Sterling a Negative Experience?

[mcarrico27]

First time poster here and insurance green horn, so I'll go ahead and apologize for my lack of experience and insight to the insurance world.

I am 23 years old and recently acquired my PA Life,Health, and Accident license. I have been actively pursuing a career in insurance sales as I finish out my final semester at college. I have read many posts from people trying to find that perfect "magical" company that is going to make them easy money, and I hope this post does not come off as such.

In short, I have read a few negative posts pertaining to Sterling and, having a job offer with said company, all I am really interested in knowing: as a rookie insurance agent, just starting out, am I wasting my time and possibly damaging my future success?

The interview went well, and I am optimistic about the opportunity. I guess I am really just looking for reassurance. Any advice, tips, tutelage, etc. EXTREMELY APPRECIATED.

Thanks,
-MCarrico

York PA

 

[xrac]

You can do better!

 

[Mark]

I know nothing about that company. Just make sure if you go with them, that you can walk away from them anytime that you want to without it hurting you.

You may want to talk to some of the agents that are working there and see what they really think about the company. Talk to the people on the bottom of the food chain.

 

[mcarrico27]

Those are not the pearls of wisdom I was praying for. Upon further reading of the numerous, detailed and encouraging, threads (The past 4 hours waiting for someone to respond to my original post ) I do feel more confident about Sterling Health Plans even though there is not many current positive OR negative threads about them. I know absolutely nothing, beyond the basic knowledge i needed to pass the licensing exam, in terms of insurance products and how to sell them effectively and ethically.

What I am hoping to get out of this opportunity is a solid understanding of insurance sales 101 and a structured foundation to build a prosperous career from. It seems the only thing that may slow me down is the possibility of me having a bad mentor.

If there is anyone near the York area of PA that is looking for a motivated and driven salesman to take under their wing, or by chance some rogue agent do-gooder feeling charitable, I would be very interested in at least speaking with you to gain any wisdom I can before chucking myself into the insurance world meat grinder.

 

[Newby]

You will have a tough time. They don't have a great name that people search for and their products can be easily beat by the competition.

If I were you I would look for an agency that sold more variety of products and companies.

IF the Sterling branch has outstanding training, it could be worth it but I doubt they do. Around here (southern Indiana) I have not heard real good things coming from their agents and former agents.

 

[mcarrico27]

Basically it is my understanding that they are going to fly me to Atlanta (and back) where I will receive training on their products and an example of a successful sales presentation. They are going to pay me 200 dollars plus a meal allowance for the duration of the stay, which is a perk from the other opportunities that I have seen.

At this point I just want to get my feet wet, and this is really the only half-seemingly legitimate organization without a super sleazy reputation that has been interested in bringing me aboard.

If anyone has a more logical path they want to set me on, I am all ears.

 

[mcarrico27]

Ok so thought i would give a report of my experiences at Sterling Health Plans also known as Sterling Life Insurance.

First let me state that as of last week I am no longer with the company. The rest of this dialogue will pretty much consist of my entire experience, so unless you are new to insurance and looking for a good starting company, this will be of little interest to you as I am sure you have heard this story a million times in different variations.

Training:

Atlanta for a week. It was nice that they paid for my plane tickets and gave me a $165 allowance for food and activities. The training was some what helpful, but looking back its just a breif overview of medicare and some of the cancer / critical illness policies they have with light roleplay. Looking back at the training I really think it is just there to get you amped up and excited about working for Sterling.

Field Week 1:

My marketing manager was assigned to be my PAL (mentor) and was supposed to set a full week of appointments for me while I was in training. He had 1 lead for us to work on monday... enough said.

*Note: Most of the people that you will talk to don't really care about supplements and MAs, their prime concern is RX, and its not that healthcare isnt a huge concern, it's just that they don't notice the sting of their health costs as much as what they are paying for their drugs... guess what. you make $3 off of a RX that generates about 600 a yr in premiums.*

Ok now that im this far i dont feel like writing everything out haha. So i will summarize.

Basically my market manager got fired after the first week i had been there, something about he was producing yada yada yada.

I stumbled around for 3 months trying to make sales and teach myself insurance 101. I primarily sold the Combined D (contract they have with CICA aka the devil) we have because it was the only thing that was remotely competitive. Sterling's Plan A starts at $169 a yr, so imagine how bad our C was... The Combined sup sold for 135 a mo and I was only making 12%!

When your a new agent you dont understand what percentages really mean to your commissions, so let me break it down for you.

135 x 12 = yrly premium = 1620

1620 x .12 = 194.4

However, combined only gives a 6mo advance and then 6 mo down the road you get the other half. So for 1 sale I was making about 97 dollars.

Sterling does have a bonus structure, its 150% of your commissions for the first 3 months on NON MA sales. So now we are looking at

97 x 2.5 = 242.5 per sale.

Basically I was driving close to 500 miles a week, making about 200 dollars a week, so after gas I had about 100 dollars left over.

In my experience the only people that were really making it at Sterling were people that had independant contracts on the side. They would push the sterling products, and if they didn't buy those they would sell their other products or maybe just sell the other products only Im not sure. But if sterling did find out those ppl would be terminated.

I decided to leave when I made the weekly box scores twice in June (A list of the agents making the top sales for the week) and realized if I was amongst the highest selling agents and was making crap money, then there wasnt a lot of room for advancement.

Ok im getting tired, overall not a bad company to learn the ropes, but you will become poor very quickly.

I hope this helps some people. In closing all I can say is look for a company with a base salary if you are wanting to go captive and you want to learn as much as you can.

I have a second interview with Liberty Mutual tomorrow and although I have recieved mixed emotions about this company atleast there is a 40k base for 3 months while I am in training. Then i believe it goes down to 30k, ill try and keep you guys posted as this site has been a really great resource for me.

If there are any agents in PA that would like to contact me with questions about my experience or perhaps a good employment please feel free to email me at

[email protected]

Write some BIZ!
-Matt