Let's talk releases!

[kuhn123]

Joe
I respect your frustration, but the bottom line is that as agents, we must have the power to put ourselves in the best position possible to remain competitive. Sounds like you may have just have a had a bad run of losing agents lately, and are trying to justify not granting releases. If you truly are ..."a very soft hearted, good old boy IMO that will give an agent a release for any reason", that's the way it should be. Aside from maybe owing a large debit balance or other debt, there really aren't any reasons that you shouldn't grant a release.

Maybe, rather than trying to justify not granting releases, you should start a thread inquiring how to retain the agent's business in the first place. We all understand that an IMO is in business to make a profit (duh!), but it simply cannot take place at the agent's expense (low commission., bad service, inferior products, etc.) I am not accusing you of any of those, b/c I do not know you, just saying in general that poor IMO's are the reason that releases need to be freely granted so that agents are not stuck in bad situations.
Matt
[email protected]

 

[The Rabbi]

I have less than three years in this businesss and I could teach the MOs a lot about support. Since the ones that I have encountered don't know the meaning of support, they are of no use to me. When I need support, I go to the carrier.

Keep your FMOs unless they can give me a better contract than the carrier. I wouldn't look to them for anything else. And by the way, I want to be paid direct by the carrier.

 

[Todd King]

Tell me Joe, If I can get the same contracts that you offer, the same commission, the same service from the FMO...and they offer unconditional releases, why in the world would I want to go with you?
You see Joe, I'm going through a situation right now where my upline is refusing to give me a release. Why? GREED! Why do I say greed? Well, he has become an alcoholic and doesn't want to work anymore. He recently told me he's not interested in building an agency anymore. I've been doing his work and mine for the past 3 years and then he springs this on me! Throws me to the wolves and then won't give me a release which he stated to me and all the agents he and I hired that he would at any time. See Joe, you just never know what's around the next corner. I've been looking for different FMO's and probably would have called you, but for one reason, no release. I'm not about to get bitten twice for the same thing by the same greedy dog.
You have the ability to raise and lower commission levels at your whim, don't you think that's enough control over your agents? What? You want to tell me where I can go and how much I can make? As you can see Joe, all the analogies in the world can't justify your thinking, not on this forum. You're dealing with agents that collectivly have way more horror stories than you have. This forum is mainly for learning and sharing and hopefully we will enlighten all the agents that come here of not only what to do to be successful, but the "what not to do's" too! Contracting with an FMO that won't give you a release is right up there with being a captive agent!! Don't do it!! RUN, RUN, RUN!!
You come in here trying to justify your greed by saying that an agent shouldn't want a release for just 5% more, and you're probably right, it's not worth it. But because YOU say it's not a good reason....that tells me You're just as guilty by wanting to hang on to the agent for 5% more! That's called greed Joe, go look in the mirror and tell yourself it's not!!
Why would you want to work with an agent who doesn't want to work with you? Can you think of ONE? I can, GREED!!

 

[senior-advisor-indiana]

Joe,
Your scenario doesn't make sense. If you stole all the agents from one FMO then they deserved it and should have been offering a higher contract. No one leaves for 5% on a life contract, I would for a med supp contract though.
Example....
Street level with Loyal American..... 16%
FMO level........ 24%
What do you do to deserve that 8%?
I should be able to leave you at any time fif you were paying me 16% and someone else offered me 20%. If you don't like it then you should pay higher% instead of losing business. Not picking on you, just using you in the example.

 

[xrac]

Tell me Joe, If I can get the same contracts that you offer, the same commission, the same service from the FMO...and they offer unconditional releases, why in the world would I want to go with you?........ Contracting with an FMO that won't give you a release is right up there with being a captive agent!! Don't do it!! RUN, RUN, RUN!!.....

Joe,

Stated above is the bottom line! If we know better and don't have to why would we? It looks like what you are using to keep agents in the fold will also keep knowledgeable agents like on this forum out of the fold. As sites like this one become more and more well known it will be harder and harder for FMOs who will not grant unconditional releases to recruit anyone except uninformed agents.

 

[senior-advisor-indiana]

Man, he sure did open a can of worms and took off.

 

[xrac]

Man, he sure did open a can of worms and took off.

Ditto! Can anybody name one reason an agent should sign with an FMO who will not grant unqualified releases as long as they have other comparable options?

 

[patch36]

For the most part I do not get the constant uproar over releases. I have only had one company cause me release problems and that is Parker and Associates.

Why would an IMO/FMO want an agent that is unhappy? I can understand not releasing an agent for a Debit Balance or the future risk of a Debit Balance. That is hardly ever discussed here other than by the folks representing IMO's. But if that risk is assumed by the new IMO (highly unlikely) then there is no reason financially not to release an agent. The problem of course is, no IMO is going to take an average agent on or his potential to incur a Debit balance with an insurance company, especially when the IMO did not share in the profits or the original commissions. That opens up a can of worms for the IMO and the agent. Chargebacks in general can be mede against the agent for as much as a year and of course depends on holdbacks, whether full commission is paid, ect.

How do you folks that think an agent should be able to get a release whenever he wants think the Debit Balance issue should be addressed to protect the IMO? That is or should be the only real issue with an honest IMO that keeps them from releasing an agent.

 

[GreenSky]

Joe:

See, even if others don't call you dishonest, you're not making friends.

As my mother used to say, "straighten up and fly right." You need to earn our business, and so far, you've only proven you are not the kind of MO anyone here wants to work with.

By the way, did I ever mention that the way you do business is perhaps slightly south of honest?

Rick

 

[Joe Moore]

Man, he sure did open a can of worms and took off.

No, I didn't take off. Some of us have to work on Saturday afternoons. But, I can see I really opened a can of worms.

And contrary to some questioning comments, times have been very well lately for us. With a new final expense product coming on that we helped to develop, we have been very, very busy. Recruiting has been very good because of the quality of the product. It is amazing what a company can develop if they listen to what the sales organization is saying.

The way we try to operate is probably much different than most IMO's. We try to give agents and agencies the most points we can give and still try to make a profit. We have tried the "Free Lead" situation and we are not smart enough to do it, and still pay the agents well. By the way, we do not want to pay our agents (or handle the agents money). We do not have an agent contracted that is paid directly by us. We would rather let the companies do this, and really do not want to handle the agent's money.

We have settled on the idea of trying to help find the best lead sources at a reasonable price and put our agents into contact with these sources (no we do not get a rebate from anyone).

For this new final expense product we are developing a new lead piece. We are testing it in Morristown, TN and surrounding areas, We are doing the lead ourselves, using a local printer and a local mailing house. But we have only ordered 10,000. Our cost is about $460/1000. This is not competitive. But to do what we want to try on the lead, it is worth a costly trial. This is the type of behind the scenes activity we are always trying. Some things work, some things don't

Our contracts vary with points just as all contracts do. We cannot make a profit at a 5% markup, with the risk associated with contracting and co-signing agent debit balances. All of our agents have direct company contracts and we try to have a 10-20% higher commission than we pass along to agents and agencies. To get a 10% less commission, we need to see the possibility of $100-150,000 or so in net paid production credit.

We are not a super-large IMO, and we also do not have the expenses of the monster IMO's. My son Greg Moore and I are the main office personnel, with one other marketer. We have had 3 marketers (telephone recruiters) in our office, but seem to do better with less people that understand the products, agent problems and know what they are doing. Our volume is a little over $1 million life premium , and maybe 1000-1500 Medicare Advantage plans (I have no clue how you figure these as production volume). We have 300 or so agents contracted and about one out of five will produce business on a monthly basis.

Put the pencil to our profits. I feel I still have to personally produce to try to survive. Ok, we do $1 million with an average 15% mark-up, that's $150,000 , we do 1200 or so Medicare Advantage Plans with maybe an average $60 mark-up, thats $72,000, total of $222,000. Our expenses are about $200,000 per year to run the office. That is $22,000 profit per year. I cannot live on $22,000 per year, so I personally sell and yes, I do have a lot of renewals to fall back on (thank goodness). I ran for mayor in 2007 in our hometown and my wife was thankful I lost. She was wondering how we could survive on $8400/year. I have to agree, we could not have survived. I am also glad I lost.

When we are giving contracted agents all we feel we can do and still survive; and they are in the 100-105-110-115% range on commissions (depending on company and product). With these high commissions, I feel the agents should be able to afford leads out of their pocket.

I remember 12-15 years ago, my son and I sold many life insurance products with a 75% commission and I was more than glad to bust my butt for this 75%. I really needed the money. I did not care what someone else was making as long as I was getting my 75%. I felt their markup was really none of my business.

One of our top life agents, probably doing $150,000 in life premium this year with us has probably collected $3-4000 from us this year in bonuses, plus his 105% commission. He called us last month and asked if we would pay for him and another couple's lodging on his vacation-the answer was yes we will, at a cost of about $1200 for 4 days. If he asked for a release, I would wonder why. He has never had it so good. We have given him just about anything he has asked for. If he has a problem with a company, we try our best to take care of it even if it take someone a full day. We are always doing behind the scenes things for our agents.

It seems I may be the only IMO willing to respond to the gripes of agents (especially on the issue of releases). I may be stupid to do it, but I believe the only way to operate is by communicating with people agreeing with you, and also those disagreeing with you. In Tennessee, they say plain talk is hard to misunderstand.

This is the way we try to operate. Will I sign off on an automatic release just because an agent wants it? NO! Most of the times, the agent has been promised "free leads" that never materialize. Our release agreement protects our agents more than us, and gets them away from the company promising, but not delivering "free leads". It allows the agent to come back to us at any time they want to in the first 24 months. Many have come back to us because the "free leads" do not work out, even at 40-50% less commissions than they had with us.

I feel we do everything for our agents that we can afford to do. Most of the times we have actually been asked for a release, it has been granted, but sometimes with conditions.

As one of the comments says, an IMO that has not put protection in place to lose his agents is stupid, I subscribe to that theory. We will continue to give our agents the most we can afford to, and hopefully still survive. But a blanket automatic release, NO!

Darn, I remember the times when all I had to worry about was who my next customer would be. Those had to be the "good old days".

By the way, I do appreciate the way most of the comments are on this forum. Except for some bozo still calling me "dishonest". I am trying to be as honest as I can, but sometimes the best effort is not good enough. We should all be able to agree to disagree.

Just because I have a difference of opinion than someone does not make either of us "dishonest".

Joe Moore [email protected]
National Senior Benefits
Asurco Insurance Marketing
www.asurco.com
PO Box 1954
Morristown, TN 37814
1-800-226-1004
1-423-581-1004