Never Ever Become a Life Insurance Agent
But did you know that the career life agency is setting you up for failure. I will even bet you that you can’t make it four years even if you have some money you can get your hands on. How about I bet you that you only have a 10% chance of survival? Better yet, change that chance of success to 6%, I’m betting that 94 out of 100 newly recruited agents will not see their 4th insurance anniversary.
Don’t call me Dr Doom; I’ve done over 25 years of homework and intense analysis to be right. Now ask the insurance agent and the career insurance agency who is at fault for the failure. The agency will always blame it on the agent; the agent will blame the career insurance agency. Whose fault is it? 50% percent of the time it is the agency and the new insurance agent’s fault combined. The agent should not have applied for the position, and the recruiter should not have hired him. These new recruits are “order takers”, they can complete a sales application form, but this is a far distance from selling an recruiting skills.
The rest of the time, I would put the blame almost entirely on the career agency system. Good thing I’m no longer an insurance agent. Career agencies would like to gag me and hang me from the nearest tree for bringing to light the truth.
What really irks me? Almost all the career life insurance agencies use a similar plan with recruiting agents and handling them during their rookie years. How can any agent succeed with the statistics stacked so high against him, and the agency unwilling to take blame or make changes?
Let’s look first at the hiring system. Career agencies hire new agents two ways. The first is a good size ad in the local Sunday newspaper promising lots of income and plenty of benefits. The other is a recruiter hired by the career agency to attend job fairs and similar events to talk to college seniors. Chances are the college insurance recruiter may have never sold an insurance policy. With the agency running the classified ad, the sales manager is good at selling, but does not have a successful recruiting track record,
It does not matter much which way hooked you into responding, your chances are terrible. Does it really hurt the insurance company if you fail? You can get my opinion and analysis in an upcoming report “Agents stock the insurance company freezer”.
Don Yerke is the marketing adviser at Agents Insurance Marketing USA, a firm he founded over 25 years ago. This is the premier firm in providing carefully refined and selected Department of Insurance agent name lists. Our clients are composed of insurance company recruiting directors, independent marketing organizations, insurance wholesalers, and general agents looking to recruit quality agents. Check out our hottest articles. dyadvisor@gmail.com Our over 150 page website is located at http://www.agentsinsurancemarketing.com.
So, you failed as a a rep? Those who fail, blame the world? You sound intelligent, but perhaps this was not the right career for you. It’s not the right career for 50+% people out in the world, but that does not make it right to hate the industry. Reps are making top dollar, and you failed. I’m dragging myself through the mud right now, but making it happen. If you have ambition, the desire to succeed, and motivation to control your own destiny, do not listen to this writer. If you make excuses for your failure, don’t have the passion to work harder then you have ever worked before, and think everything comes easy, don’t even bother with this career. It’s not for most people!
Ditto on what Patrick said!
So basically–yes Patrick–this individual failed as an agent and now is trying to make money selling his “insider secrets”. It’s like anything else in life-either you’re good or you’re not. Either you work hard or you don’t.
I came from the world of Education-you should read about the turn over rates for teachers in this country–pretty darn high. Did that scare me from trying teaching? Nope. And i am glad i did–as i would have always be wondering if what I missed out on.
True-i decided to leave teaching after three years, not because i wasn’t making a livable wage (like some teachers in this country) but because I realized it wasn’t a profession for me.
Now i am ready to switch gears into Insurance. I may love it or hate it but i am willing to try. It’s not like this country has a glutony of jobs these days anyway. And one never knows whether or not they will be successful in ANY given profession since THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES OF SUCCESS WITH ANY CAREER.
My advice for switching into any new career would be to not expect to make more than $30-35K a year to start, become debt free before switching if at all possible and have at least a year’s worth of living expenses. Which i have.
If by the time the year is coming to a close(say 4 months out)and you have not made as much money as you needed to–get yourself a part-time or another full-time position ANYWHERE to make up for the loss even if it means working $10/hr. Very simple.
THE END.