Experience with American Income Life?

[arnguy]

"American Income Life's executive offices are located in Waco, Texas. AIL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Torchmark Corporation (NYSE: TMK), based in McKinney, Texas."

I worked for them for a time. The manager I had was a liar and a thief. They do recruit constantly and will take anyone who breathes. They use a free accident policy (ours was $1,000) to get the foot in the door. They play the union card real strong we even had a membership card to show. Part of our presentation was to ask for donations of canned goods to help other union workers either laid off or striking. Softened them up for the sale. We sold small dollar amounts of life (packaged as final expense) and accident coverage along with cancer policies. The prime market was the lower middle class down. It was not hard to do, I closed the first time I ever presented. The problem I had were as follows:

(1)They scheduled all of the appointments for us (usually five per day). Sometimes these were not good appointments with no shows and so forth and for that I blame the people overseeing the telemarketing.

(2)Our office had a large area to cover and they set appointments for me as far as 120 miles away. This meant about 4 hours of windshield time plus the time for the appointments. If you were doing appointments that far away you were putting in a lot of hours since we ran appointments five days per week. You could easily log 50 hours plus just driving and doing appointments not counting office time.

(3)Our appointments were almost all rural with tons of driving (with gas prices today that would be a killer). You didn't set the appointments so sometimes you found yourself driving back and forth because of the appointment order.

(4)Appointment were always ran in the evening except for Saturday mornings. The reason is these were unioin workers who mostly work day shift and you had to have both husband and wife home for the presentation. If you had appointments 2 hours away with the last appointment at 9:00 p.m. you could easily not be home before midnight or one o'clock. My wife got tired of that real fast.

(5)This is a Torchmark outfit and the Union card was only a gimmick although a very effective one.

(6)All you were in this position was just a peddler. Your were helping people a little bit but you weren't a professional who offered real solutions for real problems. When you ran across someone who had serious need of an annuity, or and IRA, or a large face amount policy you were out of luck.

(7)The manager at this office was a sleaze ball punk.

All in all American Income is not a place I would try to build a career. In the right office with the right management you can make some money and learn some stuff but there are a lot better places to start. If you can qualify I would look at one of the majors like MM, NWM, NYL, Metlife, or Guardian. If not there look at Combined or Western Southern. These are just the places I am familiar with I they are all better choices than AI.

Wow! My experience with AIL was similar to that of xrac. I sold for them before they were bought by Torchmark. We used the $1,000 AD&D free policy as a door opener. As indicated above, we sold the life policy based on hourly pay of the worker. I had to join the Service Employees Union and show that card to prospects to show a "union brotherhood." The worst part was the leads----fortunately gas was much cheaper then. At one point I was told that all my leads would be in one postal zone. It turned out this was a mostly rural area and the zip code must have been aboui 35 miles long by 45 miles wide. Man, what a lot of travelling----and as xrac indicated, late hours. Don't do it. THe cost of gasoline will put you in BK!

 

[Guest]

I sound like a good candidate for them based on hours and owning a Metro. Is the policy horrible or decent enough for what you pay for kind of deal? Be honest please. One of the something is better than nothing type situations?

 

[tommyk]

Just a note about the recruiting.
They recruit so much because:
That is how the managers get paid.
Not only do they get an override on agents production, but, based on the number of people they recruit really helps out. Example is the District needs to recruit 20 plus new agents a month...now this is the whole district not just the one manager...this is also regardless if the agent ever shows up for training or the likes, it makes no difference. The managers make from $200 - $300 per new agent..so if the manager is able to recruit 4 people a week..16 a month = $3200 - $4800 a month recruiting bonus....How do I know. I was going to be a Regional Manager for these people, but could not do the misleading and crap...ethics just walked away.

 

[xrac]

Based upon my experience you could make a living with American Income but I don't think you make a lot of money unless you get into a management position. The advanatge of American Income is that once you are licensed you can turn dollars now. You don't have the lead time that is required in developing a pipeline of prospects and the products you are selling are simple. If you don't mind the hours and the driving it can be decent experience while you look for something more permanent. I would check out the office manager and see how sleazy they are and I wouldn't do it if they seem too slimy. I would also make sure I had a good subcompact car.

 

[insureagent]

I wouldnt like you very much if you sold one of these policies to anyone I know.

 

[xrac]

I wouldnt like you very much if you sold one of these policies to anyone I know.

Now I don't feel that way. I think some protection is better than no protection even if it isn't the best product at the best price. At least they now have enough coverage for burial or a little accident coverage whereas before they had nothing.

 

[Corporate Death]

Now I don't feel that way. I think some protection is better than no protection even if it isn't the best product at the best price. At least they now have enough coverage for burial or a little accident coverage whereas before they had nothing.

I sorta agree with this. I sold it based on filling in gaps that their health bene's didnt have. I didnt use the scare tactics they used, as a matter of fact, I put the presentation book under my car seat the third week out. The people I visited were hourly wage earners (LOW hourly wages) and some time in the hospital would have wiped them out completely. At very least, I could get them a few hundred bucks a week while they were out of commission. Remember, this was in the hills of Pennsyltucky in 1991-1993. $3-500/week while they were laid up was about 80% of what they earned. Not bad. Even the Penna Nurses Association members jumped all over this stuff cause it was cheap and was at least a little piece of mind.

Still..... Not a place for a career. I think I knew that even then.

 

[theinuranceguy]

Now I don't feel that way. I think some protection is better than no protection even if it isn't the best product at the best price. At least they now have enough coverage for burial or a little accident coverage whereas before they had nothing.

Some of AIL's policies only cover accidents in plane, boat, and train crashes.... Sorry, but to me as an agent, and as a prospect, this is a waste of money.

 

[xrac]

Some of AIL's policies only cover accidents in plane, boat, and train crashes.... Sorry, but to me as an agent, and as a prospect, this is a waste of money.

I never saw any policies like that although if I remember correctly they did pay double for that kind of stuff. Also the accident policies we sold were really cheap.

 

[theinuranceguy]

I never saw any policies like that although if I remember correctly they did pay double for that kind of stuff. Also the accident policies we sold were really cheap.

Ya something like that. I think your right, Ive never worked for them.