Be VERY Careful Here, PLEASE. (VIDEO)

“There's a bit of a conundrum a dichotomy if you will in the sales world where you have to be ambitious you have to have a go get em attitude and you cannot be easily dissuaded and give up before you start having progress at the same time though there is too much thing as a person with too much ambition let me explain i had a person working for me who was very ambitious wanted to be on the leaderboard wanted to be highly productive and did everything this person could do to uh write as many policies as possible sometimes when blinded by an unhealthy dose of too much ambition a person can start to take shortcuts a person can start to forget to do things that are otherwise impediments to doing more business and by forgetting to do things i mean in this case forgetting to ask health questions on an application just first a little bit here and a little bit there like when the application for uh health insurance asks who's your current doctor what are your current medications sorry my eyes are bothering me and this person you know answers all the health questions on the application but then leaves out the doctors then leaves out the drugs or just puts one and then come to find out starts answering or i'm sorry asking less and less and less questions of the client why because when you ask all the questions appropriately sometimes not everyone is going to get approved so what does that mean if your blind ambition is it is to an unhealthy level it starts making a person who has less integrity than they should to be in this business of being in a fiduciary responsibility to be literally responsible for someone's health or not to get a procedure paid for or not simply because a person in a capacity as an agent lies on an application now is it a lie or is it omission i would argue it makes no difference if someone tells you no to a question on diabetes with complications for example and you put i'm sorry they tell you yes they've got diabetes with complications and you put no that's a lie if however you don't even ask any of the health questions that is an omission it's the same thing as a lie if someone went to four specialists in the last three months and you omitted all that information and you submitted that application as if it's truthful and factual upon which the basis of the insurance company will decide whether or not to give that person coverage or then later to potentially exclude coverage because there is a material omission on an application then for all intents and purposes that the agent lied now why did the person choose to do this because they had to have that next sale had to have that next application the reason why insurance companies check the credit of the agents that they're contracting is because they know that if your credit score is too bad then the agent gets too desperate and they start doing shady things bad business it does happen all the time so we have to look out for in our industry is that we don't get too hungry that we're willing to do absolutely anything to get the business because there's a healthy balance between doing the right thing for the client for the carrier and for yourself and when you start blurring the lines when you accept a little bit of dishonesty it gets easier and easier and easier i challenge you my fellow agents in the community maintain an impeccable credential and reputation the bible says that a reputation is very hard to get and it's a very valuable thing a good reputation and it's true and all it takes is one accusation one client making a complaint to the department of insurance or one case in our case of an agent being terminated for cause for lying on an application that then by our state law we are then obligated to report to the department of insurance we have to if an agent is terminated for cause for lying on an application could ruin a person's life and it's really not worth it if you do everything with integrity sooner or later that's going to catch up with you if you do everything without integrity and you take that slippery slope and you go that easier route easier easier easier you start asking less and less questions on the application on a life insurance question i've literally heard an agent say all i need for the life insurance application is who your beneficiary is no that's not all you need it's really not because you're purporting to fill out an application based on 30 health questions or something so it gets easier and easier to lie cheat and steal just for the sole purpose of getting a commission that i would argue you have to fight every day to maintain your integrity don't even let it in don't even let a glimpse of it in not even a blip not even one little thing that a person oh i forgot to ask that question i'll just go ahead and wing it i'll just i'm sure it'll be fine because there's nothing that's kept in private that will not eventually be revealed that's true and if there becomes a certain pattern like we saw in this situation and we go back to another one and another one and another one and they you can see literally a pattern of getting worse and worse and worse then that reputation unfortunately and that bad business will eventually catch up to and damage the agent so i encourage you go forward with integrity there's plenty of business there's plenty of healthy enough people out there there are plenty of people out there who are going to give you referrals of other good people like them if you keep on pressing toward the mark of doing things with integrity there's enough business you'll do it the right way you don't need to take shortcuts and you don't need to look for the magic pill the magic pill is hard work it's talking to enough people it's sorting the people like you're supposed to because you're representing not only the client but also the insurance company and if everybody was just out there willy-nilly answering all the questions no or never even asking the questions in the first place insurance itself would be unaffordable for other people to buy we have to set a higher bar in our industry so that we as insurance professionals get and then maintain a higher reputation than we enjoy right now i'm chris westfall thanks for watching have a great day