Reprinted from BROKER WORLD. March 2009. www.brokerworldmag.com
Used with permission from Insurance Publications. Subscriptions $6/yr. 1-800-762-3387

Tomatoes

For more than 40 years I have grown tomatoes. I start them from seed in my greenhouse, transplant to larger individual containers and acclimate them to colder night temperature before setting them out in the late spring after the soil warms up.

Are you wondering how I’m going to turn this into a long term care insurance conversation? The primary importance of a tomato is taste—and not just taste while fresh. That homegrown taste must be preserved for later use, after the weather has turned—providing an opportunity to revisit that which is truly special about growing your own tomatoes.

I am simply not interested in tomatoes grown commercially, controlled by rigid chemical calculations, isolating and insulating them from any variables outside the lines of nature’s random occurrences. While I am happy to discuss growing techniques, I will not suffer any direct mandates on the care and feeding of my tomatoes. You cannot make me grow tomatoes or tell me how you want it done. The normal Texas response to this approach will by necessity involve you and the tomato you rode in on.

I’ve been a fervent advocate of reducing long term care insurance planning conversations to a simple and straightforward evaluation of the dimensions of the risk and the application of an appropriate and sustainable quantity of money. However, issues of human dimension control the sale: choice, dependency and legacy.

Our core responsibility — to protect the assets and income of our clients — has helped refocus long term care insurance sales conversations from benefits to risk. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to the sale is the fact that Medicaid pays the majority of all costs for the elderly in America.

Yes, there is a great abundance of tomatoes at the grocery store. It was never about the availability of tomatoes; we can go to bed at night confident they are waiting for us neatly stacked and arranged for mass distribution. However, everyone knows they are not the tomatoes we want. The ones we want are homegrown, slightly blemished by contact with the real world and marvelously flavorful. They embody the definition of human care and cultivation. They are a reflection of our love and are in no way a product of any institutionalized environment.

Communicating the meaning of freedom of choice is not always easy. Explaining the concept of institutionalized custodial care is usually only accomplished with those who have firsthand knowledge. However, the ability to communicate the meaning of not owning long term care insurance is what defines sales success.

Recently I’ve been asked if I’m worried about sales as our economy falls back to regroup. I’m also asked if I’m worried about what may now happen in Washington.

Let me say this: You will have to pry my right to grow tomatoes from my dead tomato-juice-stained hand because I’m absolutely certain the government will never, ever grow tomatoes that any sane American would choose over homegrown.

RONALD R. HAGELMAN, JR. CLTC, CSA, LTCP, has been a teacher, cattle rancher, agent, brokerage general agent, corporate consultant and home office executive. As a consultant he has created numerous individual and group insurance products.

A nationally recognized motivational speaker, Hagelman has served on the LIMRA and Society of Actuaries LTCI committees and is past president of the American Association for Long Term Care Insurance, as well as a master trainer for the LTCP professional designation.

He is president of Republic Marketing Group and a principal in the agent sales training company Hagelman-Barrie Sales Training Solutions.

Hagelman can be reached at Hagelman Consulting, PO Box 310707, New Braunfels, TX 78131. Telephone: 888-620-4066. Email: ronjr@satx.rr.com. Website: www.rmgltci.com.