Hello,
I spent about three hours today talking with an independent agent here in Indianapolis about possibly working for him. He sells all lines of insurance but primarily concentrates on the P&C side. I think he is going to offer me a job and as far as I can tell he is going to be great for training me. I definitely think this is going to be a better situation than starting at a huge captive agency where they tell you to work your Project 200 list and tell you to "Go get 'em." He said the pay would be negotiable and our commission split would be primarily based on the amount of salary I would want. I am young and still live at home so I think in the long run it would be better to go the straight commission route. My question is, what kind of commission split should I ask for? He seems like he is really honest and a straight shooter. He basically said not to expect to make a ton of money the first year but rather to look at it as a long-term situation that pays huge dividends far down the road. Then he ran some figures that he said he thought would be reasonable. If I had 25 P&C apps a week with 12.5% commission on 900 avg premium and a 50/50 commission split I would make about 12,000 in commission a year. Surely at 50/50 he would have been talking about adding some sort of base salary though right? I can't see how anybody could live on $12,000. What commission split should I ask for if I work for all commission?
I spent about three hours today talking with an independent agent here in Indianapolis about possibly working for him. He sells all lines of insurance but primarily concentrates on the P&C side. I think he is going to offer me a job and as far as I can tell he is going to be great for training me. I definitely think this is going to be a better situation than starting at a huge captive agency where they tell you to work your Project 200 list and tell you to "Go get 'em." He said the pay would be negotiable and our commission split would be primarily based on the amount of salary I would want. I am young and still live at home so I think in the long run it would be better to go the straight commission route. My question is, what kind of commission split should I ask for? He seems like he is really honest and a straight shooter. He basically said not to expect to make a ton of money the first year but rather to look at it as a long-term situation that pays huge dividends far down the road. Then he ran some figures that he said he thought would be reasonable. If I had 25 P&C apps a week with 12.5% commission on 900 avg premium and a 50/50 commission split I would make about 12,000 in commission a year. Surely at 50/50 he would have been talking about adding some sort of base salary though right? I can't see how anybody could live on $12,000. What commission split should I ask for if I work for all commission?
