Over the years, you have likely come across various strategies to sell insurance. Out of all of those, most insurance agencies develop a set of strategies that they rely on daily. If you don’t already have storytelling on your list, now is time to add it.
Stories Work Because of Emotion
The reason that stories sell primarily comes down to emotion. Emotion influences everyone when they are making major purchases. This is especially true for insurance, as it is such an important decision. The influence of emotion is even greater for certain types of insurance, such as home insurance when the property holds memories.
While emotion is typically a driving factor behind most decisions, few people tell themselves that. Most of your clients use logic to support their emotional decisions. That being said, the bottom line is that emotion is crucial to their choice.
Simply put, stories let you play on that emotion. You can share a story of a client who was in a similar situation and explain how your insurance helped them. This method is even more effective if you can tell a personal story from your own experience.
If you don’t have any relevant stories from your own clients, consider those from other agents. Or you can create a story about how your insurance policy can change the client’s life.
For example, if you sell long-term care insurance, you can share a story of someone who was injured or developed a disease. You can explain that because of their long-term-care insurance, they could afford in-home assistance instead of forcing their family to find time to care for them.
People Remember Stories Better Than Figures
It is also worth noting that people tend to remember stories better than figures. One study found that only 5% of people remember statistics, compared to 63% who remember stories.
This makes it much more effective to use stories to convince potential clients to buy a certain policy. You can even use both storytelling and statistics to get the benefits of each.
For example, let’s say you sell car insurance. You could share a statistic about how many people are financially ruined after their car is totaled because they didn’t have enough coverage. Or you could share a story about someone you know who didn’t think they needed more than the minimum auto insurance required, but that person got in an accident, had a car totaled, and couldn’t afford a new one.
You could even contrast that with a story of someone else who had their car totaled and was able to have a new one covered thanks to their insurance.
Situations to Use Storytelling
You can use storytelling for various aspects of your insurance services.
Putting Costs in Perspective
For example, when talking about health insurance or long-term-care insurance with a farmer, you could put the cost in perspective by comparing it to the cost of farmland. This could convince someone that they couldn’t afford long-term care out-of-pocket and should get insurance for it.
Encouraging Auto Pay
Or when highlighting the importance of auto pay for policies, you can share the story of someone whose policy lapsed because they missed a single payment. You could follow this up with the financial consequences.
Applying Right Away
Another common scenario where storytelling can work wonders is when clients say they will apply for their insurance “soon.”
Stories for this situation would include times that clients needed the insurance before they got the chance to apply. For example, maybe they had put off home insurance, and there was a fire before it finished processing. Or maybe they wanted a health insurance plan but were diagnosed with a pre-existing condition right before they applied.
How to Find Stories to Use
When you are thinking about what stories to use when selling insurance, think about your clients. This is a perfect time to consider your target customers and the personas you created for them. What are their biggest worries? Find a story that highlights that.
Encourage Clients to Share Their Stories With You
One way to get stories is to encourage your clients to share their stories with you and your customers. You can do this by encouraging reviews and even testimonials.
This can be easier than you may realize, especially if you have an insurance agency management system like Jenesis that lets you run automated email campaigns.
Talk to Other Agents
While you are technically competing with other agents to get clients, they are another great source for stories. Most agents will be happy to share their clients’ real stories with you, as long as you return the favor.
Conclusion
By using storytelling in your insurance sales, you appeal to the emotions of your clients. Given the importance of emotions in decisions, this is a highly effective strategy. Look for stories that are relevant to your clients’ situations to get the best results.