Episode 189: The Modern Life Insurance Policy with Vytas Skapcevicius and Samuel Howe

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromsol Foreign.

Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit podcast. We have a very special podcast today because I'm going to share something with you through these two incredible high achieving gentlemen that you can use in your agency starting today to improve your retention, to grow your business and better protect people. How does that sound to you? Let's find out more. I am privileged to have on the podcast today. Mr. Vita Scap Savage high performing agency principal and living benefits producer and Samuel how from the Alliance Group. And I've spent lots of time with these gentlemen talking all about living benefits. But I'm going to let them tell you who they are and why they are here today. Gentlemen, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you.

Thanks so much for having us, Mike. Really appreciate it.

You're welcome. I'm super excited. I mean we spent quality time together at your event. Your agency force is phenomenal and Vetus is a game changing agent within that environment. You were at our boot camp. People couldn't stop talking about the alliance and I thought we need to get these guys on and make sure we find out more and keep telling them the important things you guys are doing. So before we get started on that today, Vas tell for anybody who may not know you or needs to know a little bit more about you, who are you, where are you from and how do you fit into this puzzle?

Yes.

So hello Michael. My name is Vas Kapos. I'm the president of Goodwill Financial Independent insurance agency close to Chicago in Elmhurst, Illinois. I've been the owner of the agency for the last 20 years and doing PNC and also doing quite a bit of living benefits life insurance.

Yeah. And you do a great job with both. A very high performing agency. Great job. Samuel Howe.

Yeah. So thanks again for having us, Mike. Really appreciate it. I'm Samuel Howe. I'm the chief marketing officer here at Alliance Alliance Group. We are a living benefits IMO in the life insurance space. We're actually the living benefits IMO when it comes to living benefits life insurance. We absolutely love it at Alliance Group. It's what we specialize in and it's what we've been doing for well over two decades now. So I'm really excited to be able to talk to your. Your audience about it.

Yeah. And you guys do a great job. But for anybody who might be wondering, you just dropped an acronym. They don't know what it is. What is an imo?

So we're. We're an independent marketing organization. What we do is we partner with independent agents and agencies, and we provide them with all of the marketing and training and everything that they need to be able to go out and market the new kind of life insurance, living benefits to their clients, which is actually how we. We. We met Vitus. Vitus, as you mentioned, runs a very successful large PNC agency in the Chicago area, and he learned about living benefits from us. He did an absolutely unbelievable job of incorporating that into his PNC offerings, and his business has just gone like this. So we really wanted, you know, to be able to. To kind of bring. Be this on and help him talk to his fellow PNC agency owners about why Living Benefits life insurance was so great for him and his agency and see if he can help them do the same.

Yeah, absolutely. And I've heard so much about his incredible accolades so far with Living Benefits, and I've witnessed a lot of the results, and now it's spreading like wildfire throughout all of UPP because they also are shoulder to shoulder with Vitus and his team as well. So good job in that. Vitus. Vitus, when did you meet Samoa? How long have you been working with living benefits? And just talk briefly about some of the results that you've had once you learned how to deliver living benefits.

Yeah. So I met Samuel through Lee Duncan, who is CEO of the company, and I met him in one of the conferences I was fortunate to attend. And through Ali, I met Samuel. Yes.

Yeah. So how long has that relationship been going on?

Around five years, I would say.

So you've got about five years in the trenches providing living benefits to people out there on the marketplace, protecting them.

Absolutely right.

You know, I still find it to be true. You know, I was riding in an Uber when I was down at your event, and it put the seed in my mind, and. And I. I don't have any problem saying to people, hey, by the way, do you know what an independent insurance agent is? And by the way, do you know what living benefits are? And still the majority of the marketplace, they don't know what living benefits are.

They don't. It's. It's actually pretty incredible, Mike. I've I've actually been in Alliance Group for 10 years now. When I first started, we'd already been doing it for 10 years and I learned about living benefits as this best kept secret in the, in the life insurance industry that people just simply don't know about. It's, it's really incredible. Here we are 10 years later. I'm still able to refer to it as the new kind of life insurance you don't have to die to use. Because to 99.9% of the clients that you meet and the prospects you meet out there, they still don't know that this amazing product exists. And so that's, that's kind of what, what is really helpful in my job because we can still frame this, this product as something that's, that's brand new, something that's exciting, something that they didn't know about. And it really does help the sales process.

Well, bigger than that, Vitus and I'm sure you can attest to this, not only does it help in getting the living benefits delivered to a family or a person, it really changes their lives.

I mean, you guys have so many videos that prove with real people in real situations how lives have been changed.

Yeah.

And it's just awesome. I mean I lost both my parents to cancer many years ago and you know, I kind of wish that living benefits were around or known. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't known about back then so it could have helped them when they needed it be. How does it make you feel knowing that you're delivering something that make, can really make that kind of an impact.

You cannot describe, you know, the, the feeling, the, the, the, the, you know, the fantastic feeling. You know, I happened to the, I happened to help a few clients who received the living benefits claimed and the gratitude that they express is just amazing. So, you know, I have a goosebumps just right now remembering the moments when I was talking with these clients. It's really amazing, you know, the impact it makes on those families receiving that check when they need the money most.

You know, really helps.

That's what it's all about. Right. And now that's why you're on the mission that you're on, to introduce living benefits to more agencies around the country. So they too can make that kind of impact on people's lives. Samuel, do you have something to add on that?

Yeah, no. I mean it's, it's, it's really incredible that I, I was talking about how clients and prospects sometimes don't know that, that living, that living benefits exist that, that, that they exist as a product, even less know how they work. And what I also found is even life insurance agents who specialize in life insurance still we come across life insurance agents who aren't sure how living benefits work. And definitely with people who are in different areas, like PNC agents, might not know that living benefits exist. So if you, if you want, maybe we can kind of do a brief explainer to those who, in your audience who might not know how living benefits work. We can, we, we can kind of explain that really quickly if you like.

Yeah, wherever you guys want to go with this, let's definitely talk about that. And what I want to also talk about why living benefits are so important for everyone.

To own, particularly at this time. So let's take that away.

Yeah, so it's, you know, living benefits life insurance is basically, I'll, I'll kind of give your, your audience the, the quote unquote pitch here. Right. So it's a new kind of life insurance that clients don't have to die to use. So it's just like a regular life insurance policy that, that, that you would buy, just like the one your granddad bought. I buy a policy because I need a $500,000 policy so that if something happens to me, God forbid, and I'm not here anymore, I'm gone. My family gets that $500,000 and they can use it to continue on in my absence to replace that lost income. It's still very, very important coverage to have. We do not poo poo death benefit at Alliance Group. It's still, you know, the main function of any life insurance policy is to make sure the family is covered, God forbid, if a breadwinner passes away. However, we don't poo poo death benefit. But what we absolutely will say is that in the year 2022, 2023, whenever someone might be watching this, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to own an old fashioned life insurance policy that only pays out if they die. That should have gone the way of the dodo a long time ago.

Right.

We have these new living benefits policies now that come infused with these riders, these, these features that allow the insured to accelerate their death benefit and get money in their hands if they have a major health event. Cancer, heart attack, stroke, major organ transplant, blindness, paralysis, als. There's, you know, coma, there's a whole list of things that are covered that allow you to get money in your hands when you are going to desperately need that money the most. And that is really where my passion Our passion Alliance group for living benefits comes in because you can talk about the writers, you can talk about the futures, it's great. But you won't really understand the power of living benefits until you. Vetus was just describing his, you know, experience with his clients. It is incredible to be able to tell someone, hey, I just got you $425,000 deposited in your checking account. In your darkest moment, your scariest moment, your most vulnerable moment, there is this lifeline coming from your because you had a living benefits policy. Now, if you'd have had the old kind of life insurance, you didn't die. You had a heart attack, you have a major cancer diagnosis, you're going through a terrible time, but you didn't die. So your life insurance policy is not going to do anything for you. That is the difference of living benefits. It covers you for so much more than just death. And the effect on people who are able to get this money is incredible. It's. It truly is life changing. And the big thing is, I don't want to sound too much like a salesman here. These policies do not cost any significant amount more than the old kind of life insurance that would only pay out if you die. That is where the kind of no brainer of living benefits comes in. It really, truly is a no brainer. It's just a modern policy. It costs the same, but it covers you for so much more and protects you in so many more ways.

That's what I just wrote down. The modern life insurance policy, it's just.

A mod, but, you know, no one knows what the modern life insurance policy is because nobody wants to learn about what a life insurance policy does. These. I mean, you want to just know as little about life insurance as you can if you're a client. I just want to get it in place, get it done, and then forget that I have it. So, you know, even though these policies have been around for 20 years, there's still people out there that don't realize that they might have the wrong stuff and that there's, you know, they might be using a rotary phone when there's smartphones out there that cost the same.

Yeah, I've got a personal story about that, but I won't bring my wife into the picture right now.

Sense.

Appreciate that.

He just. Why, why should anybody that's watching this or listening to this podcast out there, why should they consider adding living benefits to their portfolio in their insurance agency? I mean, you just told the story about the impact that you've made for your clients. Why else I mean, what's it done in, in creating this rock solid agency business?

Well, first of all, I think this is the right thing to do. We are all in protection business, right? And so we have to protect our clients, right. To protect with living benefits, Right. And while we're doing that, it's going to help our business, right. We all want all these three plus policies in the household for retention purposes, right?

Yes.

So it's helping for retention, right? It's, you know, you know, equity of your company becomes better, you know, increases. Right. And you're making money, right. And you're doing the right thing. You know, that's the most important thing. To protect the client, educate and protect the client.

I, I, I think it's. Mike, you always talk about acre of diamonds, right? You know, I always, you know, usually I say, you know, I mean referred to candidly with PNC agencies, they're sitting on a gold mine when it comes to you. You've got clients who already love you, they trust you, they've bought from you, they, you, you need to be talking to them if, if you believe in living benefits, life insurance, which hopefully, you know, many of you are already do, and, and some of you hopefully will very soon. You, you know, you kind of owe it, as Vitus was saying, to protect them. So I usually thought you're sitting on a gold mine, but this is more like mining your acre of diamonds, right? You have people who trust you, who like you, who have already bought from you. This is a great opportunity to educate them. Just ask them the question, do you have life insurance already set up? And if the answer is no, then, well, you definitely need life insurance, right? Let's make sure that we get you the good kind. But even if the answer is yes, that's what I love about marketing living benefits. Life insurance is, you know, if you're marketing the old kind, it's like, oh, you already have it, never mind, I'll go ask somebody else. But with living benefits, it's like, oh, good, you already have life insurance. You see the value of that? Now we just need to make sure that you have the right kind of life insurance. And if you're already paying 50 bucks a month for your policy, it might not even cost you anything. We might just convert your old kind to the new kind of still cost you 50 bucks a month, didn't cost you everything, anything. But now you have these living benefits. So it's a really great conversation to have and it's such a great opportunity for people who, who already have you Know clients as PNC agency owners do.

Yeah. And I remember back in the days of the agency business when we were really pushing hard to get that life insurance policy. Didn't even know about living benefits. Back in the time, I won't date myself, we had big posters on the walls. The question was, what are you doing about your life insurance? And it would be right in front of the service representatives and the other agents so they would see it. So every time they were on the phone with somebody, oh, by the way, what do you do about life insurance? I would now change that. Here's something you can implement right now, starting today in your agency after you contact Vitus and get set up for living benefits.

Right.

What are you doing about your living benefits life insurance policy?

Boom.

At that point, just shut up.

Well, I've never heard of that. What are you talking about? Boom.

Right.

And then you can share the stories and everything else.

So as many times, it's just about asking the question. Right. But what we do at Alliance Group is we do have what we've done and my team have done on our end. We've created an entire marketing platform. We have videos, we have email campaigns, we have websites that you can incorporate. We have all sorts of way that you can easily just plug in the marketing tools that you need to, to have these conversations with, with more of your clients. And then, you know, Vitus really has, you know, he serves as, he's, he's kind of a facilitator. So we, you know, Vitus as a PNC agency owner who has experience in, you know, having a successful PNC agency and then successfully incorporating living benefits into those conversations and doing a great job of it. You know, it's really awesome for, for, for your viewers who are PNC agency owners to be able to talk to someone like Vitus who can say, look, I have been where you were, I, I can take you where I am now. Let me just get to know more about your agency. How do you want to do this? And I can kind of help facilitate this, this process for you. So you would have all, all the marketing tools you need to have that conversation are ready to go. You've got Vitus there to help. And, you know, it's, I, I, I think it's a fantastic opportunity.

It's a wonderful opportunity. And, and because he's had so much success in doing, a lot of people said, well, he's doing this, how do we learn more about that? And it's like I said, spread throughout not only our UP circles, but throughout industry circles as well. So, I mean, to just say it. He's been there, he's done that.

Yeah.

And he's still doing it. He's in the trenches every day. So, Vitus, how can you better serve people who want to learn more about living benefits and if they want to learn more and they want to get involved and learn what you know and continue to work with the alliance team? Because I will say this, I've observed it firsthand, what Samuel just said about their marketing arsenal. Phenomenal. There's none better. So that's kind of behind everything. But the first step is they should reach out to you and have a conversation to see if it's a good fit for them. Right, Vitas?

Exactly. Exactly. The first step would be just reaching out. Probably the best way would be email Vitas via V y t s@goodwillfinancial.com and I would like to find out about your agency. You know what, what is the mix? Is it commercial, personal clients? You know, do you sell life insurance?

Right.

Do you need help teaching you and guiding, mentoring your staff in writing? Or you need. Or do you want us to do it for you? We can do it even for you if you wanted it. So. So we need to start a conversation to.

To.

To. To see what will be the next steps for us.

Right, Right.

And there's no obligation, there's no money involved or anything like that. You just want to have a conversation to learn if you know it's a good fit for you. And if it is, you know, how can we serve you right in getting you started in your agency and where it makes sense if they take the next steps. Here comes the marketing arsenal and Samuel and his team from the Alliance Group behind that. And it's just phenomenal. I've watched it all evolved. Great, great stuff. So YouTube, you put together a big marketing campaign every year, right, Samuel? And Living Benefits Awareness Month. Tell us more about that. Give us some details.

Absolutely. Living Benefits Awareness Month. We absolutely love it. We started it here at Alliance Group. This is going to be our sixth year. Coming up in January, 2023. We're gearing up.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Right now's a good time.

It is it really?

Next month. Hint him.

Absolutely, absolutely. So Living Benefits Awareness Month is kind of our way of, you know, giving people who are. Who are doing living benefits. Of course, all year round, our. Our agents and our partners do a great job at marketing living benefits, but in January, they really have this special opportunity to get up on their. On their soapbox a little bit higher and kind of really scream from the mountains and the rooftops about, you know, just making people aware again that living benefits life insurance exists, that there's this modern, you know, life insurance policy that will do so much more than the life insurance that you likely have. So we on our team, we have a fantastic time. We come up with a different theme every year to kind of do this campaign. Last year it was retire your death insurance. And so we had. We created this whole campaign where it was like the actual character death, and he's floating in a pool and he's golfing and he's riding a motorcycle across the country. He's doing all these things in retirement.

I think I have one of his shirts.

I think you do. I think you do. This year, we're actually doing Go Fund yourself. And this is a slightly spicy little tagline, but it basically is encouraging. We're encouraging all Americans to not rely on GoFundMe as their safety net. If there is a gap, which as we all know, there is many times, if there's a major diagnosis or a major health event, there's a gap that's left behind by what health insurance actually covers. And then what happens too often is it turns into a GoFundMe campaign started by a friend or a family member. And as we know, the statistics are that only 12% of GoFundMe campaigns ever reach their funding goal. And actually a larger percentage, 16%, get $0. So GoFundMe, while we love GoFundMe, it's a great platform. It is absolutely should not be in your plan, in your emergency plan. Living benefits life insurance should be. So that's where Go Fund Yourself comes from. Don't rely on GoFundMe instead of go fund yourself with a living benefits life insurance policy that you have to put in place before something happens, because that's how it works. So Living Benefits Awareness month is something we have a lot of fun. We refer to as lbam. And it's. It's about to kick off here in a few weeks, and the team is busy at work creating all this awesome marketing material so that our agents can just grab the stuff that's made and distribute it out there via email, social media, text, carrier pigeon, however they want to market it.

L Bam.

L. Bam, baby.

I like that. That is fantastic. So let me just make sure I heard you correctly. You've already created all the marketing material. It's going to be ready to deliver to the people that might be needing to see it. The agents that work through you. So agent talks to Vitas, gets set up to deliver living benefits from their agency. Whether it's one of his people who can work with all your clients or you've already got people in the agency who do life insurance. He just helps them be supported in the right way, including all these incredible marketing materials and the expertise in living benefits so that they can help more people, protect more people and increase their income and better their retention.

That's exactly right, Mike. Exactly right.

Sounds pretty simple.

Yeah. As soon as you become a part of Alliance Group Family. Right. You get access to all these marketing materials. It's a marketing arsenal. It's, it's fantastic. It's world class marketing material. Yep. So the first step would be just contact me, Vitas V Y T a s@goodwillfinancial.com and let's start the conversation how we can protect more people with living benefits.

100.

Fantastic. So again, if conversation, if you want to have a conversation, reach out to Vitas via his email and he can let you know everything. Samuel, if somebody wanted to see something because, you know, just view some videos or some more information or just a quick take on what you do have available out there, how can they find out more about the marketing and that might lead them to want to have that conversation? You guys have some stuff out there right where they can find it?

Yeah, we have stuff in several places. But I think the easiest place for one of your viewers to kind of get a good, you know, a good taste of what we do at Alliance Group will be to head to our website, which is alliance group life.com alliance group life.com is where they'll be able to, you know, feel us out a little bit, read a little bit about our history and also get a really good taste of our marketing prowess and kind of what we're able to do from a marketing and training perspective. Because I know we've been talking a lot about the marketing. The other half of what we do to Alliance Group is we do, we have a fantastic training platform and program where people can just plug into webinars, plug into live trainings and learn more about these products. Because we are, we are very much of the opinion that, you know, an agent who is well educated and who has a very firm grasp of what it is they're marketing is going to be a more successful agent.

Motivations like bathing, it's recommended daily.

Absolutely.

Training is like bathing. It's recommended daily. Borrowed that from the late grade Zig Ziglar. I've witnessed it Your training is top notch as well. You know, Vitus is one of your highest performing agents. Again. He's been there, done that, and is still doing it and now wants to pass what he's learned onto other people so they can experience the same thing. And Samuel and his team has their back in the biggest way and they help train on it. It's a, it's really a no brainer without question. So I, I know. I think Lee just called me and said it's time to get back to helping more agents. As we begin to wrap up today, gentlemen, do you have any last thoughts to anybody that might be watching or listening to this podcast? V. I'll let you go first.

I think it's a great time. It's a great time to take action, decision, action and hit it off in new year with lbam. You know, start the new year with a bam. With living benefits, protection for our clients.

Yeah. And a lot of people are putting together their plans for the coming year and they might be thinking, how can I generate some additional income, how can I increase my retention, how can I this, how can I that? And here you guys are. Samuel, what else?

I would just say, you know, it's, it's been, it's been amazing to see. You know, I had the pleasure and the privilege of coming to speak at the, at the UP Boot Camp in San Diego a couple of months back. And the, the response from the PNC agency that agency owners that were at that event has been unbelievable. They. They really were able to kind of see the value of, of living benefits. And the response has been overwhelming. So I wanted to thank those people and, you know, to anyone who hasn't, who hasn't learned about living benefits yet and wants to take a closer look, we would be really happy to show you how you can incorporate this and, and do it really successfully. Which is not only, as Vita said, it's not only going to help your business, which it absolutely will, it is most importantly, going to help your clients. A client with living benefits life insurance is a much better protected client than one without.

Yeah, 100% agree. And Vitas, you have a purpose in your agency or a reason for doing what you do. And it's just like three to five words. Remember what it is.

Your core Protect today, prepare for tomorrow.

Yeah. Repeat that one more time. I love that.

I have it here on the wall.

Perfect.

Tomorrow, protect today, prepare for tomorrow, protect.

Today and prepare for tomorrow. So you got to take action to make a decision to protect today, to prepare for tomorrow, and we just don't know what's going to be coming at us. So these guys have designed and helped create the modern life insurance policy. It is absolutely immediately available as a deliverable in today's insurance marketplace. If you're an independent insurance agent out there or any insurance agent, period. Who wants to know more? Get a hold of Vitas. It's V Y t a s@goodwillfinancial.com. start a conversation, learn more, no obligation. He'll just share with you and verify if it's a good fit or not. So, guys, thank you for putting it all on the table. Thanks for creating L Bam Samuel. I am super pumped and excited. There's your opportunity. They can get this started in your agency right away by just having a conversation. So beat this, Cat Savage. Samuel Howell. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, guys.

Thank you so much, Mike. Thank you.

Give my apologies to Lee for keeping you over a little bit. Lee Duncan, who's the CEO at Alliance Group, but a great guy, believe me. So you say it again?

I said he loves it. He loves me working. Lee.

I know, I know. I'm just joking. Well, happy holidays, guys. Thanks again and we will see you on the next podcast or whenever we meet next.

All right, thanks, Mike. Appreciate you.

All right, guys, appreciate you.

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