As an advisor, you know it’s vitally important to talk with clients about longevity. We do it every day. Yet, these conversations often fall flat with clients, and let’s face it, those dime-a-dozen longevity calculators don’t help. If you want to get to “Yes” with more clients—yes to both financial and healthcare planning—you need to take a more personalized approach.

Personalizing longevity conversations is something our recent Breakthrough Advisor podcast guest Heather Holmes knows a lot about. Holmes is the founder and CEO of the technology firm Genivity, which has revolutionized longevity planning with HALO, the company’s Health Analysis and Longevity Optimizer.

Clients don’t care about actuarial tables and averages, they care about “ME!”

If you’re like most advisors, your experience with clients and traditional longevity calculators probably goes something like this: They rarely prompt more than a yawn. That’s because most longevity tools and assessments simply benchmark against an actuarial table, which is nothing more than a population-based average. They don’t speak to a client’s unique circumstances.

According to Holmes, family health history is the single strongest predictor of future disease, which is why the backbone of HALO’s algorithm centers around just that. Family history isn’t something your dime-a-dozen longevity calculators and planning tools take into account.

“What makes our algorithm so special is we’re not only assessing you on who you are today and the important lifestyle factors that impact longevity. We’re also looking at family history and incorporating the future potential risk of somebody developing a disease,” says Holmes.

How can a 5-minute longevity assessment get clients to act?

Instead of relying on population averages, HALO provides the very personalized and customized data advisors need to prompt clients to take action. As Holmes explains, “Our whole world today is all about personal advice. If you are trying to really help your clients, what’s more personal than providing personalized longevity data versus an actuarial table? With HALO, advisors help clients take action because the information feels more real to them.”

And here’s what’s really cool, this very personalized longevity assessment only requires about 5 minutes of the client’s time to complete. That’s how dialed in Holmes and her scientific and medical experts have made their technology. In fact, Holmes partnered with one of the best scientists in the industry to bring her dream of a personalized longevity optimizer to reality.

“My co-founder, Dr. Emily Chang, got her PhD and postdoc at Stanford in computational genetics before working as a scientist at the personal genetics company 23andMe. We were introduced when Emily was working there because I had this concept to create a solution to engage families and individuals to better understand how health risks and longevity play into a financial conversation. She came in and helped us create a very thoughtful methodology and approach that’s science and medically based.”

Personalization is a game changer for business growth

Holmes and Chang’s focus on personalization is something successful marketers also embrace. According to research by Salesforce, nearly half of marketers surveyed were using some form of machine-learning/algorithmic personalization in 2020.

That same year, an overwhelming majority of the Salesforce survey participants (97%) reported a measurable lift (ROI) from their personalization efforts. Research by Kibo Commerce, Monetate and Certona also revealed that “companies that leverage a personalization strategy across the entire customer lifecycle see higher ROI (300% or more) and are able to quickly pivot to meet changing customer behaviors.”

From a longevity conversation perspective, a personalized report goes way beyond helping clients plan for the average life expectancy of 90. It helps clients right size their investment (lifetime income) and healthcare (long-term care) decisions based on what the client’s longevity expectations really look like.

During the podcast, Holmes shared a use case to illustrate how HALO’s personalized experience helps advisors close more clients.

“An advisor we were working with had been having the same circular conversation with a married couple for years. Both spouses took the assessment, and when they showed up at the next meeting, they started directing the conversation. After sitting on the sideline for years, they wanted to look at long-term care. That conversation went straight through to the application and closing. That’s the power of what HALO does. It helps enable the advisor to really provide an unbiased lens to the client as to why they need to take action,” Holmes says.

How growth-oriented advisors differentiate their practices with HALO

HALO can be used as both a prospecting and conversion tool. The software can be embedded directly into an advisor’s website or on a separate web page, and the advisor can make the assessment available to the general public or provide a private link to the page at their discretion.

To learn more about how HALO works, check out the podcast here.

The key to getting buy-in to take the assessment centers around the talking points advisors share about the power of good data. According to Holmes, advisors can be really successful at differentiating their practices by hitting on their values and the fact that they’re very data driven during the planning process. Some of these talking points include:

“Most advisors use the same planning software—the software that calculates longevity based on averages not data about the specific individual. Simply relying on an actuarial table when we know longevity varies from person to person, doesn’t provide the custom insight you need.”

“We use a third-party expert to go deeper than anybody else. We are very data-driven and always looking for the best ways to create better outcomes for our clients.”

“The only thing that makes a plan good is using good data and the assumptions that go into it. We know that healthcare costs are the number one cause of bankruptcy and retirement. And we know that everybody is not average. That’s why we partnered with HALO, a third-party expert to help you get much more personalized numbers and drive a better plan.”

Advisors often use HALO as part of their seminar strategy. Whether you do virtual events, in-person events or both, you can give participants access to HALO at the end of the seminar. Some advisors don’t give clients a copy of the report unless they schedule a follow-up meeting with the advisor to better assess their needs.

The most common way Holmes sees advisors use the assessment is during the customer journey from prospect to client. It’s another way to keep the prospect engaged during the process. She’s also worked with advisors who won’t give prospects the assessment until they sign on as clients. It all depends on how the advisor wants to run their practice, so Holmes and her team work with each advisor to develop a workflow that makes sense for them.

We can help you get more personal with more clients

InsurMark partnered with Genivity years ago because we know what a huge impact HALO can have for advisors who want to seriously level up their annuity and healthcare businesses. This technology truly helps clients make more informed decisions about their financial futures, which aligns with our mission to “protect and enhance the financial security of every home in America.”

If you’d like to learn more about HALO and the other technology, tools, training and support that InsurMark offers financial professionals, please contact us. You can reach our office toll-free at (800) 752-0207 or connect with us online.

As an ADO – Advisor Development Organization™, InsurMark provides solutions to meet the ever-evolving needs of financial professionals with a mission to protect and enhance the financial security of every home in America.