Hi all,
I’d like to ask for opinions on how I can improve myself as an agent. My background and education has nothing to do with finance or insurance. In fact, I kind of fell into the profession after my previous company closed its doors.
I affiliated with Liberty National Life as a captive agent 5 years ago as a primarily business-to-business agent and have had a good level of success. I have a nice group of accounts that I personally closed and enroll as well as a decent stream of residuals. (We fully vest after 10 years with the company).
With that background out of the way, I’ll come to my point: I want to do more. Currently our offerings include term, whole life, group term, guaranteed issue modified life, and cancer/critical/accident insurance. My problem is that I’m wholly self-taught on how to uncover a client’s needs and how to offer coverage. Our company provides “needs planners” which focus heavily on pushing our permanent life insurance since our term is dramatically overpriced.
The issue is that I am able to gain people’s trust easily and they readily buy from me. But I feel like I’m just giving them my “best guess” on what is appropriate given their situation. I want to be better. I constantly educate myself on whatever I can find that relates to our products, but I don’t feel like a true “insurance professional.” We have no ongoing training and even our CE is basically automated with no real personal or professional development.
I don’t have any delusions that I will ever be a financial advisor or a CPA or anything that requires a different degree, but I do want to be the best agent I can be within my own lane.
I’ve rambled a bit so I’ll try to put it in a nutshell:
1) Does anyone have advice on the best resources I can use to become a better, more professional agent?
2) As a captive agent, is there any other type of product I can sell that is not offered by my company? And if so, how do I go about getting authorized to do so?
3) Does anyone have thoughts on the company I work with? (Liberty National). I ask because it seems the business is focused more on churning new agents for their contacts than it is creating long-term, professional agents.
4) Does anyone have recommendations for other companies I may look into given my background and desire to grow professionally?
I know these are rudimentary questions compared to most of the discussions I see on this forum. But even 5 years in, I feel like I’m still a newbie and would appreciate any advice from people who have made a career in insurance.
Thanks so much.
I’d like to ask for opinions on how I can improve myself as an agent. My background and education has nothing to do with finance or insurance. In fact, I kind of fell into the profession after my previous company closed its doors.
I affiliated with Liberty National Life as a captive agent 5 years ago as a primarily business-to-business agent and have had a good level of success. I have a nice group of accounts that I personally closed and enroll as well as a decent stream of residuals. (We fully vest after 10 years with the company).
With that background out of the way, I’ll come to my point: I want to do more. Currently our offerings include term, whole life, group term, guaranteed issue modified life, and cancer/critical/accident insurance. My problem is that I’m wholly self-taught on how to uncover a client’s needs and how to offer coverage. Our company provides “needs planners” which focus heavily on pushing our permanent life insurance since our term is dramatically overpriced.
The issue is that I am able to gain people’s trust easily and they readily buy from me. But I feel like I’m just giving them my “best guess” on what is appropriate given their situation. I want to be better. I constantly educate myself on whatever I can find that relates to our products, but I don’t feel like a true “insurance professional.” We have no ongoing training and even our CE is basically automated with no real personal or professional development.
I don’t have any delusions that I will ever be a financial advisor or a CPA or anything that requires a different degree, but I do want to be the best agent I can be within my own lane.
I’ve rambled a bit so I’ll try to put it in a nutshell:
1) Does anyone have advice on the best resources I can use to become a better, more professional agent?
2) As a captive agent, is there any other type of product I can sell that is not offered by my company? And if so, how do I go about getting authorized to do so?
3) Does anyone have thoughts on the company I work with? (Liberty National). I ask because it seems the business is focused more on churning new agents for their contacts than it is creating long-term, professional agents.
4) Does anyone have recommendations for other companies I may look into given my background and desire to grow professionally?
I know these are rudimentary questions compared to most of the discussions I see on this forum. But even 5 years in, I feel like I’m still a newbie and would appreciate any advice from people who have made a career in insurance.
Thanks so much.
