Commercial or Personal P&C for a Newbie?

[rbordner]

I originally planned to do commercial and that is what I would prefer but it has been a little difficult finding an agency that is willing to train a newbie. So was thinking maybe start out with personal and go from there. Nothing about personal excites me but will do what it takes to get my foot in the door. Also the learning curve would be easier in pers. I would think.

Also I had hopes of getting onto a company that lets me own my book. Most of the big agencies are set up that way and that makes since to me but my questions is, is this realistic to find for somebody new in the business.

Thanks in advance for your help. I have been lookin through the old posts and this site has been very helpful.

 

[xrac]

You need to talk to every agency you can until you find the place that sounds like the best opportunity. This is your first sales job.......sell yourself.

 

[rbordner]

That is good advice Xrac, thanks. In truth I really have not pursued companies like I should. I have just been putting feelers out while getting my lic. I def plan to hit it hard once lic. You think it is possible to find a company willing to put the time in to train a newbie for commercial?

 

[xrac]

That is good advice Xrac, thanks. In truth I really have not pursued companies like I should. I have just been putting feelers out while getting my lic. I def plan to hit it hard once lic. You think it is possible to find a company willing to put the time in to train a newbie for commercial?

Probably depending upon the size of the market you are in.

 

[rbordner]

Orlando FL,

 

[xrac]

Orlando FL,

I would think as large as Orlanda is that you could find an someone that would take you on. However, I do not know how deeply the recession and property vacancy in your area have impacted the commercial market and if that has caused some agency to reduce staffing.

 

[FL P&C Broker]

My experience has been that the sales cycle in Commercial is a lot longer than Personal lines. In commercial you spend a lot of time collecting x dates and such. Unless you are getting a base pay will it will take a long time for you to make any money. My goal has been to build a solid book of personal line clients for 5 years and go whale hunting after I can build a solid base. I sold 3 home owners polices the day I opened the doors; I have sold about 5 commercial polices since we have been open in a year but we don't do any marketing for commercial. Home owners is easy to write in Florida if you have the right carriers. Take my advice for what it is since I don't do commercial.

 

[Guest]

Granted with PL, you will make less, but you should be able to sell more of it to make your money,

CL, is hard to get ahold of the right person you need to talk to. Granted CL generally pays more when you get a decent account, but remember the chargebacks also.

There is MUCH more to know about commerical, being a newbie, half of us P&C guys could start talking coverages and send you home crying like a baby.....

The benefit with CL is, when you get the business, hopefully, you get the PL also.

Most of the best carriers wont give a newbie access to them, most want a $50,000 a year commitment or the cancel you,

I personally think, a new agent needs to chase PL first, then after you are "fairly" successful, branch out to the CL, wait till you have a producer or 2 under you or even hire a CL only Producer.

If and when you decide to go after CL, i suggest picking 2 or 3 SIC codes, learn the inside and outside of that particular codes and then chase them.

Then pick something that has multiple SIC codes, such as a auto repair facility, then you get the GL, probally building, WC.

Then you should have an IN to the owners PL stuff, double payday!

I always tend to stay away from Restraunts, newbies tend to hit those hard, so I stay away, and generally, they arent a high premium so a waste of time.

When you talk to someone, always ask what they do for work, you will be amazed at how many people own their own business. You will be surprised at how many people run a business from home, and how many need insurance that they dont know about.

I went to a house, people had 5 cars, all 5 were parked in the driveway or street, I asked why nothing was parked in the garage, found out the people have an embroidary business run in the garage, they have $100,000 of equipment in the garage, the Farmers agent told them that it was all covered under the homeowners policy, As I pick myself up off the floor, and explained that wasnt true, (I was a farmers agent for 6 years, so I knew and no HO plicy will cover that anyway) and explained to them that he had to have a seperate policy for the business, they sighed.

So After I increased their coverage on their PL from 100/300 to 250/500 with an umbrella, and still saved them $1400 a year, just on the cars and $400 a year on the house, I then wrote them a $500 BOP to cover the business....

also walked out of the house with 2 referrals.....

Then to be extra good, After the policies arrived in their mail, I went over and went thru the policies and showed them where the business stuff would be excluded in the HO policy.

They were NOT happy with the Farmers agent for charging so much and basically lying to them about the business coverage.

So back to my point, I think you need to learn PL long before you learn CL, CL is confusing and way too many different policies to learn about each type of business.

I'm not saying run from CL, but you will stumble upon some, from your marketing or from PL stuff....

One thing I started doing also, was spend 1 day a week marketing CL, the other 4 marketing PL....

Still dabble in the CL, but focus on PL until you have a clear understanding....

Another suggestion, after you have done some PL auto and get fairly comfortable, then start chasing Commercial Auto, much the same coverages and will help you learn the CL side, then you can get the rest of the CL policies......

 

[OhioInsurance55]

My dad has owned a couple different companies one being personal and one being commercial and I can tell you commercial is a tough gig. He has run commercial (Transportation) divisons for the whole US for many big companies as well and has def made a good buck off it. That being said when he owned his own agency in commercial he made a lot of money but eventually because of a few factors he had to shut that down. All of his buddies in the business want me to go commercial as well but I feel I may end up starting off personal to get my feet wet.

 

[VaDwayne]

This I can tell you with 100% certainty. I was in the car business for 20 years and the commercial side of P&C is far more cut throat than the car business. I LOVE IT, but I can see why it wouldn't be for everybody.