American National

[GAJ638]

I worked debit 20 years ago and liked it. HS is right, you really get to know your customers and after a time they can become close. Some I never saw. The ones that the premium hung on a nail on the front porch every month. You marked the book, took the cash and that was it. Those were the days....you could sell extra coverage by bringing a "special" letter from the "home office": "Just sign here, you feeling OK today (for the health questions), Mrs. Smith?"

OK...ok.... *I* always really read the questions.

The trick for eating good was to leave all your best cooks to collect around 5pm. At least one would tell you to "grab a plate...".

My older brother worked for the old Independent Life, which was a weekly collection (later bought out by AGLA along with Gulf Life). Those guys only worked M, Tu, and Wed... did some paperwork on Thurs and had a short meeting on Fridays.

Dang...now I have a headache from using my memory.

The debit area I worked was in eastern NC. Mainly rural areas. In the summer I would come home with all kinds of vegetables from customers. And yes.....if I hit dinner time right....home cooked dinner. One lady knew when I was coming would always bake sweet potato biscuits and wrap them up for me.

It is a lot different now as we collected from low income and a lot of middle income also. Now I think the companies that do this are in the low income areas and inner cities.

 

[rousemark]

The debit area I worked was in eastern NC. Mainly rural areas. In the summer I would come home with all kinds of vegetables from customers. And yes.....if I hit dinner time right....home cooked dinner. One lady knew when I was coming would always bake sweet potato biscuits and wrap them up for me.

It is a lot different now as we collected from low income and a lot of middle income also. Now I think the companies that do this are in the low income areas and inner cities.

Thought I had eaten most southern dishes but I have never had sweet potato biscuits..

 

[Jerard]

Thought I had eaten most southern dishes but I have never had sweet potato biscuits..

I tell ya...I could use a nice southern dish with a couple of biscuits right about now......

 

[HomeService]

But to answer the OP's original question: usually in the debit world a family is bundled together on a family policy for three basic reasons:

#1 if there's a policy fee involved, a family policy with wife and kids on there as riders equals only one policy fee

#2 the ease of the sale, ease of the app: " I can cover you for 10K and 5K on each kid for XYZ premium"

#3 ease of the collection: we put all the policies in the one collection book, if there's one policy to collect each month, easy to do

it's kind of a streamlining process

 

[shonceman]

But to answer the OP's original question: usually in the debit world a family is bundled together on a family policy for three basic reasons:

#1 if there's a policy fee involved, a family policy with wife and kids on there as riders equals only one policy fee

#2 the ease of the sale, ease of the app: " I can cover you for 10K and 5K on each kid for XYZ premium"

#3 ease of the collection: we put all the policies in the one collection book, if there's one policy to collect each month, easy to do

it's kind of a streamlining process

And to further clarify: If it's a "family plan", that often means that there is a primary insured on a permanent policy with spouse & minor children on term riders. A rider can be removed without affecting coverage on the primary insured, but the reverse isn't possible.

In this case, it sounds like we may be talking about adult children. So, the more likely scenario is that they're not actually bundled into one policy, but the owner may believe they are because he makes a single payment on a single account (called a "family group"). If that's the case, surrendering one policy won't affect the other members of the group.

However, there are companies that allow several individuals to be written together on a single application. They then issue a Family Policy, even though each person is individually underwritten & rated. If that's the case, the owner may surrender one or more insureds from the policy without affecting the rest (but it can't be split into separate policies). This is an older form, though, and you won't run into that very often unless it's a very old policy, and is probably not what you're looking at here.

 

[HomeService]

I'm just surprised the OP did not hear the term "debit" before this thread. Not an insult, just an observation. Because it is fairly common around here in TX, that's all. Especially in certain neighborhoods and small towns and such, big cities as well.

 

[HAMPnet]

I was from the midwest originally and I don't think it happens much up there. I lived in NY and that was the 1980's and John Hancock I think maybe still did debit in the 1980's, and Combined did it for a while.

I had the Finger Lakes District for Combined in New York, 1985, 1986. Someone's wondering how additional business is written. I used to give the renewal assignments to Salespeople so I could sell new accounts. The average agent got $2000 in renewals a week and got 7%. As far as new business, I sold 71 policies in a week in Rochester, the National Record at that time. Wrote 50+ four or five times. Funny thing about writing the record was 70 was the National Record, achieved 2 weeks prior. Six months later, it was found out the guy who wrote 70 sat in a hotel in Bath, NY, and wrote fencepost policies. His boss is still the head honcho for Combined in New York...

 

[rousemark]

I'm just surprised the OP did not hear the term "debit" before this thread. Not an insult, just an observation. Because it is fairly common around here in TX, that's all. Especially in certain neighborhoods and small towns and such, big cities as well.

The word debit is going by the way side.. There are AGLA agents that are currently working a debit that have never heard the term.. It is called an "Agency" now.. And the debit agents are referred to as "Career Service Professionals" or "Service Agents"

 

[HomeService]

I had the Finger Lakes District for Combined in New York, 1985, 1986. Someone's wondering how additional business is written. I used to give the renewal assignments to Salespeople so I could sell new accounts. The average agent got $2000 in renewals a week and got 7%. As far as new business, I sold 71 policies in a week in Rochester, the National Record at that time. Wrote 50+ four or five times. Funny thing about writing the record was 70 was the National Record, achieved 2 weeks prior. Six months later, it was found out the guy who wrote 70 sat in a hotel in Bath, NY, and wrote fencepost policies. His boss is still the head honcho for Combined in New York...

I was south of there, 87-89, with a large mutual company. My manager used to hate debit agents and John Hancock and combined agents, used to make fun of them relentlessly.

 

[shonceman]

I'm just surprised the OP did not hear the term "debit" before this thread. Not an insult, just an observation. Because it is fairly common around here in TX, that's all. Especially in certain neighborhoods and small towns and such, big cities as well.

Absolutely! I live in what was a small town (McKinney - now just part of the DFW megaplex). ANICO is very strong up here, with Reliable coming in a close second. When I started building a scratch book on my own, I just couldn't get it going here, because it's so saturated, and folks are very loyal. That's how I ended up building a mainly South Dallas book. I just started marketing to areas where agents fear to tread! Easier to make sales in the big city, but a lot harder to maintain persistency, IMO.

I am also surprised that anyone working in FE wouldn't know what a "debit" is. I guess we all learn something new every day, though, don't we?