First of all, just to use correct terminology insurance companies do not pay residuals, they pay renewals. Even after working for years, writing exceptional amounts of business, it is hard to build a substantial renewals account. $1,000,000 in force at 5% is only $50K per year. FE tends to be written on older people so the majority of the premium is not going to stay on the books for all that long.
Along that line, I would like to tell agents that if you are depending upon your renewal account for your retirement and you are working the senior market, you better not plan on living too long after you retire. They are nice at first but with just normal depletion, the amount at the end of ten years will be a tiny fraction of what they were when you retired. It will be 0 if you write for companies that pay service fees in lieu of renewals after 10 years..
The only products that still pay me pretty good are my ancillary products like cancer. They pay around 15% of the premium and since they were written on younger people, there are many of them still on the books 15-20 years later.
