Selling State Farm Life..Good Idea?

[scagnt83]

Out of curiosity, how long have you been with them and why?

First of the year. 2nd time with them though. I shop P&C coverage every 2 or 3 years. Im with them because they were cheaper than the competition. If that changes in 2 years, I wont be with them anymore.

I will say they have always been solid on claims service.
I totaled a car years ago with SF coverage.
Was hit by another driver a different time and they had SF coverage. Same year had hail damage to my roof and SF was easy to deal with.

I dont live/die on price alone. But Im not one bit loyal when my rates get jacked up and I can save money with a different reliable carrier.

As I said once on this forum, give me a non-can P&C policy and I will be a customer for life.... just like my life/di.

 

[Txmade99]

Thats why I said at delivery.

You dont throw everything at them at once.

But years later is not the ideal time, in my experience.

Get them while insurance is still on their mind. But after the initial sale is finished.

So true. When I went threw her book of business it made absolutely no sense that she has customers with 3 homes and a business insured with SF but nobody ever offered mortgage protection to them. Which is why she is wanting me to catch up. By now they have their own life insurance. That's why I told her she should have asked them 10 and 15 years ago when she first signed them up.

So far I've been able to make 4 sales this week. Two of them came from calling all renewals for this month. The last two are existing customers calling in for service in which I happened to ask one if he needed mortgage protection for another home he was buying. He was a hard sale because he was 27 year old engineer and he didn't want life or think he needed it but when I said mortgage protection and explained the concept he thought it would be a good idea. Plus he fought with me tooth and an nail over the price to try to get a two for one deal. He made me work hard for that policy.

The fourth person didn't need it but when I asked him if he knew someone who did, he referred his nephew to buy a policy.

Now that 4 life policies have been written this week, my agent is saying she needs 10 life apps a month to make up my paycheck.

So your right. The 3% percent commission really isn't worth it. If she gets most, I think she should call around herself. By me dedicating myself to finding life policies and helping her service so I can pivot the life, the leads for auto and home are being taken by other employees therefore I'm not partaking In alot of commission anyway.

 

[scagnt83]

So your right. The 3% percent commission really isn't worth it. If she gets most, I think she should call around herself. By me dedicating myself to finding life policies and helping her service so I can pivot the life, the leads for auto and home are being taken by other employees therefore I'm not partaking In alot of commission anyway.

I will say this. That is not her job. Her job is to hire agents to do that for her agency. And to handle the larger more important clients.

Im sure she probably needs to be more involved. But her job description is not to call renewals and pitch life insurance.

Now, if you get 3% of the entire office, that could turn more lucrative for you with time. Id ask for 5% of all life sales if you are in-charge of increasing sales for the whole office. Or figure out some type of graded scale based on production.

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Also, in the indy world you make 100% or more. It could be that SHE is on a graded comp scale and does not get more than 40% or 50% unless her office meets a certain number.

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You mentioned spanish speaking agents. That is your opportunity imo. Its a largely untapped market. And every stat shows latinos are high intent life ins buyers.

Instead of asking if they want a quote. GIVE THEM A QUOTE at delivery.
"by the way, for $50/m, you can add on $200k of life insurance"
Id have the agents do that for every new home/auto client.

 

[Al3x Lee]

As I said once on this forum, give me a non-can P&C policy and I will be a customer for life.... just like my life/di.

Explain what you mean by that. What are you wanting to see in the policy?

 

[scagnt83]

Explain what you mean by that. What are you wanting to see in the policy?

In the L&H world, non-can means non-cancellable. Meaning the policy has a fixed premium that does not "renew" each year.

 

[tikibarrister]

Out of curiosity, how long have you been with them and why?

You didn't ask me, but I'm in the process of moving my home/auto/umbrella/etc. to SF. Just waiting for one speeding ticket I have to expire on July 31 before we sign - that was the agent's recommendation.

The main reason we chose SF is that they seem to be the only competent shop in the area. I actually feel like the agent knows what he's talking about. Other captives/indys seemed to do little beyond generating a quote. This guy wanted to sit down and go over every detail of it, etc. Yeah I know that's part of the sales tactic but in this case, for this kind of sale, it was a good move.

SF is actually slightly more expensive than others - a little more on auto, a little less on home, overall about 5% more than we were paying. The sleep-at-night factor is worth that. My wife even said she would be much more comfortable knowing that's who we're going to call if a tree landed on our house versus other agencies we've talked with.

So #1 reason competence. #2 reason is honesty during the process:

• told us where we should keep indy coverage rather than SF's coverage (for example, we have a better deal with a different company for earthquake rather than going through SF).
• asked questions about things and told us where the dollar breakpoints are and suggested the best strategy, so he wasn't just trying to maximize his commission.
• walked through the most common scenarios (tree on house, fire, etc.) and how that would look and what we could expect to pay, coverage, the process, etc. I'd never seen that before in detail.
• And as I said he recommended we delay onboarding with SF for six weeks so we'd sign up with a clean record, so he lost a month's commission. Not a big thing but gave us the "on our side" vibe.

Of course, he's one SF agent out of 75+ in the area. Maybe the other 75 are good or not - who knows. This one was a referral from a real estate friend.

BTW I didn't buy any life insurance from him and if I was in the market for life insurance, I'd shop around

 

[tikibarrister]

I happened to ask one if he needed mortgage protection for another home he was buying. He was a hard sale because he was 27 year old engineer and he didn't want life or think he needed it but when I said mortgage protection and explained the concept he thought it would be a good idea.

Client: "I'm not interested in life insurance."

You: "Well we have this other product which is life insurance by a different name."

Client: "I'm intrigued, tell me more..."

 

[Al3x Lee]

In the L&H world, non-can means non-cancellable. Meaning the policy has a fixed premium that does not "renew" each year.

Lmao.. might work if auto worked more like life where there was one face amount that never renewed.

 

[Txmade99]

Client: "I'm not interested in life insurance."

You: "Well we have this other product which is life insurance by a different name."

Client: "I'm intrigued, tell me more..."

I never new you had to get creative in order to sell Life insurance. At the State Farm Regional meetings they've even told us if we could avoid using the word Life we will sell more. They tell us to use words like income replacement, financial protection...one guy in the meeting even said he uses "paycheck protection" to his younger clients. LoL

 

[Txmade99]

The main reason we chose SF is that they seem to be the only competent shop in the area. I actually feel like the agent knows what he's talking about. Other captives/indys seemed to do little beyond generating a quote. This guy wanted to sit down and go over every detail of it, etc. Yeah I know that's part of the sales tactic but in this case, for this kind of sale, it was a good move.

Yep, SF makes you sit down and educate clients. That's one good thing about them I like as well.

BTW I didn't buy any life insurance from him and if I was in the market for life insurance, I'd shop around

Hmpf...