Reverse mortgage giant American Advisors Group is increasing its public exposure efforts through a partnership with senior in-home care provider Visiting Angels.
AAG is the only preferred reverse mortgage lending partner for Visiting Angels’ clientele, AAG said in its announcement of the partnership Wednesday. It is the first alliance AAG has established with a non-medical, in-home care service provider.
Visiting Angels, a franchisor of in-home assisted living services for seniors, has more than 500 non-medical, private duty home care agencies throughout the U.S. and provides a range of non-medical elder care services.
Through the partnership, AAG’s national field sales team will provide training and education to Visiting Angels local franchise owner/operators. The team will coach franchisees on how to initiate the reverse mortgage and senior care conversations not only with the client, but with his or her adult children and caregivers as well.
The training will “help guide senior care recipients through the reverse mortgage conversation,” says Kevin Blakeney, SVP of AAG’s national field sales team, in a statement.
“Visiting Angels’ clients and their adult children will learn about the numerous benefits of reverse mortgage and how this powerful retirement planning tool can help fund the vital in-home services seniors need to live as comfortably as possible,” he said.
AAG and Visiting Angels serve the same client demographic—American seniors, the company says. Their shared mission of helping seniors age in place led the company to reach out to Visiting Angels to start the conversation. Ultimately both organizations agreed no the opportunity to work together.
The top-10 lender has recently launched other efforts toward driving exposure for AAG specifically, and reverse mortgages in general, in addition to its ongoing TV advertising featuring former Senator Fred Thompson.
Last year, AAG boosted its reverse mortgage exposure with a TV sponsorship of a nationally broadcasted U.S. Figure Skating event, and did the same in 2013 as well.
In February, AAG posted 2,092 new reverse mortgage applications, breaking its previous high of 2,004 submissions in October 2014. In comparison, overall volume for the industry dipped 4% last month after remaining largely stagnant at the start of the year.
Part of the reverse mortgage lender’s success comes from its ability to reach and communicate with senior audiences, Paul Fiore, executive vice president of retail lending, previously told RMD.
Written by Cassandra Dowell
