Life Happens: Getting back to the roots of storytelling

Illustration of a speech balloon that says: "Life Happens: What's your story?"

By Susan Rupe

Life Happens has a new executive director who wants to bring the organization back to its roots of telling stories about the ways life insurance plays a critical role in protecting Americans’ financial security.

Brian Steiner was named the executive director of Life Happens, which is the consumer arm of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. In August, NAIFA announced it would merge with Life Happens and the Society of Financial Services Professionals.

Life Happens focuses on consumer education about the importance of life insurance and related products in a sound financial plan. It conducts three national awareness campaigns each year: its flagship Life Insurance Awareness Month in September, Insure Your Love in February, and Disability Insurance Awareness Month in May.

Among Life Happens’ best-known initiatives is Real Life Stories, which tells the stories of families and individuals who had life insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance or annuities when it mattered most. Life Happens also conducts the Life Lessons Scholarship competition, where entrants submit essays or videos about how the death of a parent impacted their lives. Scholarships are made possible through individual donations and corporate sponsorship.

Steiner told InsuranceNewsNet that he wants to see Life Happens put a new focus on telling stories about ways that life insurance makes a difference to individuals and families, and use new channels to tell those stories.

“I think our focus moving forward will be kind of getting back to the roots of Life Happens, focusing on those stories, and working through different social media channels that I don't think a lot of the insurance companies can get to,” he said. “From a compliance perspective or for a lot of different reasons, companies maybe are not as active on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok.

“As an independent nonprofit, we can be an incubator to work through these different channels, start the conversation and bring awareness. Getting sick, dying or getting injured aren’t things a lot of people want to talk about. But by working through some of those new channels and getting creative, I think we have powerful ways to get the message out and get people to start thinking a little differently about life insurance.”

Taking the pulse of consumer perceptions

Life Happens and LIMRA conduct the annual Insurance Barometer Study, which tracks consumer perceptions, attitudes and behaviors, with a particular focus on life insurance. Steiner said Life Happens will continue to work with LIMRA on the annual Barometer Study, focusing on specific demographic segments that need coverage.

“We’ve been doing this Insurance Barometer Study for over the last decade, focusing on specific areas – most recently single mothers,” he said. “We’re developing a lot of stories, a lot of marketing assets, a lot of educational pieces – it’s really quite astonishing.”

Steiner said he wants Life Happens “to be a dynamic organization and continue to evolve.”

“We have an opportunity to expand more easily into the spaces that some of the companies aren’t as able to do, and ultimately focus on helping so many companies that are trying to expand into different demographics.”

He said one goal is to produce bilingual information and expand the organization’s presence in underserved markets, “to help bring some attention to the protection products that are so important to families and their financial futures.”

Steiner previously served as NAIFA’s vice president of business development and strategic partnerships from 2015-2021 and most recently was president of United Wealth Advisors Group. At NAIFA, Steiner oversaw the association’s non-dues revenue program. “It really gave me an opportunity to engage with a lot of the senior leadership of leading companies, and it put me on a path to ultimately oversee and work with the Life Happens team.” he said.

Life Happens/NAIFA merger is a win-win

The merger between Life Happens and NAIFA “is a win-win for both organizations,” Steiner said.

“Life Happens, being a public relations/consumer awareness group, is reaching the community with their campaigns,” he said. “But they were not a group that was focused much on the government relations side of things. NAIFA, on the other hand, is rooted in government relations and advocacy, but they didn’t have the microphone to get to the American consumer. I think now there is an opportunity to leverage the strengths of both NAIFA and Life Happens and be a better microphone for both sides.”

Susan Rupe is managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @INNsusan.