Senior Life Insurance Company Info

[rousemark]

You are mistaken. They have offered shares of SL stock to their agents, even agents who have less than 30 days experience, for several years now.

SL has recently come out with a 10 year MDB term product. It blows AARP out of the water! This 10 yeat MDB term was designed strictly to compete with the AARP 5 yr. term that everyone up here complains about. What other FE Co. is being proactive to compete with AARP like this?

I agree with many of the things you say but what am I mistaken about? the question MGA asked was "Well ask yourself? Do you own an insurance company?" implying outright ownership no just owning shares which is totally different.

It is not uncommon for captive companies to offer share participation to their agents. I was with a company that allowed us not only to buy stock but matched our purchase... Unfortunately, it was AIG!

As far as another company being "proactive" by coming out with a term product to compete with AARP, it just doesn't matter to me because I am not going to sell a term for final expenses anyway. And, if your term product is priced as even you admit the SL WL life is priced, I will be able to write a WL for very little, if any more.

I don't knock SL or agent's selling it but I personally have little patience with the types of nonsense arguments MGA apparently joined the forum for the sole purpose of putting forth.

 

[jdeasy]

I agree with many of the things you say but what am I mistaken about? the question MGA asked was "Well ask yourself? Do you own an insurance company?" implying outright ownership no just owning shares which is totally different.

It is not uncommon for captive companies to offer share participation to their agents. I was with a company that allowed us not only to buy stock but matched our purchase... Unfortunately, it was AIG!

As far as another company being "proactive" by coming out with a term product to compete with AARP, it just doesn't matter to me because I am not going to sell a term for final expenses anyway. And, if your term product is priced as even you admit the SL WL life is priced, I will be able to write a WL for very little, if any more.

I don't knock SL or agent's selling it but I personally have little patience with the types of nonsense arguments MGA apparently joined the forum for the sole purpose of putting forth.

I agree that most of Grag's post was pretty good even if it was self serving and a little BS thrown in. But at least he laid out his position.

I can't see why he bragging about them coing out with inferior product solely to compete with AARP's inferior product. He is right, most FE companies are not rying to do that and folr good reason. LH came out with a 10 year term product a few years ago. It was probably even worse than AARP.

I love to run across people that have AARP. I'm sure it will be the same if they have the new SL term.

 

[360]

I guess my beef with SL and LH are the tactics used. Things like presenting yourself as an underwriter instead of agent or turning the focus onto ancillary things like the FCGS in an effort to convince the client that they are buying something very different from a very special agent that really understands how it works.

Hey, no doubt it works. The numbers at LH prove that and I'm sure the folks that own SL do very well for themselves. Something about a lot of it just doesn't feel right to me though. Hey to each his own. I just kind of think it's funny though how the LH guys in particular get their panties in a bunch when 99% of the people on a forum full of independent agents are diametrically opposed to what they are doing.

Nice post Greg, I'm with JD, at least you have a point, stick to it and don't pull any punches about what you sell and I trust that you sell insurance as an agent and not an underwriter as some of your SL cohorts have done in the past.

 

[Mattschmidt]

You are mistaken. They have offered shares of SL stock to their agents, even agents who have less than 30 days experience, for several years now. What other FE Co. does that?

People up here complain about LH, SL, EFES, Securus, etc. all the time. I could give a rat's a_ss if another Co.had cheaper premiums or higher premiums, paid death claims within 24 hours or paid death claims in 60-90 days, paid less comm. on their MDB plans, etc., etc.

All I know is that SL and the Powells are a great fit for me. If they weren't I'm good enough that I can go to any Co. I wish and thrive. If I want to up and order 50 FRESH EXCLUSIVE leads one week I can have them in my possession within 24 hours, sooner if the lead dept. is not too busy when I call. What other Co. can do that?

The Powells are on the cutting edge of FE sales/marketing. They were the 1st group in the country to start FE tele-sales in 2002. Some Co.'s have tried to duplicate tele-sales, some have failed and some have done well. (Kinda like some FE agents bto well and some starve).

What other FE Co.'s have ads in the yellow pages of phone books in several markets around the country? This is a lead where someone went to the yellow pages of their phone book looking under the insurance heading. What more could a FE agent ask for? Heck, even Newby, a well rerspected forum member (and rightly so I might add) commented one time last year that the yellow page lead looked pretty good.

Their premiums are usually higher than most FE Co.'s......just like LH. But who cares? The way people up here pound their chest and brag because they replaced a LH or SL policy....well....they sound as if this is their 1st sale in 2 weeks.

If higher premiums caused a lot of replacements, how in the world did LH become such a FE giant? They're less than 50 years old but they out produce any other FE Co. in the country from everything I'm hearing (on this forum and elsewhere).

And higher premiums have never resulted in me having a higher than ave. charge-back situation. I've interviewed agents who wrote for co.'s like RNA and Foresters and Oxford, they have very cheap premiums you know, and the agent I'm interviewing would be having all kinds of charge-back problems, even though they were placing the biz with CHEAP PREMIUM Co.'s. Further proof that the cheaper premium can have as much charge-back activity as a higher premium.

We live in a "capitalistic" society. One of the basic laws of economics says "charge what the market will bear". LH, SL, and a few others do that, and probably make more profit per app than cheaper premium co.'s.

SL has recently come out with a 10 year MDB term product. It blows AARP out of the water! This 10 yeat MDB term was designed strictly to compete with the AARP 5 yr. term that everyone up here complains about. What other FE Co. is being proactive to compete with AARP like this?

Some of the closing ideas I share occasionally up here, that most of you seem to appreciate, came from the Powells's FE training and SL. I only say that to let you know they do support their new agents, and experienced agents, with constant training.

Seems like this forum would put more $$$ in all of our pockets if we used it to exchange ideas instead of trying to figure out how to sound important criticizing another Co. (Aren't the complainers, from your own personal experience, the agents who failed and are blaming the Co., blaming the leads, blaming their mgr., blaming the weather, blaming....etc....etc...?)

Long post (I make no apologies for it because you didn't have to read it) but I needed to help set the record straight for the people who don't really have a clue.

I'd rather own stock in Enron, than Senior Life

 

[WinoBlues]

My take is a bit different. I like that they are spending a lot on TV and radio. Puts the issue at the front of a prospects mind. Kind of like Matrix Select and Select Quote did for term insurance. I like their commercials I hope they do more.

I do not personally know any SL agents but have known several LH agents. I also have been in many of their customers homes. They (LH & SL) are not much competition. They are probably better salesmen than I am, But they on average are not insurance agents. And the people I meet with know it.

 

[theinsuranceman]

Forgot to mention: SL has also just come out with a 20 yr. term and also a 20 yr. term ROP. 2 new weapons to use in the "jungle".

 

[jdeasy]

I also agree with Greg's assertion that he could go anywhere and sell FE. I've read enough of his posts to have a belief that he can sell FE quite successfully. You never know for sure and I know for a fact that some supposedly successful FE agents that post here are posers.

So I don't take for what they claim but on the context of their posts over time. Greg has convinced me that he is good at FE.

Since he is and I agree that he could go anywhere it begs the question as to why doesn't he? I'm sure he could go elsewhere and make more money from personal production and have lower lead costs.

That means the deal breaker is most likely the recruiting angle and he can make more money off other people's efforts by staying put.

Nothing wrong with that. But, that comes to very core of why he and I argue so much. He is selling somehting and recruitng when he gives advice. I approach posting here from the perspective of the producing agent. I have nothing to gain or lose by telling agents that something does or doesn't work.

 

[tins]

Nothing wrong with that. But, that comes to very core of why he and I argue so much. He is selling somehting and recruitng when he gives advice. I approach posting here from the perspective of the producing agent. I have nothing to gain or lose by telling agents that something does or doesn't work.

He is often recruiting, but he is very open about it. He does offer some advice with no strings attached that have helped others. I have yet to hear anybody that knows how to use (and share) the 'hard close' better than Greg.

 

[360]

Nothing wrong with that. But, that comes to very core of why he and I argue so much. He is selling somehting and recruitng when he gives advice. I approach posting here from the perspective of the producing agent. I have nothing to gain or lose by telling agents that something does or doesn't work.

C'mon JD let's be real. Your posts about EFES are responsible for recruiting more agents to EFES in a week that ol' Greg would recruit in a year. I know you are technically not recruiting directly but I'd bet my lunch you are their best recruiter bar none.

For a phone sales shop Greg also doesn't have too many options as there is not a single carrier out there with A-Z underwriting that does it by phone. It would be pretty tough to move somewhere without making the switch back to F2F.

 

[rousemark]

I guess my beef with SL and LH are the tactics used. Things like presenting yourself as an underwriter instead of agent or turning the focus onto ancillary things like the FCGS in an effort to convince the client that they are buying something very different from a very special agent that really understands how it works.

Hey, no doubt it works. The numbers at LH prove that and I'm sure the folks that own SL do very well for themselves. Something about a lot of it just doesn't feel right to me though. Hey to each his own. I just kind of think it's funny though how the LH guys in particular get their panties in a bunch when 99% of the people on a forum full of independent agents are diametrically opposed to what they are doing.

Nice post Greg, I'm with JD, at least you have a point, stick to it and don't pull any punches about what you sell and I trust that you sell insurance as an agent and not an underwriter as some of your SL cohorts have done in the past.

I don't know how old you are or how long you have been in the business but you seem to be really hung up on this "underwritter" phrase.. In the old days, one of the most common terms used for an agent was "Field Underwritter" . Some companies even use d that as the title on agents business cards. That was and still is the basis of our job. Even, more so now that we have SI yes or no apps. When you use the questions to determine the coverage the applicant qualifies for you are "underwriting" the case.

Of course, that term has a completely different meaning from when it was first used. The term began to be used for maritime coverage. When a ship was leaving, the bill of laden was posted and if an investor was willing to accept a portion of the risk, they would write their name at the bottom along wiht the amount of risk they would assume, hence the term underwriter.