About to go captive with Bankers Life

[fed up]

Bankers is a constant mill of agents. they bring in 20-30 at a time for each branch and give them a few weeks to prove they can make it. Usually 3-4 out of each class survive and then Bankers replaces some who have been with them because their production has dropped off. There was a new class in the branch I worked out of every 30 days

 

[titeye]

I am being nice....to Jmos!

When you find time, I would like your feedback on a post I created in the Senior Insurance Forum this morning.

 

[WinoBlues]

After you get through the 1 week training and are released to the phones on Friday, don't be too surprised at the number of agents working in the branch. You will be handed a sheet that has lots of names and numbers and there will be at least 1 or 2 seed leads on it, people who have recently called or mailed. you will get excited that you made an appointment for the following week and a manager will go with you to help you get a sale. You will give up 50% to the manager. Congrats, you only have to make 19 more dales to stay hired.

50% plus his override he gets to train and support you.

 

[fed up]

50% plus his override he gets to train and support you.

And I always found it funny that the manager I worked with and cut in on my commission would never allow me to accompany him on a sales call to one of his customers, yet he received $40K bonus checks quarterly

 

[Todd King]

When you find time, I would like your feedback on a post I created in the Senior Insurance Forum this morning.

Just replied to that. I pretty much went against the grain.

 

[WMSG]

I can't speak directly to some of the specific issues or questions, but I can share my experience. First, for someone new in the industry -- like with many things in our industry -- there are advantages and disadvantages to going captive. Most of the time your renewals are not vested, which in short means, you leave, you leave your renewals. They do not go with you. Now, that might be OK, you are a captive agent -- you are being held captive, LOL, just kidding -- for a few years, you become experienced, you learn, etc., and you are writing new business. Now you leave, you leave your renewals, and go on your own, and you take the hit on renewals, but you hopefully make it up on new business, something or somewhere else, etc.

The biggest advantage about going captive is training. I've always told new people -- go and get the best training you possibly can, and there is some excellent training out there. It will be company specific and then agency/firm specific. When I came into this business back in the mid 80's -- the best training in the game was the Old Connecticut General/CIGNA agencies/offices. This was the precursor to Sagemark. It was the cream of the crop training. Guardian was well known, Mass Mutual, Northwestern, NY Life, New England, and then the Prudential's, Met Life's, and so on. If you found your way to a specific office/agency where they focused on the business owner, HNW marketplace, you were going to get some great training.

You can learn, train, get experienced, etc. -- and you pay a price for that -- the price is being captive, and direct costs. Many of these offices/agencies will charge rent, office expenses, support, tech, and so on. Remember, captive or not -- you are in your own business.

I don't hear "great" or even "good" things about Bankers Life, and their agency/distribution/product system. Some of the experts here can and seem to have spoken to those issues. I don't feel they are a major player in the life marketplace vis a vis agency/agent/distribution system, but that's just me -- at least they are not in my marketplace.

All the best.

 

[bmarsh]

All the Bankers Agents in Central FL left and created Great American Senior Benefits (era 2007), now still operating as American Senior Benefits (ASB Financial) Recently bought out by Integrity.

 

[Chazm]

Check out MeetFuturity.com
Curtis Carey, the Sales Vice President has more than 19 years of experience as a regional director at Bankers Life and Casualty Company. Many made the change to Futurity like himself.

yeah a lot of ex bankers managers went to futurity and they teach the same stuff. Doesn’t make them much better.

 

[Chazm]

All the Bankers Agents in Central FL left and created Great American Senior Benefits (era 2007), now still operating as American Senior Benefits (ASB Financial) Recently bought out by Integrity.

I started at GASB in feb 2009 and yes our bosses were all from Bankers. It was a churn and burn biz and I couldn’t understand why people stayed in the office year after year. Low commissions, training was a joke, leads were non existent and in the year I was there, 3 locations that I worked at closed down.
The one positive was meeting a guy named Bill who finally told me how to sell to T65’s. I quit and I got him and 2 other guys to leave right after me and see the light.

 

[WMSG]

And I always found it funny that the manager I worked with and cut in on my commission would never allow me to accompany him on a sales call to one of his customers, yet he received $40K bonus checks quarterly

When I came into the business -- I made that exact request of my manager -- and he was delighted I did, said that had only been requested twice, and not in many years...and he said absolutely!!! I went with him on appointments to an existing client of his and a new prospect/someone he got referred to.

I learned more on those few appointments than I did in any training class!!!