Charge Backs From Past Employers?

[nfl72]

If its not bad enough to work for a company at 55% and also being charged $10 a lead, as First Financial Insurance Group of Carleton, Michigan does.

I was just informed they sent about 20 "collection agency" notices to past agents, whom they claimed didn't have enough money in their escrow accounts to cover the cost of leads, licensing, E&O insurance and chargebacks. They never even bothered to send a bill to the agent, notifying them of the shortage. They just bypassed the law and sent them directly to collection.

Is this a common practice in the insurace business?


I also was told it is a common practice of them to not notify an agent of an impending cancelation and to just send out a new agent in hopes of rewriting them.


FIRST FINANCIAL INSURANCE GROUP


"A PLACE WHERE YOU WORK,

THEY PAY YOU IN PEANUTS,

YOU LEAVE,

AND YOU KEEP ON PAYING!"

 

[NovaGal]

Licensing & E&O.... are you personally responsible for that? Why would the company pay for that? You have to do CE & submit it, etc... it is your license.

No idea about the chargeback issues... however, I worked in the life industry at a large corp. and saw some kinda uncool things happening with this orphan client list. Nothing would surprise me when it comes to allowing lapses and then sending out another agent to resell & rewrite.

 

[Josh]

Is this where you were getting those great leads?

If you get a notice from collections it usually gives you the option to dispute it as long as you contact them within 30 days. If you dispute it, then they have to prove you owe the debt.

 

[nfl72]

Their leads were mailers that lead people to believe they were going to get free help with medicare and medicaid. They were very misleading and other than the last sentence said nothing about final expense life insurance.

My understanding was they would pay for the licensing and E&O insurance etc up front, but they would take it out of your comissions when you did get paid. They also took out 10% of all commissions to cover chargebacks.

I stopped working for them about 2 years ago. Their basic payplan was you work for 55% and pay for all your crappy leads. But you don't have to worry about future residuals because you won't get any.