Captive vs. Indy

[DieRichORHveALyf]

I've been reading a lot on this page about the differences between captive agents and indy agents. I was looking for some help to make a list of different companies that are captive and another list of indy companies. Preferably companies that sell in Illinois.

 

[Mike007]

What products are you planning to sell? What's your niche market? What is your marketing plan? What is your experience? Do you need hand holding? Not everyone is built to be an independent agent....It requires a lot of discipline.

 

[DieRichORHveALyf]

What products are you planning to sell? What's your niche market? What is your marketing plan? What is your experience? Do you need hand holding? Not everyone is built to be an independent agent....It requires a lot of discipline.

Mike thanks for your reply, to be honest, I haven't thought about any of those points too thoroughly. I stumbled upon this page and started reading, many of the threads I came across talked about captive vs. indy, and I'm not too educated on the specific companies that are exclusive with their sales ("captive"). As well the same for indy companies.

I was hoping to just make a list in the sense of "these are the captive companies: Allstate, State Farm, Farmers, Nationwide. while these are indy: Erie, Hudson, Hartford, etc."

 

[Mike007]

What product do you want to focus? P&C? Life Insurance? Or both? Furthermore, the more products you want to sell, the more licenses you must have. Some insurance companies offer everything. Some only offers life. Some only offers P&C. So, without knowing what products you want to sell, it's hard to tell you which company you should look into.

Plus, your experience and capital will play a crucial role whether you should be a captive or an independent agent.

Most captive career, you must go through the hiring process. You must get hired by the hiring manager. There's more hand holding in a captive career. More structure. Best for those who have minimal or limited capital, sales, marketing, or entrepreneur spirit.

As an independent, you can just contact a insurance sales organization and they will give you a contract and hopefully assign you to a local upline/manager to train you....but you better have: 6 months to a year worth of capital, strong sales, strong marketing, or strong entrepreneur spirit. If you don't, it's going to be an uphill battle.

 

[marindependent]

I've been reading a lot on this page about the differences between captive agents and indy agents. I was looking for some help to make a list of different companies that are captive and another list of indy companies. Preferably companies that sell in Illinois.

If you really want a complete list - I would encourage you to go pull records from the State Regulator. They should have a list of all admitted carriers in a given type of insurance. From there work through that list sequentially one by one.

As an independent, I created one of these through the California Department of Insurance awhile back and it has been exceptionally helpful to me over the years.

 

[Dawn Nelson]

@DieRichORHveALyf Definitely check out your DOI, you can typically find a list of the insurers in your state, often these lists are comprehensive and include addresses/phone numbers. Best of luck to you!