Confident Compassion: How Corey Anderson Succeeded in Building a New DI Distribution Model

Corey Anderson

Corey Anderson is an insurance agent specializing in counseling advisors on implementing insurance plans for disabled clients. As an industry leader, Corey is a frequently featured speaker at industry meetings on topics pertaining to disability insurance. He has served on the state and local NAIFA board for over 18 years, holding various roles, including president.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Corey Anderson shares key takeaways from the DI Society Conference
The importance of Disability Income (DI) insurance in financial planning
How Corey got into the disability insurance industry
Corey reflects on how he overcame challenges and embraced opportunities early in his career
What are the challenges of disability insurance underwriting?
Corey discusses how he built a successful disability insurance company
How joining NAIFA has benefited Corey’s business relationships

In this episode…

Do you want to build and grow a disability insurance practice successfully? What can you learn from an expert who has already accomplished this feat?

Corey Anderson, a DI expert, believes that obtaining disability insurance is essential because it provides financial security in the event of an unforeseen injury. However, establishing a disability insurance company can be challenging. It’s imperative to have a comprehensive understanding of the insurance industry, legal framework, and target market to thrive in the industry. Corey shares how his experience creating a DI distribution model educates fellow insurance agents on the topic of disability insurance.

On this episode of Advisor Today, Chris Gandy and Suzanne Carawan sit down with Corey Anderson, a disability insurance expert, to discuss how to flourish in the disability insurance industry. Corey talks about disability insurance and its importance in financial planning, the challenges of disability insurance underwriting, and his journey to building a successful disability insurance company.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, or NAIFA, the #1 association for producers in financial services.

At NAIFA, we enhance professional skills, promote ethical conduct, and advocate for legislative and regulatory environments.

By joining NAIFA, you gain access to a partnership that elevates your performance while providing greater purpose to your professional work. NAIFA members are happier, make more money, and stay in the business longer.

Get in touch with NAIFA and learn more about how to join NAIFA by visiting NAIFA.org.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:02

Welcome to NAIFA's Advisor Today podcast series, where we focus on how financial advisors work, live and give to their local communities and our greater financial services industry. Now, let's get started with the show.

Chris Gandy 0:20

Everyone out there, this is Chris Gandy, one of your co-hosts of Advisors Today's podcast here with our wonderful co-host, Suzanne Carawan. Hi, Suzanne.

Suzanne Carawan 0:28

Hey Chris, how are you doing?

Chris Gandy 0:30

Good to see you.

Suzanne Carawan 0:31

Good to see you.

Chris Gandy 0:33

We have a wonderful guest today, and Suzanne will make that introduction. But before we get going, Suzanne who is our sponsor for today's podcast.

Suzanne Carawan 0:42

So today it is the Limited Extended Care Planning Center, which is one of NAIFA's centers of excellence. So the LECP, as we like to affectionately call it looks at both all the aspects of long-term care, including limited short-term care, critical care, all sorts of stuff out there and funding opportunities. And that's important because November source Long Term Care Awareness Month, and we're doing a special virtual summit that we do each year on Halloween called Don't Be Scared of Long Term Care. So we got this phenomenal speakers in there. You want to go ahead and register for that, it's free. It's a giveback, that we do to the industry every year. So you can go ahead and see that just lecp.naifa.org and go ahead and sign up. And that's our sponsor, Chris.

Chris Gandy 1:26

Wonderful. We all have to get signed up for that Suzanne, because I'm not scared of DI, matter of fact, you know what, Suzanne, why don't you go ahead introduce our wonderful guests, Mr. Corey Anderson.

Suzanne Carawan 1:36

As a matter of fact, Corey is gonna be one of our speakers on don't be scared. So we're excited him. So Corey Anderson, welcome to the show. Long term, NAIFA member. And he is known actually as the DI geek and DI master out there in the world. We're coming off the international DI Society Conference last week. So we're hoping Corey is going to give us some updates of what was going on there. And what are the things that everybody needs to know about di so welcome, Corey.

Corey Anderson 2:00

Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

Chris Gandy 2:03

So Corey, let's jump right into it. So Corey, you just came fresh off a conference, right? And 50% of the things people forget within the first 24 hours, and then another 50% after that. So Corey, what are some of the things that you would tell people that fresh out of the DI Conference that they need to make sure they're doing to help be a part of this DI game going forward in their practices?

Corey Anderson 2:32

Well, a couple things. One, what I found interesting from the conference is how much the industry is moving towards guarantee standard issue GSI, guarantee standard issue is where you go in and you write an employer group, and you can do census enrollment. And it's something where it's, they're talking about benefit equalization. So a lot of times there's a group plan involved. And a group plan might only cover 60% of a person's wages. But then it has a cap on it of 10 or 15,000 a month, while they'll come in. And they'll write individual policies on top of that. And they'll take it maybe to 70% or 65% of all income and include bonuses and K-1s and stuff like that. And then they'll go up to a total cap between group and individual. So it's a way to add additional coverage, and have it where the CEO is getting the same type of coverage as far as a benefit percentage, just like the rank and file, new employee that started the company. So right now, a lot of times you'll have reverse discrimination and employer groups where the larger the income, the less replacement percentage you have. And so this can come in and solve that. So it's called guarantee standard issue and you don't have to ask a bunch of medical questions, you'll have to fill out a bunch of applications, it literally can be census enrollment. So that was one of the big takeaways is how much the industry is moving towards that. It's something where I've seen it ebb and flow over the last 30-plus years where the market went through a rough patch in the early 90s. And then in the early 2000s, when I got in the industry, we didn't want to write much disability insurance, and we had really low limits. And now we're seeing that pendulum swing where we're writing some really high limits on people. And we're willing to even do it without jumping through a bunch of medical hoops, which scares me a little bit. How that bodes well for the future. We'll see. But we see a lot of insurance companies swinging that way. I still write traditional mom and pops that's probably 80 90% of my business as one of the time and talking through that income protections necessary.

Chris Gandy 4:40

So, Corey, let me ask you this. A lot of people would say that I've got that. Right. I mean, I think that's the common default. I've got that right. They don't know what they don't know. And so, what tools are out there for people to educate themselves on not only the importance of DI, but really how to have the conversation about disability income or income protections, what we really call it.

Corey Anderson 5:11

So if it's a consumer, you can go to disabilitycanhappen.org, I believe is the website, which is part of the life happens group and kind of review different options there. But most people just never even look at their benefits and understand that most employer groups have a decent size provide disability insurance, but that disability insurance they provide has limitations. And one of the biggest limitations that nobody ever talks about with clients is ERISA. ERISA was literally put together in my opinion, to protect insurance companies. And the ERISA, what it does is basically allows you to pay a claim if you're a group carrier for a couple of years. And then after a couple of years, you can toss them off a claim. And all they can do is sue you for potentially what they owed you. And once in a while attorney fees. And that's it. Well, where's the money, the lawsuits damages. And so what's frustrating is people that are watching this false sense of coverage, and they aren't really covered. So the amount of calls I've gotten over the years, I get calls from advisors, and they'll say, hey, my clients getting kicked off a claim, can you help me and I go, let me guess they're two years into the claim. They're going off a claim the insurance company saying you can go do something reasonable based on training, education, or experience or like, yeah, how do you know? And I go home for doing this for 20 years, you realize it, and most group plans will only protect an individual for two years. After two years, if you can argue me or agree, people at Walmart flip burgers, go do it. Whereas most of our clients that we're dealing with, are highly specialized, that plan is not a good enough plan for our clients. And that wage replacement is 60% of defined earnings, which defined earnings typically in a group plan is only your base wages, like if you work overtime, or you get bonuses or commissions, or K ones. Or let's say you get a cell phone reimbursement or 401k match, or they pay towards your health insurance premiums. All of that is not defined earnings. It's just base wage.

Chris Gandy 7:27

Wow, you just said a lot. You just said a lot. Right. I think most people are like, wait a minute, let me rewind this podcast. So well, let me rewind the tape. You mentioned 20 years. So how did you get interested in disability insurance? I mean, it's a fairly unique niche. I mean, it's not the one that everybody comes into, everybody wants to be in financial planners, or everybody wants to be in the world of big life insurance policy, premium finance, or whatever it may be, how did you get in the disability world because I came through a system, a traditional career system, where the amount of information and education they gave us on income protection and disability insurance in our training and development was all of two hours. In one of the big four. Okay. If you will write my research, you can see what company I'm talking about. I'll call him by name. We don't want to get banned, okay, by the FPCA, the insurance gods, right. But my whole point is that there was no education around the importance of it. And so how did you get into it? And get a passion for it and develop an actual business for it?

Corey Anderson 8:49

In third grade, I filled out my sheet, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I put disability expert, that's what I put. It isn't what everybody points. No, that's not true. I was graduating college semester early, which is hilarious because I was told not to go to college because of my high school grades. But that's a whole another story. I was graduating college early, interviewed at a guardian federal agency in the Twin Cities called foster clean up. And they said, sure, we'll give them a chance. And so it was my second-semester senior year, I would go and frankly, drink my brains away for three and four-day weekends. And then come into the office and read policies all day, never pick up the phone, never call anybody and failed miserably in the industry. And so they said, you know what, why don't you start working for our brokerage and I started with this brokerage, I was specialized in disability insurance. And I handled getting cases through underwriting so dealing with ordering records, labs, all that did that for about six months, and they said why don't you become a broker drop and teach people how to sell disability insurance, which I think is hilarious. I was literally just turned 22 and I could barely spell disability. Like you I'm literally gonna teach people how to literally talk about this. And it was an eye-opening experience, I did it for about three years, and banged my head against the wall, so many different ways trying to help advisors do this. And frankly, what I came to the realization over a three-year period was the advisors couldn't pivot, they would go talk to their clients about disability insurance, I would teach them how to pivot to this or pivot to that, like if they say, this is too much money, here's why you reinforce it, here's how you reinforce it. And then here's an alternative. And I would offer this up, and then they go out there and they go sell it to their client or talk to their client about it, they come back, and I'd say, how'd it go, and they go, well, it's too expensive. I'm like, Well, everybody's gonna say disability insurance is too expensive. Nobody actually wants to buy this is literally they want what it does, but they don't want to pay for it, unless they see value in it. And it's hard communicating the value of it, when you're really buying a piece of paper, that's, frankly, could be worth millions of dollars. But hopefully, you actually never collect on it. I talk points you never actually want to collect on this, I hope you wasted this money every month or every year, I'm a premium. And he never clicked on it. So after about three years have tried to teach other people how to do it. I ended up starting my own practice. And that was 20 years ago, where I just said, you know what I gave up on it. And now I just do it for the advisor. And I say, instead of you try to figure it out with your client and figure out which carrier is good at marijuana use or which carrier is good at a client that said a DWI or whatever this call me and we handle it for you start to finish.

Chris Gandy 11:45

So you've made it easy for people

Corey Anderson 11:48

Try to do. Yeah, yeah, I kind of saw an opportunity. It's funny at the time, Chris, I didn't see it as an opportunity. It was the owner of the firm came to me and said, we are eliminating your position. And that's codeword for we found a replacement already. And we really want you to do this. And we feel like the only way you're going to do this is if we kind of give you a good nudge, at least one opportunity, which is awesome. It's two people, Georgia and Mike that saw this opportunity for me, and for this industry and said we think that we need a broker's broker. And it's something that, frankly, I don't think had been done before in the disability market. And it's something where I probably wouldn't have done it. Unless they shoved me along and basically said out of the nest. Yeah, they had to kick me out of the nest. And I was kicking and screaming, I didn't like it. I was not happy about it at all. I had literally just bought my boat had a couple of snowmobiles, a jetski had a cabin, life could have been better. And then all sudden, you're going to commission only.

Chris Gandy 12:58

So let's rewind the tape, we skipped over something. So you made this transition. They say the best opportunities come at the most inopportune times. Okay, so we need to be pushed along and go through challenges, or else we will possibly tap into our true capabilities. And so you experience. Let's go back. Let's go back for one sec. The moment they said that to you, what was going through your mind? What was going through your mind? Because I think so many times when people get knocked out, they say, oh, woe is me from a victim perspective. But what was going through your mind? If you have a moment, can you just go back to that time for a second and say, what was going through your mind? And how did you overcome it?

Corey Anderson 13:51

Two words, anger and fear. Angry that somebody was putting me in this position when I had a lot of obligations. I mean, I literally had a house that I had built three years earlier, and had this brand new, pretty brand new house, had my cabin had all my toys. The last thing I wanted to do was have no income. And if you know much about disability insurance, if you're referred a client today, it's at least six months before you end up getting paid typically. And so I was not excited about that. It was literally and on top of it, I had pursued this gal for five years. And she was a good friend of mine always wanted to date her. She would never give me the time of day. I had just told her off two weeks before and said never call me again. And sure enough, she calls me and we started dating right then.

Suzanne Carawan 14:46

No income, lots of obligations.

Corey Anderson 14:51

Best time to fall in love and date some girl that I have now married to and we just are hopefully a while actually going on, we just celebrated 19 years of marriage two weeks, y'all it's so it was opportunity like it was so not the right timing. But if the good thing.

Suzanne Carawan 15:10

You had no choice, I mean, you were leveraged into it, this was survival mode, right? You had to get out there and make it happen.

Corey Anderson 15:18

It reminds me after my junior year of high school. We couldn't afford Well, I was going to a Catholic school. And I was raised by a single mother, and we couldn't afford tuition. And my mom had a major sickness, pancreatitis that year lost your job. It was bad. And they told me I had to leave the school. And you can accept that and move on. Or you can fight and say, no, I'm not leaving the school what I need to do. And I figured out a way to stay in it and go sign a agreement with the President that I would pay them after I graduated. So right before my senior year, I was gonna have to leave my whole world. They go to a whole new school. And I had been to schools, most of these some of these kids since first grade. But you have that opportunity. It's one of that kind of do go left evil, right? Do you up? Do you go down? And it's either you walk away, or and always wonder what if or you embrace that? And you say, No, I'm going to fight for this because I believe in this. That's I believed it at that time to stay in school and stay at but it'll say Margaret's and sign that form and literally signed an agreement paid and within six months of graduating, but then that's that same thing at that moment in 2003. When either we've helped you find a new job, or you start this business that we want you to start. And it's kind of neat that they believed in me, right? I mean, I didn't. I was struggling in confidence. It's one of those things I struggled for many years with is confidence in myself, but they had the confidence in me. But I didn't exactly have that confidence in myself. And they believed in me. And so it's like, well, wait a minute, if they believe in me, maybe I should lean in a little bit here and put the anger aside, and figure out a way to embrace the fear and get motivated to take on the world. And let's go. Let's create some knew that and done before.

Chris Gandy 17:18

So that's so powerful, it'd be to be able to overcome through adversity. I mean, I think that was instilled in you early on. And obviously it continues to fuel you for success going forward. So if I'm interested in disability insurance and working with you, and I mean, it's kind of this thing, though, let me go back in time. So I remember when I first started in the industry, and I wrote my first DI piles. And I remember someone saying to me, DI is the hardest thing to get through. Right? I remember that. Right? And this is like the ghost which would never change, right? It's like, this mythological thing out there. Because you don't know until you go down that path. Right? And so that was always in the back of my mind. Well, I can write life insurance, because that's pretty easy. I get paid on it pretty fast, just disability thing, if it's gonna take a long time, is that something I really want to do? What I know that my agency or my general agent is pushing me to, I guess all those many positives boss, like in my poetry. So what would you tell people that would come and say that to you at this particular time, obviously, because you've got the experience? What would you tell people that want to get into disability because you know, we do the full we'll talk about the financials of disability long term because I'm super excited about it, because I'm aware I have 50% of my practice is disability insurance. So I'm aware of like, the wonderful residual income that comes from it. But back to what I'm speaking now, specifically, in and around the difficulty or the concepts of difficulty to get it through underwriting.

Corey Anderson 19:06

What's interested in 2023 and beyond, it's never been easier in the last 23 years to underwrite disability insurance. So for example, restless leg syndrome, used to be a thing that maybe you'd get a decline over or sleep apnea was a 50% rating, five-year benefit. Whereas now if you're compliant with your CPAP, it's normal underwriting and a normal benefit period. Or like if in 2000, early 2000s. If a client was on antidepressant or anti-anxiety Med, all we could offer them was the alternative market Lloyd's, Lloyd's or Lloyds whereas over the last 20 years, it is significantly improved in the traditional space. So there's never been a better time, but it's just knowing your craft and so disability insurance is a craft, and it's figuring out your expertise and that is like for example recently, I had a surprise, somebody that if you're on an anti-depressant med or a if anxiety Med, and you do marijuana a couple times a month, one carrier is a flat out decline, whereas most of these other carriers have no problem with that. So now I know that and I've had it come up a couple times since and now I know don't go to that specific carrier because they don't like it. If you do marijuana a couple times a month, you're on an antidepressant. So it's figuring out your craft and working to be better every day. It's not like you just get stale. I mean, part of it is going to industry meetings and rubbing shoulders and elbows with the people who have that knowledge. And like even this last week at the International Disability Society, sitting and having dinner with a couple of different underwriters and asking them what's going on in the marketplace. And so what's been changing positive negative stuff like that.

Suzanne Carawan 20:56

But I think the thing that I took away from that conference, too, is that they're really want to expand to get more agents and advisors there because there's just not enough. But it's that being able to cross reference and cross-promote each other. So instead of that, like going it alone, like they're not saying, hey, I'll like people should like figure out DI it's like, just get your partner because it is a craft and subtotal specialty, right? But don't do that. And what are the so I'm gonna tell you another side from the consumer angle me sitting at that conference. I mean, it's an all advisors on the phone need to hear this one, right? I'm serious about this. I am 50 years old, and I was furious. I was furious sitting in this conference, that I have not had agents and advisors except for Corey Anderson, run after me to say how do you not have this right? Like it's just me and my husband, we don't have anybody else ever supporting us, we got two beautiful kids, we've been doing all this stuff. And no one has been telling me like, you've got to have this, the most important thing you've got is your brain. And I want to take that out to all these people. Because I've had many agents and advisors and they only focus on whatever life they focus blinders on what they themselves do, and not really that holistic, looking at me and my family about what would happen to us. I want you to the more I learned, the angrier I got. So I want to tell that from consumer sides, when it's time for Disability Awareness Month, next May everything else, we got to get more people, more agents, advisors, you got to bring this up with your clients. It's critical. It's really critical, right? And maybe what I heard also from the conference, because I asked this question, I get it that everybody wants to physicians, everybody wants the attorneys rule out of law school and center, I get that. But there was a huge missing gap there, in my opinion of like all the other professionals, it was like blue-collar workers construction, big focusing on that right, then there's a big gap out there, or the market, and then we went into kind of like the professionals. So I think that's a challenge. And I'm gonna put out from a consumer standpoint, because I'll tell you, thank goodness, nothing has happened to me today. But our family would be wiped out. And there's just no possible way we need my brain, we need my husband, all we do is think right, we get paid to think so I think if you get paid to think you've got to get this in place. So I just wanted to plug that in there because it's an important thing. And we don't see enough people out there who've got a DI partner like Lori here to get that stuff worked out.

Chris Gandy 23:28

And there's so many cool things I've learned over the years that you can do with businesses. And us being entrepreneurs, especially, I mean, I don't believe that there's an agent out there that should not own it, Corey will probably shake his head. I don't, because our upside is exponential. And your ability to be able to do our craft is unbelievable. And so your earning potential. And there's a insurance carrier, I know, that's going to guarantee your commissions from your best year. So what do you do? And so the answer is disability insurance. And I'm sure if you talk to Corey about some of the tax advantages of it's tax time, right. And so some of the tax advantages of doing it as an individual through your own businesses is very favorable for a gentleman like myself, and I'm sure Corey.

Corey Anderson 24:23

Chris, because I have a question. Can't every advisor just do it from their, from their chair, they can do it from a wheelchair. That's what I always hear from advisors, which literally the worst people at buying disability insurance, in my opinion, some of the worst are our own people in our industry. And it's like look, why don't you go rent a wheelchair for a week.

Suzanne Carawan 24:44

And that's crazy because that's the gap I'm talking about those right and so like...

Corey Anderson 24:51

Try using a wheelchair for a whole week and only being able to use a wheelchair and having to shower with a wheelchair and do all that like you're not going to be as productive And again, we are ensuring our brand, like you said, Suzanne, is we're going to make a lot of money, everybody out there in just life, as they're going to show up, suit up and go to work. And if something happens, we want to make sure they don't have a lifestyle change. And it's something where everybody asked, like, who needs disability insurance, any client that's working because they need to financially, if they're able to retire, they maybe don't need disability insurance. But if they're not able to retire, and not have a lifestyle change, they need to protect their income. And they need to make sure they re-protect all of their income, not some small percentage that a group plan does, but actually quality coverage that they own versus a rented plan through a group carrier.

Chris Gandy 25:47

All right, so let's fast forward the tape. So now you get for all practical purposes. Corey, you're pissed off, you're disturbed. And now they say, hey, go build this thing. Right? Let's go build this opportunity. So at what point do you say, hey, this is a good thing, right? Because if you take a look at the advisers, the majority advisors are unfamiliar with it. They're unfamiliar with how to sell it, because someone told me one day they said, if you want to sell more disability, you need to own it. That was like, okay, got it. They're unfamiliar with it. They don't own it. And the resources out there have been somewhat limited if you're in a career system, specifically, if your company does that offer those products. So how do you come full circle? And now you realize two things. So the two questions two pronged question. One is I did you realize that your niche was even more advanced than just say, a broker, niche, just have Jay get a brokerage, or contractor, you. You took it a step further, you get into you could talk about that in a second. And then what made it so that now you're saying we want to expand this build on it, and really grow this to something that has never been done before.

Corey Anderson 27:14

Let's start back in 03 is, it's always been once I started dating my now wife, family first. And so my whole practice is built around family. First, my schedule is built around family first, three o'clock in the summer, you're not gonna see me in the office. But at 9pm, once my kids go to bed, you're gonna see me work two or three hours, and do client appointments in the evening. So what I've loved about this industry in this practice is you can build it around what's important to you. And for me, it's about my family, and making sure that I'm there for my wife, I'm there for my kids. I'm like the class dad at school, and volunteer in their classrooms regularly and run a huge charity auction for a Catholic school that we're a member of, but with it is I saw this niche, and there's this opportunity. But we did at the beginning, I did two things, I would do a brokers broker where I do it for them. But I would also do a brokerage setting where advisors could call. And we provide quotes, and they go out and sell it. I abandoned the brokerage side of it, probably about eight, nine years ago finally. I wish I would have stopped doing that from day one. And the reason I say that is the placement percentage in this industry is in the neighborhood of about 60%. So if every 100 applications that hit a home office, 40% of them 40 out of 100 are wasted. Think about how much time and resources that is. And what I realized is if I'm doing a brokerage setting, that way, a traditional brokerage, I'm embedding on that advisor to go do their job. If that advisor doesn't do their job, I have lost money on it. And no offense to them. But unfortunately, they won't always do their job. Right, I realized that you know what, if I'm gonna do what I want to really do for the industry, and do for my team and do for my family is I want to be that brokers broker that does it for them, and makes it so they love doing business with us, the advisor that refers us and make it so the client loves working with us, and that we deliver on that. So our promises, we believe we're going to deliver 95% of the time on policies. So if we submit an application 95% of the time we're delivering that policy, and it surprises happen. Yes, they do. Does stuff come up in labs that you weren't expecting? Yes. So that's why we try to avoid labs. There's ways around it to try and really keep that number high. But also clients change their mind sometimes quite often decide not to do it, or a client didn't disclose something to us that they should have disclosed to us. I just had this last week, two big medical things that a client didn't tell us about when we asked questions. And these frankly lied to us. So that happens sometimes, but our placing percentage 95%. So what I realized is, is in brokerage, maybe a true brokerage that are placing at 85% Industries place in 60, doing it myself for the advisor and actually talking to the client for them, and handling the process start to finish that we're seeing 95% of placement of the apps that we submit, and so it's not wasting time. And it's being able to just understand where the kind of speed bumps are. And how do we kind of round up the speed bumps a little bit more, and make them so they're not so prohibitive and getting the client to do what's right. And then also the advisors love it, because they can sit on the other side of the table and say, you know what, I'm on your side a little more than the sales side of it. And they can encourage the boys to actually do something with them. It took a while a Chris, the hardest part was competence in all of this, and it's still I always battle like, some days you just have that day where you feel like you're getting punched and kicked and sometimes frustrated. And it's like, maybe that's a day where you just say forget it and you walk out of the office and go buy some presents for people and drop them off to cheer yourself up. Or maybe go take a walk with the kids or go play around a golf or something that refocus and get back onto it and be like, you know what, no, I'm doing a good thing. Like, stuff happens, life happens. But you got to overcome that fear and overcome that rejection, I mean, not rejecting you. They're just saying no, right now, and a lot of times it's not no forever. The amount of clients we write that I write clients that we've been following up with for two years, right? We're just pleasantly persistent. And be careful that we don't harass him. But find that line of pleasantly persistent and good things calm. Perfect, answer your two questions. I didn't become a politician and avoid them, did I.

Chris Gandy 32:18

No, I think you answered the question. So I'm gonna dissect that a little bit, what I think you were saying specifically is that you can't be scared of something that you've never tried. Right. And so you went down this path, figured it was going to be a niche, you look at you're now you're able to capture the statistical data, that proves that your model is more efficient than some of the traditional models, quite frankly, you can sit low from education and power, I mean, you're able to formulate, you know, if it's not a process, it's a problem. So you're able to create a process. So it's not a problem for people. And that's powerful, you know, we at NAIFA I think, collectively we come together, we're stronger than we are apart. I'll always say this is that our corporate affiliations, our company affiliations, allow for us to do our business is not going to allow for us to be at the top of the table record at the table. So we've got to realize that by doing business with others, that have different affiliations, that's how we get there. So I look forward to doing business with you and figured out how we can move some of it, give an example. What our core carriers doesn't write in New York, one in two does no write disability insurance, too. And so don't even have a line for it. So when it comes down to it, we have to go to other resources to be able to build our disability and our disability business and our disability practice. And so gentlemen, like yourself, allow for a conduit and others are listening to me. And that's kind of your story, I think reaching out to Corey after this so that you can get connected with him and figure out what he's doing to get to that 98% I think we all want to know how to get our clients 98% to say yes, once a day to get them over the finish line. Yes, of course, people change their mind, but I think that's super powerful. So, question for you Corey where are you taking this now? So now you've got it here?

Suzanne Carawan 34:23

Yeah. How big is it gonna be? Right?

Chris Gandy 34:25

Now you've got it here. So what's next for you? Are we going AI or I mean, what are we doing here?

Suzanne Carawan 34:32

World domination. Yeah, how you gonna do but what's happening.

Corey Anderson 34:36

So it was funny. I look back like 13, 14 years ago when he had the housing crash. And I frankly was on the like, I couldn't believe I was going to be able to make it for a while with just we're popping out kids like a Pez dispenser and had a wife that was a domestic engineer homemaker and we're trying to make it all work and then it's, you get through that At and you're building the practice and outside a great spot. But then it's like, okay, well, you're either growing or you're, you know, gold buried going forward or backwards. I don't know what the future holds. But I do know that we want to reach out and meet more producers or advisors that are frustrated with this annuity or have never looked at it and grow that side of it. Will we embrace the guarantee issue market, we do some guarantee issue. I've got a love hate relationship with that, where I've done some big cases, and then the company gets sold and you lose your footing on that. So, you know, be careful spending too much time on elephants versus getting a bunch of singles and doubles.

Chris Gandy 35:46

Corey, I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that. I'm so glad you said that, my largest case, will the hospital system. That was a supplemental, and there was a specialty group, fantastic 200 physicians supplements the whole deal. They were bought by a larger medical system got bought by that larger medical system, they didn't want to rock the boat the first year or two. But that third year, they said, we want to consolidate a lot of the outside resources. And I lost that disability case, now they are able to keep the policies and I still work with him individually. But I no longer have the group. And it was an awesome group for cross-selling and things like that. So you hit it right on the head is, the larger cases are great, but you can't fall asleep at the wheel, the bread and butter cases will help you do very well, too.

Corey Anderson 36:47

I think, you see a lot of agents that do insurance and financial planning and stuff, but they'll have like a lot of new prospects or new people. And then all sudden they're getting them in the pipeline and save a lot of new people, but they have no new prospects, it's like this little bubble that's going through their pipeline. And they don't keep a consistent level. I think the key is, is always keeping the pipeline full of people being out there, getting outside of your box and trying stuff new. And you never know what's going to stick and what's not going to stick some crazy things that you'd ever think would work. I mean, literally sick about it when you take a step back. People team with me to do disability insurance for themselves. And their clients, when they could write it themselves. Like the amount of advisors I write in our own industry blows my mind. They couldn't legally write the insurance themselves. But they team with us because of our expertise. Like I'm grateful and I feel blessed for that. Like, it's awesome, that there's some niche market like that, that people literally will team up with us. I pinch myself and like I can't believe it sometimes, but I'm thankful. But where we're gonna go from here, Chris, I didn't know the world is our oyster. I'm a big blue ocean fan, not red ocean. There's plenty of opportunity out there. And we're able to make it happen one day at a time. And we'll see where we go from here.

Chris Gandy 38:18

Corey talks us a little bit about NAIFA and your relationship. When did you first get involved the NAIFA? And for those who are on the fence about joining NAIFA, why join NAIFA? They can work with Corey Anderson without being a NAIFA member.

Corey Anderson 38:34

Be careful what you asked for here, Chris. So I go back to the beginning, I showed up at my first NAIFA meeting. George Davidson brought me he was the one that hired me to be a brokerage rep. And disability goes you're gonna go out and you're gonna like these people when in fact, you're gonna love them. I go to my first meeting, and I was the youngest in the room by 30 years on average. And I'm like, no, I'm not doing this. No, no, he goes, no, you're doing it. I'm like kicking and screaming. He goes, no, no, you're doing it. I ended up doing it. I wouldn't be in this business today if it wasn't for NAIFA. In fact, probably 85 to 95% of my business actually has come through a relationship of a NAIFA member or somehow I can technically tie it back to NAIFA. So that's been huge for me. I started out where I was just a member. And then they involve me in the board and said once you get on the board for many NAIFA Minneapolis, then eventually I get on the NAIFA's state board. I've been technically on NAIFA's Minneapolis or NAIFA Minnesota Board for over 20 years. I got involved with advocacy, which is hilarious because I hate political stuff. And I actually went to a day on the Hill and at the time representative Amber, who is now Congressman Amber and one of the top four Republicans in Congress right now. He drank gonna be out on the floor. He goes here, come with me. And he said here, and he brought me through security, which you're supposed to have clearance the day before. He just said, make sure you have your driver's license. And I showed it to him. And I went out there and I watched him broker a deal. Right in front of me five minutes before they voted, somebody won. And somebody lost at that moment based on the deal that he brokered. And I realized, right, then I got to get involved, because we could be on the table in a matter of three seconds, and not be on the good side of winning on that one. So long story short, I got involved on that side of it, and actually know ISOPAC. National Committee. And I've been on that for a few years and run it for our state and a lot of political things and do fly ins every year, stuff like that, and actually ended up falling in love with it. It's kind of fun to watch what's going on. And we support Democrats, we support Republicans who support independence, it's whoever believes in the insurance party. So we're one party, the insurance party, or insurance and financial services.

Suzanne Carawan 41:02

Yeah, that's why I love the Terry Hadley said, if you're in business, you're in politics, right? And to think that you're not is crazy. I mean, you're an independent business owner. Right? You got to have that voice at the table and exercise that right.

Corey Anderson 41:16

Yeah. And if people think about joining NAIFA, I think it's like you're joining a family of people that care about you, and wants you to win, and I'll do whatever they can to help you win and find opportunity in this wonderful industry, the amount of people I've been able to watch, that have helped me through the ways and then also, even some people I've mentored I've had one of my really good friends in the industry almost left the industry altogether. And luckily, I had coffee with him that morning, persuaded him not to and now he's running a huge financial planning firm with like, 45 people in the home. And he wouldn't be here literally 10 years ago, again, with walked out. There just like kind of encouraged him like, look, let's figure out it was basically how many dials he had to make a day. We're only dials a day, and now he's running. Oh, he's running the huge firm and just want a great job with it.

Suzanne Carawan 42:13

And I'd say that we'd see more and more. I think even more so now people, they will do business with somebody who's not in the NAIFA family. They're just like, no, you need to be part of an NAIFA because they very much respect the code of ethics. And just the way that nature does things right, and more like the naval way. And I think that's a powerful, nuanced part of membership. Chris, just looking at the time let's you have one other thing. We got it.

Chris Gandy 42:40

I do. So Corey, I'll just mention is that, Suzanne work, and I were kicking this around is that we realized that when we start to interview people is that NAIFA is where the champions live, that's where champs are the champions of the industry are really their ethical, their core beliefs really align with NAIFA. And so we're coining that is this NAIFA is where the champions roll. So that's going to be a kind of cool thing, where you'll hear coming out

Suzanne Carawan 43:16

Chris, but even going forward, like looking at Corey and you too, it's not just the champions, because it's not just success, but we're like the champions of the people like the people's hearts. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Because just looking at the two of you, that is really something that's very specific to NAIFA, there's other places out there, and they have high producers, but they're very hollow, they don't have the people's hearts and the best interest. They're only maybe thinking money, it's only business. But NAIFA's really the people's hearts, I think they are they're champions of those people's hearts, because all of you love your clients dearly. I mean, you love your business, you love your brothers and sisters out there and NAIFA world and it's something different. There's something different to that just looking at the two of you, and knowing you and why we all resonate with each other so I think that's a really good point.

Chris Gandy 44:05

Say birds of a feather flock together. He's the DI gig though. But I understand being on a sports team is that you need a point guard, you need a senator, you need people that play different positions to have a chance of winning as he can't win a championship on his own. It's impossible, right? I can't win a championship on my own. Again we're together. Together, we're stronger than we are apart. So, Corey Thank you. So how do we find Mr. Corey? Corey, if I'm looking for you, I got to Google you. I mean, do I have to find your LinkedIn? I mean, how do we find you and your practice your firm if that's something that we have an interest in?

Corey Anderson 44:40

disabilitygeek.com, disabilitygeek.com you can go there. You can schedule an appointment with us if you want to chat with us. Phone numbers on there, or you can email us disabilitygeek@disabilitygeek.com.

Chris Gandy 44:55

And if we're in Minnesota,

Corey Anderson 44:58

Do you like wake surfing is the real question. I literally I'll say this, you can put this out there. I love to wake surf. And yes, I'm a big guy and I can still wake surf. And if you ever want to learn to wake surf literally come to Minnesota call me. We keep our boat on Metallica, we go, probably five days a week. We have plenty of room, we always invite guests. There's a bunch of NAIFA people that we've had to Minnesota and taught them how to wake surf before. People like John Richardson and Mark Aker, and some others. So you ever want to wake surf, literally come to Minnesota, we'll teach you how to wake surf and only come during June, July and August. The rest of the year, you'll have to actually drive the car out on the ice. But those three months it somehow melts. And it's a beautiful time. So I'm gonna be left out. I would love to have you.

Chris Gandy 45:48

That's amazing. We're talking about taking the show on the road and do it in different places. And if we do, that'd be great to do it from Minnesota and then go make some off-boarding experience that hey, it'd be funny.

Corey Anderson 46:06

You'd love the boat colors red, white and blue America.

Chris Gandy 46:08

Awesome. All right. Suzanne, do you have anything else before we take Corey to the lightning round where we're going to hit him with a series of questions that will keep him on his toes.

Suzanne Carawan 46:23

Just don't forget to see more Corey talking about doing his di geek nests on October 31. As part of our don't be scared of long-term care. Let's get on with the questions.

Chris Gandy 46:34

All right, so Corey, we're not scared. Hopefully you're not scared. So the whole goal of this is this is like the hot seat in the hot seat is that people may know of you, but they don't know who you are. Right? And so this objective is pretty much whatever comes first to mind top of mind, we're not going to ask you what you did when you were in eighth grade and you were running around and no one knew where you were and your parents could get older. We're not gonna ask you those questions. Well, we are going to ask you a couple questions just so people can get to know you. So when they do see you at either con, con or they see you at the national events, they can approach you and have a conversation and feel like they know you as a person. Okay. Sounds good. Great. Cool. So, Corey we'll get going something that's pretty easy. Pretty easy here. So what's your favorite food to eat?

Corey Anderson 47:27

Walking tacos.

Chris Gandy 47:29

Walking tacos.

Suzanne Carawan 47:31

Well, that is super specific. Wow. Okay, yeah,

Chris Gandy 47:33

That means you have a specific place you want to tell us about. That's what that means.

Corey Anderson 47:39

At home where you're at the ball fields, a lot of times you can get a walking taco and walking taco. It's got everything. All the food groups, it's great.

Chris Gandy 47:48

Alright, so let's go back in time, Corey, if you were 20 years old today. What would you tell your 20-year-old self? What words of advice would you give your 20-year-old self?

Corey Anderson 47:58

You got this believe in yourself. You can do it.

Chris Gandy 48:01

Got it. And if people were to describe you, if your two closest friends were to describe you in two words, what would it be?

Corey Anderson 48:13

Loving and caring. Well, they didn't care.

Suzanne Carawan 48:16

They asked that at the conference. They said what's like your superpower? And I told Corey, you should have said compassion. I put as compassionate he's very compassionate.

Chris Gandy 48:26

Awesome. And Corey. If I was going to buy DI or life insurance, which one should I buy?

Corey Anderson 48:40

So if you only have enough resources for one, I would start with what? It depends on if you're working because you need to, or you want to. And if you're working because you need to financially it's disability insurance. You need to protect your income first. Like if you die you're no longer a drain on your family. But you accidentally live and you're sick or hurt and can't go to work. You're a drain on your family. So your income first.

Chris Gandy 49:05

Favorite sports team.

Corey Anderson 49:08

Its high school, Ed's Benilde St. Margaret's Red Knights hockey will be my favorite college would be gopher hockey. Then Minnesota Wild and then Vikings. I think the NFL is rigged. But whatever Vikings, we're never gonna win it. We believe in mediocrity. We're big fans. And if we actually win, we don't know what we would do. So we're just kind of enjoying our mediocrity and getting close to the big game but never get into the big game anymore. So it's all good.

Chris Gandy 49:37

Last two questions. If you're not working, what's your favorite passed?

Corey Anderson 49:43

Out on the boat with my family and friends. Like always room for more.

Chris Gandy 49:48

Awesome. Last question for you. You could go back in time, whether our living or past where they passed away, they left us and you could have dinner with anyone in the past, who would it be and why?

Corey Anderson 50:03

Probably my grandpa Lee, my middle names after him. And I just would have my mom spoke so highly of them, I never got to meet him and he died from diabetes and actually got to die in his family cabin. From competition, I'd be this but he is by himself, but least he got to die in a peaceful place. But we'd like to ask him about just all the trials and tribulations he had to go through with losing a spouse and losing a job and all kinds of stuff that he lost.

Chris Gandy 50:38

Corey, I thank you for sharing that. That's a moment that hits home for a lot of people they allows them to see that you are a real person, not just a businessman. And hopefully, when you see Corey, you get a chance to go over and shake his hand and meet you and the person bigger than life, and we appreciate you at NAIFA appreciate all you do. And all the light you bring, because you're always kind of every time I see you, you're always smiling, because it looks like you're having a good time and enjoying yourself. So thank you so much for being a NAIFA's member. We can't do it without you.

Corey Anderson 51:12

Happy to be and don't be scared of the crocs if I'm wearing my crocs.

Chris Gandy 51:18

All right, Corey, do you have anything else you would like to say to NAIFA nation, before we close it up.

Corey Anderson 51:27

Keep on paying your membership, make sure you are a member of both parts, which is a dues-paying member and contributing to the pack. It's very important. Even if you don't want to get involved politically than just send more money, send it monthly, send it off and we appreciate you. If you ever want to give up call me don't give up. It's a great industry. We love you.

Chris Gandy 51:50

Thank you so much for the inspiring words, Suzanne.

Suzanne Carawan 51:53

Yes. Hey, if you're listening and you're not a member, go ahead and hit www.naifa.org/join. Join us great guys like this, get the hangout and be part of something fantastic.

Chris Gandy 52:05

And I will say for those who aren't members are thinking about membership or have left your membership lab. It makes sense because collectively we're stronger than we are apart. So bring somebody else allow them to see the world through your rose-colored glasses, bring somebody else sponsor somebody else create a spa scholarship for somebody else. At a nominal rate, I believe it's only 15 or 10. Some of them are 10, I think it's new person. It's like $10 a month, we spend that collectively we spend that doing silly things. And so why not do it and towards the education and the betterment of our industry. So with that being said, thank you all for tuning into Advisor Today's podcast where we uplift and promote the industry and advisors and we're all better together than we are apart. Corey, thank you for being here. Suzanne, thank you for being here. We'll see you next week. Same time, same place. We love you NAIFA, we'll see you soon.

Corey Anderson 52:40

Thank you very much.

Outro 53:02

Thanks for joining us for NAIFA's Advisor Today podcast series. Make sure to subscribe to get future episodes and if you're interested in coming on the show, let us know.

41 min read