Working For Farmers

lucy1234

New Member
17
I had an interview with farmers today and got hired. They said I can start training and studying to get my license right away. I have two questions. Firstly, I have bad credit -- they never said anything about a credit check when I was there. Would they actually train me and let me get my license and then do a credit check? I would think they would have already said something so I dont have to waste time and neither do they (with training me, etc). Secondly, I fibbed a little on the interview by saying I have more contacts than I really have. I want to know how a new agent can get sales -- they are not going to give me leads for a little while. They want me to contact everyone i know first. What is the best route for me with little contacts? thanks
 
Your xdates/contacts? Everyone lies and most DM's look the other way. I went to career school having done all the prereqs and found out that most of the other agents didn't and their DM's had signed off on it.

The worst thing I ever did was contact friends and family and sell to them. Avoid it. Most of the major captives do the same thing. I will never do it again.

You will get all kinds of credit checks and when you sign up for your securities licenses and your U4 you will be examined with a microscope. There is lots of fine print in the contract and they can cut you lose at a lot of points along the way.

They will never give you leads. You are on your own to generate your own.
 
thanks, does anyone else have any advice on this -- mainly the bad credit issue. Farmers just gave me the study packet for P&C license. They are supposed to start training me soon. But they havent even asked me my SS# -- to even do a background check(that is perfectly clean). I dont understand why they would waste all their time on training me for nothing . thoughts or is this common procedure. Should I be worried about not getting hired even though they told me I am hired?
 
this is not like a job where you are hired. you are contracted and expected to perform. sounds like you are not even contracted yet.
 
Talk to the DM about it. Their district level training is lame. After you pass the tests, complete 1000 xdates, contact your 100 friends and family, and do a bunch of online training you will go to career school. Why waste any time with them until you know you can even be accepted? Talk to the DM about it.

I was one. Jumped though all the hoops, schools, licenses. Won their production awards for Life Insurance, hit my P&C numbers every month. In the end it didn't pencil out and a lot of what I was told was exaggerated and wrong. Went independent and made more money in 2 months than I made in a year with Farmers. I had to pay back the match money, but it was a low price to pay for freedom.
 
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thanks chuck. Is what you are talking about (career school, etc) for people that just want to start their own agency as opposed to people just working as an agent for an agency?. When I was interviewed, I wasn't told anything about that (career school). I was just told to get my licenses and they will train me during the process and then I can start selling.
 
Who hired you? An agent or a district office? If you are just going to work for an agent, then you may not have to go through the Farmers career school. If you are going to work for an agent you are at the mercy of the agent, not Farmers. There is not enough money in P&C to work for a partial commission with no guarantees of renewals, ect.
 
I interviewed with an agent -- maybe that is why the credit issue, etc was not brought up. I thought this would be a good place to get started. I heard you can make alot more money going independent but I have never sold insurance before and I thought it would be hard without any experience.
 
The agent get a percentage of what he would get if he were independent. You get a percentage of what the agent gets with no real guarantees of renewal income, which is the reason the agent is an agent.

Read the threads here at this forum. There are plenty of companies to go to work for directly. Selling P&C for a pct of a pct without any ownership in the policies is a way to starve. The agent is doing it to build a book of business of renewal income for the future, and you will be helping him. He gets paid 10pct commission for auto and 20pct for home. A new auto client is not easy to find and for a $500 policy he gets $50. What are you going to get? $25. Do you realize how much work it is to find a new auto customer with the uncompetitive rates Farmers has? If they are not extremely good credit with no accidents and no tickets, they will not buy from you. Auto insurance is becoming a commodity and is price driven. Farmers is not competitive in most areas.

Think about Life and Health. Hook up with a Health agency and sell grouphealth and maybe medicare. You will at least make a living.
 
Thanks Chuck, you have been a great help. I know what you mean about farmers having high cost auto. I have many friends who have switched to progressive because it is cheaper. So is health choice one a good one to sign up with -- I am just looking for something that will work with the bad credit (but I have a clean background). I live in Nevada. I assume you think it is better to go completely independent(selling just health and life) as opposed to even owning your own agency with farmers? I was speaking with a few friends and they thought I should stick with farmers as opposed to going independent because of the name (farmers being well known company). I guess I dont want to be selling policies with carriers that people havent heard of. And for the reason being that I have no experience. But you are right, I dont want to be killing myself trying to sell auto policies.
 

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