Salary Question

InsAgentOhio

New Member
3
I have been working in a small-town Ohio insurance agency for 8 years. Started out at 19 years old working part-time and am now 27 years old working full-time. I write and service auto, home, and occasionally commercial and farm policies. When I started, I was paid minimum wage $8/hr. since I just serviced policies. I had no bills at the time and didn't know much about insurance.

Now, I probably take care of like 75%-80% of the total work for the office (it's just me and my boss). My boss makes like $100,000-$120,000 a year and shows up like 20 hours a week at the office. Half of that time is spent talking to family members on her cell phone, running errands, picking up kid from school, etc. She usually only does actual work for like 1 or 2 customers a day whereas I probably talk to like 10-15 insureds a day. She constantly just forwards me her texts and emails she gets from customers and asks me to call them back for her, put the change in, etc. She will only answer the phone if I'm already on a phone call and it isn't someone calling who is hard to deal with or mean. If one of her customers calls in that is a pain in the a**, she will tell me to answer the phone and lie and say she's not at the office or that she's busy.

She pays me $25,000 a year / $15 an hour. Am I being way underpaid? When I look at salaries online, it looks like starting out in an insurance job, you should be at like $16 or $17 an hour and I'm at $15 after doing this 8 YEARS!!!

The $1 a year raise I've been getting since starting out minimum wage isn't bad, but I never got any real boost in pay after hitting all the adult milestones (bought a house, graduated with a 4 year degree from college, started a family, got married, etc.) or never got a decent boost in pay after I advanced what I could do at work (started out just servicing my bosses customers when they would call in or stop in the office, now I write and service policies for my customers and my bosses customers). I don't write a ton of new business and I'm not a huge salesperson due to it being such a small town that I have lived in my whole life. Basically, 75% of the people I know have already been insured with this agency for a long time. So I know my boss probably wants me to bring a lot of new customers in and make her more commission then she can pay me more, but at the same time, everyone I know is already insured here! I just service their policies now since they can just text me rather than calling the office or trying to get ahold my boss. My boss has always had me write policies in her code rather than my own, so she gets the commission, then she pays me hourly.

Lastly, another thing that has been making me mad recently is that when she quotes people, since she's commission, she adds on the Smartride/Snapshot/you name it discounts, paperless, EFT, rates the vehicles as farm use, etc. without even asking them for that info or explaining to them what they have to do to get those discounts. So when they call in to start the policy and she's most likely not in the office, I take the payment and start the policy for them. Then when their payment goes up because they lose discounts she put on there to get it cheaper to get them to switch to us, they call and I'm the one that has to deal with a pissed off customer. Of course since she's my boss, I can't really throw her under the bus to the customer and I just have to explain why the discount fell off and just be like "Sorry, she must have forgotten to explain that to you when she quoted you." Then the customer is mad at me because I told them the price is higher than what my boss told them. I then tell her about the situation, and she normally says something along the lines of: "I don't want to talk to them. See if you can help them."

Just seeking advice, seeing if others want to share how much money they make for what work they do.
 
If one of her customers calls in that is a pain in the a**, she will tell me to answer the phone and lie and say she's not at the office or that she's busy.

She's a coward. When I was in banking, I used to tell my tellers that they don't get paid enough to get customer abuse and to either get one of my two lead tellers, or myself.

You are earning 20%+ of what she is earning. The problem is... she's plateau'd. She's not reaching for anything new... so, by default, that caps your potential.
 
Just to ask (because it wasn't clear), do you have your P&C license?

If it were me in your shoes, I'd pursue your P&C license if you don't already have it... then start shopping your marketplace and see what else is out there.
 
I don't write a ton of new business and I'm not a huge salesperson due to it being such a small town that I have lived in my whole life. Basically, 75% of the people I know have already been insured with this agency for a long time. So I know my boss probably wants me to bring a lot of new customers in and make her more commission then she can pay me more, but at the same time, everyone I know is already insured here!

You may want to learn how to ask for, receive, and work referrals... or rather professional introductions, regardless of whether you stay or find greener pastures.

I like my coach and friend, Sandy Schussel's training in Mastering Client Referrals. It's only a $37 download. @Markthebroker may echo this sentiment and may also have other ideas for your situation.

www.sandyschussel.com/products
 
Because it's a small town, you may not want to mention the town itself, but may I ask what general part of Ohio you're in?
 
Just to ask (because it wasn't clear), do you have your P&C license?

If it were me in your shoes, I'd pursue your P&C license if you don't already have it... then start shopping your marketplace and see what else is out there.

Yep, I do have that! Not health or life licensed, but yes I have P&C! I will start to look around. What you said makes a lot of sense. I did the math and if she paid me more like $35,000 a year or so, then once you add my paycheck and the utility bills for the office (electric, internet, etc.) then she would probably only be bringing home like $50,000 a year. Which is still a great amount for only showing up to work about 20 hours a week haha but obviously she wouldn't want to pay me more if it meant her bringing home less money. Like you said, I think she is just sort of plateau'd now. She's okay with how much she makes via commission, and she wants to pay me (or someone else) a small fraction to do most of the work so she can have more personal/family time.
 
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You are every Agency owners dream! Take care of 100% of the service BS, take care of most of the new business quoting and issuing, and take care of the boss's mess ups, all the while getting paid a bit over minimum wage!

You are more important to this owner than she realizes. If you worked for me, I would pay you whatever you wanted, within reason.

Not uncommon at all for your position to be paid a base, plus a piece of the new bus commission that you generate and a piece of the overall renewal commissions. That type of arrangement is a win win - as the agency grows you both make more money, and brings you into more of a rewarding and responsible role.

Good luck in you negotiations. !

Dave
 
You are an employee of an agency. She pays the Bill's, she pays the E & O, she pays your salary and probably discounts every action you bring so as not to pay additional commissions. She sounds like an Allstate agent and many of them wont pay sh..t because they can replace you in a heartbeat. There are other carriers in your small town, go work for one and let it be known where to find you. Let the business come to you from her BOB. Turn her in to Mother Allstate for the discounts she is giving especially if she is quoting Farm Use. She is stealing from Allstate and they dont like that.
 
You may want to learn how to ask for, receive, and work referrals... or rather professional introductions, regardless of whether you stay or find greener pastures.

I like my coach and friend, Sandy Schussel's training in Mastering Client Referrals. It's only a $37 download. @Markthebroker may echo this sentiment and may also have other ideas for your situation.

www.sandyschussel.com/products


I'm not really sure what to add. I was once in op's position, and now I'm in a similar situation as her boss. Not the same, but similar. I make more money, work less hours, and have more freedom than the rest of the office because I took the risks and went through the headaches of building a book. Every once in a while one of the staff says they wish they had my hours, or my pay, or my office, or whatever. So then, I start listing what I did and sacrificed to get where I am. Every time, once I am halfway through the list, they start shaking their head and saying they don't want to do those things, and I am seeing the same things in this post.

You have a path to make more money, and several excuses to why you won't/can't do it. She sold accounts somehow. If you want to make more, that's what you need to do. Go knock doors, cold call, network, that's what I did until I learned how to ask for referrals. I can think of only one or two accounts I wrote that I knew personally. You think selling personal insurance is hard? I'm 100% commercial. There is only one business owner for every several people, and they are much harder to get an audience to, and you need to be on your "A" game, and they can smell any bs or mistakes a mile away. Go figure it out. Sandy Schussel's program is definitely a great way to get more business. If you aren't selling, then from a business perspective, then sorry, no, you are not doing 75%-80% of what needs to be done to support the business, though you may be doing 75%-80% of the service work.

You may find a better situation somewhere else, but if you want to make what the producers make, you have to produce.
 

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