The new client psychology of insurance

When I look around this industry right now, what I see isn’t a shortage of knowledge, it’s a shortage of presence.

Advisors have more information at their fingertips than at any point in history.

They have access to CRMs, financial planning tools, illustration systems, templates, and online learning that once took years to master.

And yet, despite all that, most advisors feel less in control than they did ten years ago.

They’re stretched thin. Distracted. Always one ping, one call, or one email away from losing focus.

It’s not about intelligence anymore.

It’s about presence.

The ability to stay grounded, composed, and authoritative when everything around you feels chaotic.

The ability to hold space with a client, not to rush to the next answer or illustration, but to actually leadthe conversation.

That’s what’s missing.

That’s the authority gap.

When I first started in this business, I thought authority came from information.

If you knew the product specs, the underwriting rules, and the right scripts, you’d win the room.

But authority doesn’t come from data, it comes from energy.

It’s how you show up when someone is uncertain.

It’s how you speak when the client looks to you for direction.

It’s how you remain calm when everyone else is trying to rush the process.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: most advisors outsource that energy.

They hand it off to their wholesalers, their compliance teams, or their back office.

They wait for someone else to give them permission.

But clients, especially successful ones, can feel the difference between someone who’s waiting for an answer and someone who is the answer.

They buy from the one who radiates presence.

That realization is what led me to build what I now call The Super Underwriter.

It started with frustration, waiting days for basic underwriting answers that should take seconds.

So I took matters into my own hands.

I uploaded the underwriting guides of almost every major Canadian insurer, life, CI, and disability, into a custom GPT project.

Now I can ask:

“What’s the rating range for a 54-year-old with controlled diabetes?”

“Which carrier is most lenient on elevated liver enzymes?”

“Who will consider private pilots standard?”

And I get the answer instantly.

Not perfectly, not always the final word l, but directionally right, and fast enough to keep the conversation moving.

It doesn’t replace the underwriters, it just replaces the pause.

It gives me presence in front of the advisor, or client, or accountant.

I can look them in the eye and say, “Here’s how we’ll position this,” instead of, “Let me check and get back to you.”

That’s what changes everything.

AI isn’t replacing humans, it’s replacing hesitation.

And hesitation is the death of authority.

So how do you build presence?

If it’s not just knowledge or tools, what is it?

I’ve narrowed it down to five things that separate advisors who command the room from those who lose it.

1. Preparation creates presence.

Most advisors think confidence shows up in the meeting. It doesn’t.

Confidence shows up in how you prepare before the meeting.

The best advisors don’t wing it. They rehearse questions, preempt objections, and run multiple scenarios so nothing surprises them.

If you’ve ever walked into a high-value client meeting with a knot in your stomach, it wasn’t fear, it was lack of preparation.

Because when you truly know your process, fear disappears.

Presence starts before the meeting starts.

2. Simplification builds authority.

We all know the advisor who explains too much.

Who uses technical terms to prove how smart they are.

But here’s the paradox: the more you say, the less the client trusts you.

Authority isn’t complexity,it’s clarity.

A good advisor can explain an estate freeze in twenty minutes.

A great advisor can explain it in two sentences.

When you simplify, you project confidence.

When you simplify, clients breathe easier.

And when clients breathe easier, they buy.

3. Momentum creates confidence.

Momentum is what makes clients follow your lead.

If a client asks a question and you pause, hesitate, or defer, momentum dies.

If you can respond calmly and decisively, “Here’s what I’d recommend”, the conversation stays alive.

That’s what the Super Underwriter gave me: momentum.

Not because it’s magic, but because it removes the drag of uncertainty.

When you can make quick, informed decisions, clients trust your pace.

They start matching your energy instead of leading it.

And that’s when your business accelerates.

4. Grounding builds trust.

Every client interaction has two conversations happening at once.

One with words.

And one with energy.

Clients don’t just listen to what you say, they feel how you say it.

When you get flustered, they feel it.

When you’re rushed, they sense it.

When you’re grounded, calm, slow, deliberate, they relax.

That’s presence.

It’s not about being robotic; it’s about being unshakeable.

The best advisors are the emotional regulators in the room.

They absorb the client’s anxiety without reflecting it back.

They lead the tone, the pace, and the energy.

That’s what leadership feels like.

5. Consistency scales trust.

Presence isn’t a one-time event. It’s a pattern clients come to rely on.

The advisor who’s consistent, in follow-ups, tone, punctuality, and preparedness, builds long-term authority.

Because consistency equals reliability.

And reliability equals trust.

Clients might not always understand what you do, but they feel whether you’re dependable.

The easiest way to grow your book isn’t to become flashier or louder, it’s to become more consistent.

If your client always feels like they’re your only client, you’ll never run out of referrals.

These five habits, preparation, simplification, momentum, grounding, and consistency, are what separate the top 10% from everyone else.

They don’t make you louder. They make you calmer.

They don’t make you chase. They make you attract.

And that’s the point.

The industry keeps getting noisier.

But clients don’t want more noise, they want clarity.

They want the advisor who doesn’t panic when a strategy gets questioned, or when an accountant challenges a concept.

They want the one who breathes, adjusts, and explains without breaking rhythm.

That’s what presence looks like in real time.

And here’s where this ties back to the bigger picture.

Presence doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It requires infrastructure.

You can’t be grounded if your systems are chaotic.

You can’t be confident if your tools slow you down.

That’s why, at PPI, we’re building for this exact moment.

We’re not trying to be the loudest distributor or the flashiest.

We’re focused on being the most effective.

We’re owned by Industrial Alliance,one of Canada’s largest financial institutions, but our mission has always been about empowering independent advisors to move faster, stay sharper, and show up with more authority.

That means giving advisors choice.

Choice of software, tools, and process.

We don’t force you into a single planning platform.

We support the ones you already use, and where possible, we negotiate group discounts so you keep more of your margin.

Unlike some organizations, we’re not building profit centers out of the tools you depend on.

If we pay $100 for something, you pay $100, or less.

Because the goal isn’t to profit from your progress; it’s to fuel it.

That’s the same reason we built Amplify, our version of Life Design Analysis, integrated with live carrier feeds and 1App, a unified platform that allows you to submit business to multiple carriers from one place.

These aren’t gimmicks; they’re force multipliers.

They remove friction, so you can focus on being present with clients instead of managing paperwork.

And then there’s our Advisory by PPI division, a team of advanced planning experts, CPAs, and legal minds who specialize in corporate and estate planning strategies.

When an advisor has a big case l, complex shareholders, layered holdcos, passive assets, trusts, they can bring in the Advisory team for a second set of eyes.

That’s presence at scale.

Because when you know your bench is that deep, you don’t flinch in a meeting.

And finally, our Advantage program.

Once advisors hit certain thresholds, we reinvest directly into their growth.

We pay for HR consulting.

We pay for recruiting support.

We pay for compensation design.

All so you can grow your firm the right way, without paying extra for it.

This is what presence looks like at the organizational level:

A structure that creates calm, not chaos.

Speed, not shortcuts.

Confidence, not confusion.

Here’s the truth:

The industry is shifting faster than most people realize.

Artificial intelligence, consolidation, and compliance automation are rewriting the rules.

But through all that, the human advantage hasn’t changed.

Clients still buy presence.

They still buy certainty.

They still buy leadership.

If you can hold space for someone’s uncertainty, financially, emotionally, or strategically, you will always have a seat at the table.

That’s what authority looks like now.

Presence isn’t something you fake. It’s something you build.

And when you combine presence with infrastructure, the right tools, partners, and systems, you become unstoppable.

That’s what I’ve been building personally with projects like the Super Underwriter.

That’s what PPI is building institutionally across Canada.

And that’s what I’m helping advisors develop every day:

The ability to stand taller, think faster, and lead with calm authority, even when the industry feels like it’s spinning.

That’s how you close bigger cases.

That’s how you deepen trust.

That’s how you scale.

And if you want to see how to build that kind of presence into your own business, the kind that creates authority, trust, and momentum, then let’s talk.

Because the future of advice won’t belong to the loudest or the biggest.

It’ll belong to the most present.