Pressure and fear: scarily effective.

But here's the rub: if you use those two things to sell more insurance policies, you will ultimately fail. "The challenge of marketing with fear isn't efficacy. Of course fear marketing works. The challenge is ethics and brand," writes marketing expert Seth Godin.

Godin has a great point. First off, let's take a look at the ethics issue. In an industry like insurance—one that rightly or wrongly has developed a bad reputation—ethics are quite important. Think about it: you're asking people to give you money to protect against the possibility of calamity or injury. As it is, most people don't like to spend money on things that don't produce a tangible, immediate benefit. If you give people reason to question your integrity, they will be much less likely to send money your way. (That's a bit of an understatement.)

The other reason is this: people don't like to be scared. They may scare easily and often act on those fears, but even victims of fear-based sales tactics know what's happening. And they will resent the person who makes them feel that way. Needless to say, that's not a basis for a long-term relationship.

Lastly, if your sales strategy is predicated on fear and pressure, you'll be always be running against the clock, because people will abide fear and pressure for only so long.