I had an interview today with Combined Insurance Co. Here’s how it works, as explained to me: Go to Portland on the company’s dime for training and licensing. Go out with a field agent for two weeks. Get paid $500 for at least the first week. Visit each customer every six months. Earn a commission on each renewal (97% renewal rate), which is said to be maybe $500/week. Earn an additional commission on new sales. Collect residuals on existing accounts (about $70/month).
So let me get this straight: Just by visiting existing customers and ‘servicing’ their accounts (i.e., getting them to renew), I make a living wage. By selling more policies ‘using our proven sales techniques’ the sky’s the limit.
Sounds fishy to me. :dubious:
Does anyone have any experience in this sort of thing?
Life insurance commissions generally are the largest in the first couple of years of the policy and decrease every year. After a few years, it’s quite low. So, the only way to continue to receive any kind of steady commission rate is to consistently sell new policies.
The “proven sales technique,” which you will need in order to achieve #1, is cold-calling. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cold calls. If you don’t like calling hundreds of strangers and trying to sell them something, which is what you will be doing, then don’t get into this business.
If they tell there is no cold-calling, they just might be lying.
This is not specific to the company you mention; it’s just general life-insurance-sales practice.
Selling insurance is without a doubt the most horrible job known to mankind.
Over the past 100 years the insurance industry as a whole has completely poisoned the well - so to speak. While everyone needs insurance, the methods they have used are so dastardly that no one with a room temperatrure IQ will listen to an insurance salesman. They buy off the internet.
Run for your life while you still can.
Been there, done that, still got the damn Snoopy T shirt! :dubious:
It can be quite good, or it can be quite bad. What they’re telling you is technically true, but it’s not as easy as they make it sound. The use of quotes makes it clear you realize there is no such thing as a proven sales technique that always works. Yes, you can make a lot of money, but it’s like any commission based work; There will be very good times and bad times so make sure you’re prepared for the slow times.
As to one (very) positive example -
A girl that got her insurance license a few months before I did visited her doctors office the week after she passed the exams. She was chatting with the doctors wife and mentioned that she was recently licensed. The doctors wife said “Hmm, our medical malpractice insurance is coming up…we might be interested in switching carriers.” They purchased a policy through her, policy with a $1,000,000 annual premium at 10% commission. Also a 10% commission when the policy renews. That sort of thing never happens for me.
If I’m not mistaken, Combined is Clement Stone’s. I think that it’s only an accident policy that pays if you lose one eye, or one leg, or any combination. You might want to ask about this.
I could be wrong, it might not be the one that I’m thinking of. If it is, go for the first week, collect $500 and then try Prudential. If it is a cold-call scenario, don’t even go for the first week.
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