Expand Your Portfolio with Creative Retirement Solutions
Agents who carry a wide range of life insurance and add-ons can build retirement strategies specifically tailored to each client. Offering custom insurance riders can help you tap into bigger, more profitable cases. Creative retirement solutions turn a standard life insurance policy into a flexible engine for income, protection, and care for your clients. Now, and into the future.
Spark Fresh Conversations with Creative Retirement Solutions
Custom riders open doors to client segments that traditional death-only coverage rarely reaches. Middle-income households ($50,000 – $149,999) are both underinsured and more likely than the general population to say they intend to buy life insurance, making them prime candidates for a life insurance policy with robust living benefits. Caregivers, high-earning professionals, and pre-retirees worried about healthcare costs respond strongly when you frame riders as tools to protect both their income and their dignity.
At the same time, annuity demand is surging, with 2024 retail annuity sales hitting a record of more than $430 billion, driven by the need for protected lifetime income. That growth creates natural cross-selling paths between life insurance, rider benefit packages, and guaranteed income strategies, all inside one coordinated retirement plan.
Custom Riders That Clients Actually Want
Custom insurance riders let you tune a life insurance policy or annuity-linked strategy to real client priorities. Examples include:
- Accelerated death benefits or an accelerated death benefit provision that lets clients access a portion of the death benefit after a qualifying event, turning protection into living benefits when cash flow matters most.
- Riders for chronic, critical, or long-term care can help cover qualifying conditions like cancer, stroke, or other serious health events without forcing clients to spend down their retirement savings first.
- Return-of-policy riders will return premiums to the policyholder if they outlive the coverage period.
These riders move the conversation from “How much coverage?” to “What kind of support will you want access to during retirement?”
Why Smart Agents Lead With Riders
Client needs are getting more complex, and traditional one-size-fits-all products leave gaps. In 2024, LIMRA reported that 4 in 10 middle-income Americans, about 50 million adults, admit they need more life insurance coverage. That gap is a wide-open lane for agents who can tailor living benefits and rider benefit options instead of just selling base coverage.
Retirement confidence is fragile. A recent survey shows that only two-thirds of workers feel confident they will have enough to live comfortably in retirement. Custom riders that address income stability, health shocks, and longevity concerns give you a concrete story to tell, not just a promise of future benefits.
If you want to expand your portfolio with creative retirement solutions, there’s no better time than the present to lead with conversations about custom riders, living benefits, and accelerated benefits. Reach out for more information on how to package life insurance, riders, and income solutions for next-level client value, and join the Wednesday Webinars for insider strategies with the carriers the client partners with.
