Why is It Getting Harder to Find Good Agents?

[Arthur Rudnick]

Al,
First of all, no one put a gun to your head and forced you to enter the insurance industry. The insurance business is tough? Welcome to the real world, EVERY business is tough!

Looking back, maybe you should have been a school teacher? Or, Maybe you should have taken a job out of college at an entry level position and now, 40 years later you'd be a corportate bigshot, ready to retire with a great pension & benefits.

This my friend, is the career path you have chosen. No, selling insurance is not an easy way to make a living. And, yes...
many bust their ass and make $35,000 or $50,000 a year. But, isn't that the way the world works?

And, in spite of what you say, I know many, many agents who are making in excess of $100,000/year, are self-employed, work their own hours and answer to no one other than themselves. Not a bad deal.

I've found that most people enter this business as a second career. (I did) Those in their 40s, or 50s who found themselves out of a job and for whatever reason, chose the world of insurance. That's why we find very few people in their 20s or 30s in our business.

Kids do not go to college and major in "sales" with the anticipation of selling insurance or cars. It's the corporate world that they train for. And, for the most part, it's the corporate world where they start off.

What's wrong with the CEOs & senior executives making the big bucks with big benefits? Isn't that everyone's goal? (Unless of course you're a supporter of OWS)

You come off as someone who hates what you're doing and bashes the industry because someone lied to you and you never reached you're lifelong goals that you were guarateed.

At 64, you have plenty of time to find another career that may better suit your purpose.

Just my 2 cents........

 

[Guest]

Al,


You come off as someone who hates what you're doing and bashes the industry because someone lied to you and you never reached you're lifelong goals that you were guaranteed.

At 64, you have plenty of time to find another career that may better suit your purpose.

Just my 2 cents........

Since you are the moderator I won't dare try to explain to you how wrong you are in language (mostly invective) I think you need to hear because I don't want to be banned from your section of this venue, nor the venue as a whole.

However, I will say that making this a personal attack on me (read the above... what else would you call it?) is what I would call an abuse of your "power" because I would never be allowed to say about you what you have said about me BY NAME. Sam would not allow it and would ban me (as he has in the past!)

That aside, let me try to defend myself.

I've had a number of "careers."

• Yes you were right. I started as a school teacher. I taught the entire 8th grade in Diana, West Virginia right after graduation from U.Va in 1969.
  
• In the early 80s I started a small publishing company that made a lot of money in the early 90s in non-fiction books before Al Gore invented the Internet! We sold 15,000 copies of this tome at $29 each (no retail split... all mail-order.)
  
• I own a small software development company and I wrote a web-service seven years ago called Jaya123 that makes a few dollars.

The bulk of my career has been as an independent computer programmer "hired gun." I started after leaving EDS around 1978. It took a while to get "established" but even in 1980 I was getting $15 an hour and that was pretty good pay back then. Ten years later I was making in the area of $80/hr. for about 1650 hours a year of work, with paid travel and accommodations when away from home, which was too often.

I did programming and analysis mostly for insurance and financial-sector firms. (I met my first, current, and very expensive wife at Blue Shield of California in San Francisco and married in 1981... just had 30th anniversary.)

I entered the insurance biz (my late father was an agent for Berkshire Life when I was growing up) after the confluence of three events:

• My wife was severely disabled by arthritis and had to give up her surgical RN job... has had 4 hip replacements and both knees will be done this winder.
  
• A large amount of the work I did (mostly programming) went off-shore.
  
• With "advanced" age and gray hair, young programming-team managers didn't want to hire "their dad" even for contracts. It was hard to find work.

I was well-seasoned in sales (having had to "sell" myself for 25 years) and I knew the biz from my father and from working in the corporate insurance world (in the basement where the IT staff was!)

I worked as an "intern" on-and-off for about a year with a local insurance agent-guy (I did his computer stuff and he trained me in the sales/marketing side of the biz) and then got a license and hired John (Crabcake) P. to teach me the ropes on health and "connected" with Dave020 as my mentor and go-to guy on life and have done fine... given I don't work much more than 25 hours a week... and sometimes not even that.

I've been as successful as I've wanted to be in this biz and as I said in an earlier post, it's a perfect opportunity for a baby-boomer (or anyone) who has some face-to-face biz skills (teaching, customer service, HR, etc.) AND who has at least 18 months of sustainable living expenses in the bank (or better yet, is already financially secure.)

I hope that sort of rebuts your assertion that for some reason I should look for another career or hates what I'm doing or any of the other pejorative comments you made in your post about me.

I hope I don't get banned for disputing your assertions in my post here.

I will say this. It is always good to be "looking around." Nothing is static... there are always opportunities out there.

While I will keep my hand in the insurance biz (just doing simple 'protective products... mom/pop health groups, term life, C-I, etc. as opposed to complex indexed annuities or UL or even LTC) I'm back "in school" (independent study) learning how to program the iPad as I have some ideas for some apps that would be fun to write and perhaps make a few dollars too boot.

Like you say, I'm only 64. I'm told 60 is the new 40!

Again, please don't ban me.

Al
I can be found here, not under a cloak or in a shadow like so many others.

 

[Arthur Rudnick]

Al,
I don't believe that anything you said would cause anyone to ban you from the Forum. Differences of opinions is not a cause for a ban. You can answer a post anyway you care to as long as it does not violate the rules of the forum.

However, I am very passionate about the insurance business and in every case I will try my best to defend it. My "personal attack" on you was not intended as such. My intentions were to defend an industry that has been very good to me and thousands of others.

 

[CALTCAgent]

I thought the discussions were very thoughtful. I didn't see anyone attacking the industry. More it appears they are "telling it as they see it". The more people share their opinions, right or wrong, the more we can learn. Just my opinion.

 

[medsuptage]

I'll toss one in here.. I haven't read any of the last three pages but in a direct response to the OP.

I'm coming up on my second year in the industry and things are just starting to look up..

It's been a very rough road, started captive and now Indy.

Now a days there are so many people trying to take advantage of new agents and make a buck off them its really sad.

Between IMOs/Lead companies/ and of course captive companies are something in itself.

So many people are out to take every last dollar out of your account by either charging you for something worthless or giving you nothing for a whole bunch of work.

By the time you find a path that works or makes sense, you might have already exhausted your resources(savings) to make it through the next path of getting up on your feet.

 

[Bertolinoins]

If you have been in this business on the P&C side for over 5 and you are not making 6 figures... you either have zero sales ability, were not trained properly or you have no market access. I don't care if you are selling commercial lines or personal lines... $50k a year in new business revenue in 35 hours per week is not that hard. Big national shops have quotas of $250k per year in new biz commission and they have dozens of guys in every major city doing it.

 

[CALTCAgent]

If you have been in this business on the P&C side for over 5 and you are not making 6 figures... you either have zero sales ability, were not trained properly or you have no market access. I don't care if you are selling commercial lines or personal lines... $50k a year in new business revenue in 35 hours per week is not that hard. Big national shops have quotas of $250k per year in new biz commission and they have dozens of guys in every major city doing it.

Not a P & C guy.

Why would someone have "no market access"?

Thanks!

 

[Bertolinoins]

Not a P & C guy.

Why would someone have "no market access"?

Thanks!

Unlike LH, it is difficult to get appointed with many of the best P&C carriers. They are quite selective in certain areas to avoid over saturating areas with too many agents but they want to see significant production.

 

[leeleerambles]

My personal opinion is alot of younger people entering the workforce, or salesforce now (kids in their 20s) are more expectant of things being handed to them without having to do a tremendous amount, it is an entitlement generation. This of course does not apply to everyone. More of a general comment. It used to be you expected to work very hard to make a living. Now you expect to coast by and make a ton of money. Nice work if you can get it!

 

[Arthur Rudnick]

I'll toss one in here.. I haven't read any of the last three pages but in a direct response to the OP.
I'm coming up on my second year in the industry and things are just starting to look up..It's been a very rough road,
started captive and now Indy.Now a days there are so many people trying to take advantage of new agents and make a buck off them its really sad.Between IMOs/Lead companies/ and of course captive companies are something in itself.
So many people are out to take every last dollar out of your
account by either charging you for something worthless or giving you nothing for a whole bunch of work.
By the time you find a path that works or makes sense, you might have already exhausted your resources(savings) to make it through the next path of getting up on your feet.

And, that's why it's important for those entering the business to have a mentor for the 1st 12 months.