Succession planning is a buzzword in every industry. Eighty percent of businesses die when they are young as no succession is planned or available. Life insurance is a business where succession is needed both for you as a service provider and for your clients. If your life is cut short, who will take care of your clients? And what about your young clients? How can you convince them that you will provide services to them when they are in need?

Because of that, once you get the business started, you should cultivate the need of succession planning with your family.

Objective 1: Succession planning

For every business, succession planning is needed, especially for businesses like life insurance, as you need to provide services for clients when they need it. Questions come up, such as “What if you are not there? Who will provide services to them?” You sell life insurance by asking clients the question “What if you die?” This same philosophy applies to you as well.

Yes, your family ― because no one else is better than family when it comes to the life insurance business. This helps in two ways: First, you get a trusted hand who can take care of your clients in addition to whenever you are absent. Second, this helps your succession as well because the infrastructure created by you is readily available to them. Your experience and your goodwill are their backbone. They need not struggle while they start in the business the way you struggled during your initial days. Otherwise, in today’s age of competition, it’s very difficult for them to start and settle in the business.

At one time, when working, whether a government job or a private-sector one, there was a marked difference between having a job and running a business. But, nowadays, the situation has changed. You have to put an equal effort into the job as well as into the business. You need to work more than just normal business hours, even on the weekends. What is the difference between the job and the business? It’s better that you offer your business to your children as a legacy and let them enjoy your goodwill and the infrastructure you have developed. If you’re still not convinced, think back 25 to 30 years and remember how you struggled while starting your business. Today, you may be successful in your business, but it took many years to reach where you are.

Most of my advisor friends are spending a lot of money so that their children can study in fields like engineering, medicine, architecture and so on. I haven’t found any insurance advisors spending money for their children to study higher education in the insurance field. Is this because of a lack of confidence in their own field where they earn lakhs and crores, or do they find this field uncompetitive for their children?

Objective 2: Life insurance

It’s a family business. You know how it is. You will need to cultivate this idea for long time. Your gestures, your attachment with family and your transparency will help the next generation be a part of your business. Generally, parents always think, My children are not as serious as I am in the business, and children think, My parents are orthodox, and I will not have freedom if I work with my parents. Insurance agents from other countries think this as well. Their situation is not different.

My opinion is that the next generation is always smarter that you, and they have better ideas about doing business. They had better schooling than you, and knowledge and information that you did not have is available at their fingertips. They have been watching you and your business since their childhood, so they know much more about your business than anyone else. If you hire a person from outside, it will take a lot of time to train that person. You will always have another fear too: this person could leave the job anytime. Then you would have to look for another person. The cycle continues.

Objective 3: Growth in business

When you approach your clients with your child along as a partner, you will find more appreciation and acceptance from your clients. The rate of conversion will drastically increase. This increases the trust of your customers for sure, and you will see a good amount of growth in the business. You will get many new ideas from your children on how to grow your business. You may not have applied new techniques in the business, but your next generation will definitely help you to adapt.

Your Facebook page and your website can be easily handled by your children, with the help of your social media partner or without.

Family means enjoying the fruits of being together in the business, too.

Pradip Genbhau Nalawade, CFP, MBA, is a 15-year MDRT member with two Court of the Table qualifications and one Top of the Table honor from Pune, India. An expert in business insurance and personal insurance portfolio management, he serves more than 2,500 client families.