Sitting Down with an Independent Agent.

Derrick

Super Genius
100+ Post Club
205
Hello,

Long story short I'm a life agent with my series 6 and 63 at a captive agency. Been here a year and a half. I can also do health, disability and Medicare but that's a very small part of the business.

Anyways, I ran into a friend of my dads who works at a very small regional regional bank as a mortgage lender. We got to talking and I told him I'm thinking about going independent and expanding into P&C. Coincidentally about ten years back the bank bought an independent agency and I asked him if he could connect me with an agent and I could pick his brain. He sounded excited and agreed and over the course of two weeks of talking back and forth, I've got a meet and greet with said agent.

My question is split into two parts. Going from captive to independent, as well as expanding to P&C, what are some questions I can ask him about his business? Secondly, how can I position myself to seem like I'm interested in a job, but not desperate.
 
You're in insurance and financial services. You 'eat what you kill'. You never have a 'job'. Take that word out of your vocabulary while you're referring to the producing side of this business. The only 'jobs' in our industry are to work for the home offices, or as assistants to producers.

Ask questions about marketing and training challenges as an independent.

If you really want to work with this group (remember that interviews work both ways, so make sure you interview them just as much as they interview you)... the more you can show that you understand their world, the more that you may be considered. In our business, we look for people who think the way we do. Everything else can be trained.
 
Id find out how much time is spent dealing with claims on the P&C side. Also, find out what the persistency is like with the P&C business...does a lot of the business walk away when there are rate increases?


I primarily do senior market L&H. I have heard that the P&C side has to deal with those 2 issues I mentioned earlier, quite a bit more than the L&H side
 
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