when you sell a policy.
The most successful insurance agents have a portfolio with many insurance products to sell. If you plan to sell final expense insurance, you should also sell life insurance policies and Medicare health insurance plans, because many Medicare beneficiaries will also want those ancillary products.
Final Expense & Medicare Compliance
A note about cross-selling with Medicare plans: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) prohibits agents from selling anything the client doesn’t agree to talk about. You’ll have to fill out a Scope of Appointment (SOA) form before you meet with Medicare clients. The form will outline what you are permitted to discuss and sell.
You most likely will not be able to sell a Medicare Advantage plan and a Final Expense plan in the same appointment.
If your client wants to talk about something that’s not on the original SOA, the best practice is to set a new appointment for those products.
How to Find the Best Final Expense FMO
The best final expense FMO is the one that offers the best support. Your FMO should care about you and your clients. The right FMO will help you generate leads, so you can focus on selling, rather than spending your time and money on getting the word out about your services.
The right FMO will contract with a variety of carriers so you can give your clients unbiased options. You don’t want to go into a meeting with only one or two plan options and pray that your clients choose one. You want to offer your client the best coverage for their budget and lifestyle needs.
The best FMO will care about you, the agent. You don’t want a FMO that only cares about its own bottom line. That means offering top tier commissions, sales and marketing support, and the tools you need to run your business. Those tools may include free CRM access to organize sales relationships, extensive sales training, or even discounted mailers.
What should a FMO do for you?
First, your FMO should provide excellent communication. That could mean sales training and lead generation services. You should feel like you have a partner every step of the way, rather than a company who just sends you on your way.
If you have a problem, your FMO should help you solve it. You don’t want to feel like you’re in the insurance sales business alone.
Why You Should Choose Senior Market Advisors
Senior Market Advisors (SMA) knows what agents need. Why? An insurance agent started our FMO. Jeff Pitta, our CEO, knows what sales success and failure is like. He knows that insurance sales is a numbers game and what it’s like to hear “no” during seemingly countless meetings.
That means he knows what tools you need go close sales, and that the team at SMA knows how to help you. One valuable tool is SMA’s financial backing. For your first year, we can completely reinvest your marketing costs in more marketing for you. We don’t just leave you on your own after that, either. The rest of the time you contract with us, we can split your marketing costs — everything from business cards to lead-generating direct mail pieces.
Because we know what you need as a licensed insurance agent, we offer tools such as free CRM (customer relationship management software) access, transparent quoting tools, convenient digital contracting, and effective marketing services.
Free CRM Access
Our CRM uses the latest technology to make your life as an agent easier. You won’t be able to manage every sales relationship in your head, and spreadsheets leave a lot to be desired.
Senior Market Advisors’ CRM will allow you to track every lead, no matter where the prospect is in the sales funnel. Our software offers a note-taking feature, so you can remember important details when you meet with your clients. That will help you build rapport with your clients quickly. Why? People like it when you care.
The CRM will also remind you when to follow up with clients, which is extremely valuable in the competitive insurance sales market. If your clients don’t remember you, they will buy from your competitors.
Valuable Quoting Tools
Senior Market Advisors offers agents quoting tools so you can tell your clients exactly how much they’ll pay and what they’ll get.
For example, let’s say your client wants $10 thousand in final expense coverage, but he or she can only afford $12 a month. Our quoting tool allows you to sort plans by monthly premium, coverage amount, and other criteria so you can show your clients what’s available. That’s valuable because you can weigh the pros and cons of each plan while you meet face-to-face. You can work with your clients to make the best decision.
eContracting for Your Convenience
Rather than manually contracting with insurance carriers one by one, our eContracting system enables you to partner with many carriers at once.
That gives you a competitive advantage. If you go into meetings with several options for your clients, you can help them select products that fit their needs. It’s hard for a client to say “no” if you can offer a final expense policy that’s within their budget and benefits their family.
Effective Sales and Marketing Support
Our sales and marketing team is experienced and knows how to reach your audience. Our mission is to make your job easier. We focus on generating leads so you can focus on selling.
We use direct mail, social media advertising, website traffic, and more to generate leads. Since we do all of this in-house (even direct mail printing), we’re able to cut down on a lot of costs.
Make Senior Market Advisors Your Final Expense Insurance FMO Partner
At Senior Market Advisors, we give our agents the tools they need to succeed as health and life insurance agents.
When you partner with us, you get access to plans from carriers such as Aetna, American Amicable, Foresters, Gerber Life, Mutual of Omaha, TransAmerica, and more.
Along with our experienced marketing team, free CRM access, and convenient eContracting, we also offer top tier commissions and sales training.
Ready to start? Call 1-844-452-5020 or eContract with us now.
