Have you ever sold insurance?

Selling insurance can be a very good career. It is like any other career, you have to learn about what you are doing , and then get proficient at it.
I worked for Combined Insurance for several years, and I really enjoyed the personal freedom that i had. With combined, they would give me a weekly assignment of people to see and renewals to collect. Whether it took me 3 days or 6 days, that was my job for the week. So, some weeks, I finished early and had several days off, other days, I had trouble finding the people at home, and ended up working all day on Saturday as well.
Unless they give you a guaranteed salary to start, you may have some short-income weeks until you get proficient at direct sales. Some companies offer this (Combined was one of those), and some companies just kind of leave you on your own , to sink or swim.

Another nice thing about selling insurance, is the residual income. The policies that you sell usually have an immediate commission , and then a small residual commission that lasts as long as the policy is in force. Thus, as you sell more policies, the amount of residual commissions will also grow.

 

I "sell" insurance but I am not a commission only worker. I work for a set salary with bonuses. If you are looking for a steady income and are only working on commission I wouldn't suggest insurance. Premiums can go up and down and people cancel their policies all the time. There is also many different types of insurance and the learning curve can be intense but if you are up for a challenge then insurance is certainly that. The customer service aspect of the insurance business is the hardest. The general public is hard enough to deal with in any field but when it comes to someones insurance and a claim the service end of things is what makes or breaks a relationship.

Good luck!

 

I agree that customer service is extremely important. One of the issues here is how dctors fill out the insurance claims for the patients. I worked in many small towns, some that had only one or two doctors. If the doctor's office did a proper job of filling out the claims, people got the claims paid, and they were happy to see me when I worked in that town. When the doctor's office did a poor job than many people didn't get the claims paid, and (of course) they blamed the insurance company.
I would have to look at their policy, and then the claim denial, and see if the problem was that the doctor had not filled itout properly, and then they had to re-submit the claim again.
Still, it was a job that I enjoyed, the freedom of not being tied to an office or a schedule was great, and there were weeks where I earned several thousand dollars in one week.

 

I've never sold insurance but my first husband did it for awhile. It didn't work out too well for him, but I know of other people who make pretty good at it. It depends, I guess, on your personality type along with which company you get on at. Personally, I couldn't sell a plate of steak and potatoes to a starving man so would never dream of trying to sell insurance.

I don't know that it would be stressful. Unless, of course, you weren't doing well at it as in the case of my first husband.

My daughter in law used to work in claims, though; and that was very stressful. She did it for years before it finally got to her so badly that the company had to give her a leave of absence and find her a less stressful position. Now she teaches other people to do what she did and that's a lot easier on her.

 

The only upside to selling insurance is 100% of the general population does have a "need" for insurance. Whether is be home, car, business, health, or life insurance its not just a frivolous want. Insurance is a need. If you are buying a home you need to have insurance before the loan can go through. If you are buying a car you need to have car insurance before driving the car off the lot. The need is was means that you will always have potential clients out there. Its a lot different from selling something that is not a necessity like face creams, Tupperware, diet products, etc. If you can build a base clientele that continually refer you to others you will do just fine.

 

The benefit would be that it's a job, which is a good thing. Another benefit is if you are really good at it then you can make a lot of money, and also develop a lot of great contacts for yourself as well. As someone here just mentioned, everyone needs insurance, so you will come in contact with many different people and you'll be able to network a lot. Bottom line though, you have to see if you like the job, if you like it, then you're going to be good at it.

 

My mom used to be an insurance agent. I often went with her to the agency and whenever she met up with prospects. You need to have great stamina to be able to survive this kind of job in addition to a gregarious personality. Up your convincing powers too and do not be discouraged. You will experience people saying "no" to your face but you just have to be creative with your marketing strategies and persevere.

 

I remember my college days when I sold life insurance. No, I was not a licensed broker, just a sub-agent to earn some money to complement my school allowance. When I graduated and started working, what I sold on the side was ready-to-wear clothes. I didn't go back to selling insurance because it was too difficult for me to convince people to invest in life insurance. It is easier to convince them to buy clothing items.

 

One of the most difficult jobs is to sell insurance. This is with regard to direct sales insurance agents. There is cutthroat competition between the various insurance agencies and companies which means that one has to go an extra mile in order to be noticed. It gets tougher when you consider that you are being paid on commission basis. Potential clients are hard to commit and have issues of trust. An insurance salesman should be given a retainer based on this prognosis.