This post is part of our series for advisors to pass to their clients. Knowing more about your clients' needs will help you to better serve them. Aging doesn’t have to be scary, and we here at Ashar want to help you provide the resources that policy sellers need to flourish in this chapter of their life.
Just like you wouldn’t take a road trip without checking a map, you can’t expect to reach your financial goals without creating a budget. Retirement is one of these goals—congratulations on making it! Still, as Americans live longer than ever, many seniors fear outliving their assets.
Create a budget for retirement and stick to it. Assess your assets and debts, and do your best to take out no additional loans. The best way to make your money last is to be realistic about your retirement fund and what kind of lifestyle you can afford. And while many hear the word “budget” and think bread-and-water type of austerity, there are plenty of ways to live it up during retirement on a budget. (more…)
HBO’s “Game of Thrones” continues to rise in popularity. The show is based off George R.R. Martin’s best-selling fantasy book series ad just wrapped its fifth season finale, which drew the show’s largest audience ever — about 8.11 million viewers.
This show is especially popular with the 18-49 year old segment—many of whom are financial planners whose clients would benefit from knowing that they could sell their life insurance policies on the secondary market. Despite the show’s obvious dramatization, we think that in some ways, it has some surprising similarities to the secondary life settlement industry. (more…)
This post is the second in our series of continuing education resources for advisors. The life settlement industry is complex and we here at Ashar want to make it easy for you and your client to navigate this complicated field.
Many of your clients are in their 50s and 60s are starting to retire or are preparing to. However, the state of the economy has many seniors scrambling for liquid assets—particularly those needing to fund their healthcare costs, having difficulty making their life insurance payments, or those who have exhausted their savings.
Most of these seniors are members of the Baby Boomer generation, meaning they were born between 1946 and 1964. They may be prime candidates in the near future for selling their life insurance policies on the secondary market for cash, particularly as the aging of this large generation puts a strain on social welfare systems.
There are three major characteristics that set the Baby Boomers apart from generations that have come before and after. Keeping these traits in mind will help you understand how to best communicate with and win the trust of a Baby Boomer hoping to sell his or her life insurance policy.
When it comes to the life settlement industry, we at the Ashar Group are known not only as influencers but as thought leaders. Still, we've found that no matter whether you're just starting out in the industry or are a seasoned professional, there's no harm in picking up a book during your time off.
Top performers in many industries are avid readers, and it's no surprise why: choosing to seek self-improvement communicates a certain level of commitment to the job at hand, and there are so many skills to improve upon. Below, you'll find a list of six books that we recommend for learning how to better communicate with clients, hone your negotiation techniques, and refine your leadership skills.
At Ashar Group, we take our clients’ health and happiness very seriously. It comes naturally to us and is built into the very DNA of our company. Underlying each of our company’s actions is a strong foundation of ethical conduct, much of which is based on the morals we learned at the dinner table as children. In fact, as you may know, the word Ashar is a biblical term that means “Do what is right and you will be blessed.”
Our five core values drive us to success with goodness:
Life can be complicated. With all the new kinds of technology, entertainment and demands of this decade, it can be easy to forget things every once in a while, whether it’s the afternoon dentist appointment or the pasta you’ve accidentally left on the stove. However, when it comes to your life insurance, forgetting to make your premium payments can be disastrous.
In the secondary market, term life insurance can have significant cash value. That’s because there are life settlement brokers like The Ashar Group who can appraise, negotiate and monetize a term life insurance policy by taking into account various age, health, policy values, premium obligations and other factors.Here’s an example:
-A 72-year-old female had a $500K 20-year term insurance policy that was ready to expire
- Insurance carrier value to the insured if lapsed was ZERO
- She sold her policy on secondary market through The Ashar Group with the help of her advisor and received a lump sum life settlement value of $65K
With more scrutiny on advisors and their fiduciary responsibilities regarding life settlements, there are a few things you can provide to a client when they come to you with questions about their policy options. These five tips will help you to find your client maximum profit during the life settlement process. (more…)
As seniors are living longer, many in their family are experiencing the anxiety of a parent outliving their retirement income. Healthcare costs, taxes and other unplanned expenses do cut into retirement income significantly, and a life settlement can bring in much needed income and is a welcome resource in many situations. However, there are other strategies to also keep in mind to help ensure retirement savings will be there when you need it. (more…)
“We recognize elder financial abuse as a major problem that is expected to grow dramatically with the aging of our population, and we see a constructive role that the Commission can play in protecting elderly investors.” These words came from a recent speech by Rick A. Fleming, the first investor advocate to be appointed to the new Office of the Investor Advocate.
And according to the National Center on Elder Abuse, by projecting out to the year 2050, people aged 65 and older are expected to comprise 20 percent of the total U.S. population: That’s one in five Americans. Furthermore, the fastest growing segment of America’s population consists of those 85 and older. In 2010, these older Americans numbered 5.8 million people. (more…)
