Salary if Taking Over Existing Book - New -Agent

[VolAgent]

State Farm owns all agencies. You cannot buy a SF book. There is no guarantee that they will actually assign the whole book no matter what they tell you.

Just from what others have posted, it seems the standard MO is to take a large book and break it into several smaller books which are then given to new agents.

 

[Josh]

Just from what others have posted, it seems the standard MO is to take a large book and break it into several smaller books which are then given to new agents.

That is generally the idea. Allstate does the same thing too.

 

[Philly]

That is generally the idea. Allstate does the same thing too.

State Farm does own the book. I know a guy that didn't hit the life count and they did not renew his contract after one year.

 

[xrac]

I wouldn't touch the current agency contract with SF. Here is what one person who did had to say:

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]I am an ex NM TICA. When I was recruited for agency I had a large mortgage, a stay at home wife and two young children. I was in a job that I didn’t like and when State Farm offered an agency “opportunity” I took it. My previous career was stressful and I was told that SF agents lived very well and had all kinds of time for their families. The E that recruited me would tell me how much money the agents were making and the projections that I saw looked great. Because I had never been in the insurance business I only knew what SF was telling me. In 2007 I hadn’t heard about NASFA and there weren’t any other NM agents in my area. Also, it didn’t hurt that SF offered to pay me $51 per hour plus overtime and benefits while I was in training.

It didn’t take long to figure out what was up. Even before I opened I knew that NM would be difficult. My E assured me that another agent in the area was getting ready to retire within the next year and I would be taken care of. If I met the numbers we had projected I would make plenty of money on the scorecard and everything would be ok. I sold a lot of P&C my first year but, my bonus was not good because of my FS production. I was in the inner city and they don’t buy large life policies in the get low. Selling insurance is difficult and writing policies when you don’t have any money to market is impossible. The agent that was going to retire, he’s still working. In my second year one agent retired and another died. I got nothing. SF split the books and hired even more agents to come into an already saturated area. I hated going to the office, and my life sucked. The stress of my agency was taking a toll on me and my family. After 2 years of misery I finally pulled the plug. I am still in the insurance business and I’m doing ok. Luckily I was able to partner with a broker and open my own office. It has been a couple of years since I left and I am now in a position to open my own agency. It has been a hard road, but it looks like I am going to make it. I still lurk on the site because it feels good to know that there are other people that can relate to what I have gone through. My wife was never involved in the office and she had a hard time understanding what I was feeling, she just knew that we were broke. The SF agency experience is like an abusive marriage. I was getting my head kicked in, but SF looks like a great guy to everyone else. For a long time I felt like it was my fault and making the decision to leave was not easy, but I am glad that I did. [/FONT]