Life Insurance Career; What are the pluses and minuses to a career in life insurance?
Thursday, January 5th, 2012 at
8:41 pm
I have been considering an offer to work as a life insurance agent. I’d like to hear from people who have worked in the industry to find out what the benefits and drawbacks to this kind of career are.
Filed under: Retirement Planning
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Pros:
Unlimited Income Potential
Flexible Schedules
Ability to be your own boss/set your own schedule
Cons:
No Set Salary (based on sales)
Long Hours
High Turnover Ratio
If you’re not a people person, insurance isn’t for you. You will meet and talk to Sooooooo many new people every day. Also, if you’re not a person who thrives on sales, you won’t enjoy the job very much.
Benefits – unlimited income potential
Disadvantages –
Low new business commission
Extremely low to no trailing commission for following years
Compensation is commission only
Agent failure rate can be 95% in the first year or two
Unlimited cold calls
Constant rejection
Online competition
Underwriting – getting your clients approved
If you don’t LIVE for sales, don’t bother. I’m a property and casualty agent. Much more stable. Life is a roller coaster.
The main drawback is that approximately 95% of individuals who receive these offers are not able to sell insurance successfully. Because they are not successful, they do not get paid (insurance agents are paid only if they are successful; they do not get an hourly wage or a fixed salary) and have to leave the quit within a year as a result. Also, because they did not actually get fired (they just do not get paid, but are allowed to work for free for as long as they can afford it), and have to quit, they do not get unemployment benefits.
Only 5% are able to stay in the field for a full year, and it is not known how many of those actually make any money and how many do not make money but are able to live off their personal savings while working for free.
Well, the biggest drawbacks are 95% of people wash out, and those that make it, work really really hard the first few years – like 60 – 80 hour workweeks.
The upside, is you meet lots of people, and there’s no limit to how much you can potentially earn.