Colonial Life Worksite Benefits

[JMH]

Colonial Life is a solid company. I've sold their products as well as trained their people. They do have role specialization but if you want to open and enrol your cases that was never a issue. Regarding turnover....it's insurance there is always turnover. With that being said I found it less than with other companies.

 

[thebig_j]

I was told the average agent stays for 7 years. Which sounds great to me. I would imagine farmers and aflac... measure their agent retention in months... or days.

 

[JMH]

Each company has an appetite for a particular type of "recruit" some like new to the business, others prefer a more seasoned/established/experienced agent/recruit. Certainly there can be a case made for each. For example, new to the business the mindset is "we can train them our way". Those looking for the experienced agent feels like they can get more production faster.
Two different approaches produce two different company cultures. One has more cheer-leading the other is "you know what you need to do so go do it." Not saying one is right and one is wrong, just two different ways of looking at it. Ultimately it's all about where you can be the most successful.

 

[insurancemet]

How does Combined Insurance compare to Colonial..same type of insurance.

 

[Guest]

I am currently running away from farmers as fast and hard as possible. Before the door was even closed behind me a friend called me. She runs a small consulting firm and works regularly with Colonial life. She has come upon the oppertunity to start a new district and has asked me to come along as her first agent. After Meeting with her today I am very interested.

It basically looks like we will be learning together, her with 4 weeks of training and from what I understand I'll have about a week. I respect this girl alot and think she will be great support and motivation. She is also very confident in her territory manager. Training sounds good even including the territory manager selling my first few appointments and comming with me while I sell my next few. Sounds amazing compaired to farmers kick in the pants and here go sell.

So my question is does anyone have any expirance wit colonial life? The products, underwriting, difficulties and upsides? How reform will effect this market?

This oppertunity sounds good. Not to good just good. No agents in Illinois at all and supposedly products that no one else sells (medical bridge). The ability to enroll for an extra 15%. The ability to pick up health... and other carriers and possibility of moving up to agency development.

Any and all thoughts appreciated.

If you tell me its hard to make more than 75k here... I don't care.I'm not.greedy and I think I could do just fine with 75k

My insurance career began in a Colonial agency and I hated it. Nothing against Colonial, it is a great company. But I didn't care for the agency model.

The good thing about Colonial is that Aflac has most of the market, so it gives you an opportunity to go in and replace Aflac. Colonial's prices are competitive and their products are (or were then) comparable to Aflac.

What I hated is that there are too many people getting a piece of the pie. You have your 'openers' and your 'enrollers'. They don't allow you to go out and find an account, then do the enrollment yourself. They have a different person for each job, so each person splits the commission.

Also, you are working with small businesses and it is tough to get a decision maker. These people are getting called every day from people trying to sell them something, and they just don't take calls. You can do walk-ins, but it is much more time consuming.

The thing that finally drove me away is the agency hired telemarketers to set up appointments for you. These telemarketers were strictly commission and got a cut off all the accounts open. So now the pie is divided even more. Plus, we all know the quality of a telemarketed appointment in any line of business.

Good luck.
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I was told the average agent stays for 7 years. Which sounds great to me. I would imagine farmers and aflac... measure their agent retention in months... or days.

HAHAHAHA!!! NO WAY! I can almost promise you that the average agent doesn't stay for 7 years. Its a turn and burn operation, constant recruiting. The agency I was at had 20 agents, the longest term employee was there for about 1 year. Most were less than 6 months.

 

[shonceman]

HAHAHAHA!!! NO WAY! I can almost promise you that the average agent doesn't stay for 7 years. Its a turn and burn operation, constant recruiting. The agency I was at had 20 agents, the longest term employee was there for about 1 year. Most were less than 6 months.

Like I said before, a lot depends on the particular office and manager you're working with. I can tell you that I was there for 6 years, and there were several agents there before me that were still there when I left. Of course there were others that didn't last 6 months!

You do have to be able to spot recruiting hype, though. A couple of things this manager has told you sounds like "fluff" to me also. So proceed with caution!

 

[thebig_j]

Thanks for the info. I'm not to worried about to many hands in my pie at first. I am comming in on the ground floor of this brand new district. So I am allowed to both open and enroll, and for right now there are only 3 people involved. The dm a coordinator and myself. Also if the district does well I am a shoe in for becoming the agency development manager. Then I can take 7% of someone else's pie.

As I said before money is not the biggest factor here. Im 27 have a wife and no kids. So I don't need to make billions I just want to be comfortable. Colonials paperwork estimates 24 accounts in a year at $144000 will bring me 52k in the first year. Do these numbers sound reasonable to anyone? If they are inflated I can still be happy at 30k in my first year.

 

[Josh]

Thanks for the info. I'm not to worried about to many hands in my pie at first. I am comming in on the ground floor of this brand new district. So I am allowed to both open and enroll, and for right now there are only 3 people involved. The dm a coordinator and myself. Also if the district does well I am a shoe in for becoming the agency development manager. Then I can take 7% of someone else's pie.

As I said before money is not the biggest factor here. Im 27 have a wife and no kids. So I don't need to make billions I just want to be comfortable. Colonials paperwork estimates 24 accounts in a year at $144000 will bring me 52k in the first year. Do these numbers sound reasonable to anyone? If they are inflated I can still be happy at 30k in my first year.

Those numbers are rubbish.

If I had to pick between the two I'd happily go with Farmers, but that's just me. As is the case with most of these deals, it's going to come down to your marketing. Odds are you won't be able to get enough traction to every even make $30k in a year after expenses, let alone anything more than that.

They are always recruiting. They always want new agents. Their products are good and they have good support, but you're going to fail or succeed based on your ability to find new clients, odds are that's going to be tough. You'd probably make more money as a CSR a P&C shop.

 

[thebig_j]

Josh. I'm confused. If its they have good products at competive prices and good support then why is success so impossible? Is it because no one has to have these coverages. Or just that business owners/gatekeepers won't let you talk to their people? Marketing wise I will be making alot of cold calls and drop ins. Any suggestions on better ideas than that?

 

[Josh]

Josh. I'm confused. If its they have good products at competive prices and good support then why is success so impossible? Is it because no one has to have these coverages. Or just that business owners/gatekeepers won't let you talk to their people? Marketing wise I will be making alot of cold calls and drop ins. Any suggestions on better ideas than that?

You're going to be doing the same thing every other colonial and aflac agent is going to be doing. The only folks I've seen do particularly well with any group like this is those that already have the connections for some larger groups to begin with.

Let's also not ignore that the cost of employer health insurance is going up as a result of the recent legislation and for a number of reasons voluntary benefits aren't going to be as attractive as they used to be. If folks are getting double digit increases in their health insurance premium to begin with, why would they want another payroll deduction?