These days we, as agents, find it a challenge to sell critical illness plans to our potential clients. We might be confused with all the different illnesses the policy covers; there are over 36 to 60 different illnesses, and it is difficult to remember them all.

And because of this, we get confused about the terms of the policy and lose confidence in selling this plan to our clients. Furthermore, different definitions of the range of illnesses can add to the confusion and further complicate things.

Being diagnosed with an illness does not mean clients will get a successful claim if the definition is not met. Hence, if we, as agents, don’t understand the definitions, or if we are not able to communicate and explain these definitions to our clients beforehand, clients will not feel confident or interested in buying a critical illness plan.

Additionally, the critical illness plan is a very sensitive and difficult topic to get into. As most of these illnesses are in fact critical, we are getting into a topic whereby a person will no longer be in optimal health to live as before if they are diagnosed with these illnesses.

So, as agents, what methods can we incorporate in our presentation to ease into the critical illness topic with our clients?

To tackle the problems of the long list of illnesses and definitions as well as the difficulty of getting into the critical illness topic, I have created a tool — the “CI info cube” — to help agents tackle the critical illness conundrum. This CI info cube will help us tackle the problems in three ways:

First, the cube breaks down all 43 critical illnesses into different categories according to the body’s systems. As you can see, we have critical illnesses covered under the brain, the heart, the face and chronic diseases. [visual] We can easily refer to this cube and find out if the illness to be claimed falls under the critical illness policy.

Second, we can refer to this cube to get the basic definitions for the Top 5 critical illness claims. This will allow us to communicate the fulfilment of the illness’s criteria in the event of the illness, ensuring our clients achieve a successful claim on their policy.

As an example, if a heart attack were to happen to one of our clients, it is important for us to ensure that all three of the criteria of a heart attack are met, which include (1) typical chest pain, (2) ECG changes resulting from this occurrence and (3) elevation of the cardiac biomarkers from a blood test result. These should be communicated to the physician in order for our client’s claim to be successful.

Agents who have this tool and know these essential definitions will provide quality service to their clients. And, in turn, agents will have happy and satisfied clients.

Third, the cube will provide agents with my method of presentation to clients on the benefits of having a critical illnesses policy. I have always presented to potential clients the benefits of a critical illness policy by focusing on their financial accounts. I focus on a client’s financial accounts by breaking them down into three categories: (1) a savings account (income in, expenses out), (2) an investment account and (3) a guarantee account, for example, an education fund for children and retirement income. I will then demonstrate to the client how the claims from a critical illness policy will be able to play a drastic role in all three financial categories if an illness were to strike.

This is my method of presenting the benefits of having a critical illness plan to potential clients, and I have always found it effective. Hence, I have also included this method of presentation in this CI info cube to help agents share the benefits of the plan with their clients easily and efficiently.

In summary, we, as agents, play an essential role in introducing and sharing the benefits of the critical illness policy with our clients. Sharing a critical illness plan is easy as long as we can have a tool (such as the CI info cube) to remember the main illnesses and disease criteria included in the policy. This will give us the understanding and confidence to successfully sell critical illness plans to our clients.

Yeoh Tan Fung Jenny, RFP, combines a medical background as a nurse with knowledge as an experienced financial professional to educate her clients on the benefits of insurance coverage to ensure financial stability while servicing them with genuine care and empathy.