Insurance Sales
Insurance sales is a broad topic that has many categories. A number of both individuals and groups also sell a variety of different insurance products. This post will focus on life, health and accident licensed sales. It is not going into detail on variable insurance sales. Insurance sales can be a profitable business for anyone but it is certainly not easy. There are a number of obstacles in insurance sales. This blog will address them later but first we will list the types of products sold. The most common insurance types sold are:
- Life Insurance.
- Term life.
- Permanent life.
- Final Expense.
- Medicare
- supplement plans Medicare .
- Advantage plans Medicare .
- Medicare Part D Rx plans.
- Property and Casualty Insurance.
- Auto & Home.
- Business.
- Liability.
- Long Term Care.
- Traditional LTC.
- Hybrid products.
- Single deposit products.
- Annuity Sales.
- Fixed annuities.
- Indexed annuities.
- Variable annuities.
- Singe Premium Immediate Annuities (SPIA’s).
- Disability Insurance.
- Group and Individual.
- Health Insurance.
- group and individual.
- Affordable Care Act compliant and subsidized plans.
- Non ACA plans.
- Short Term Plans.
Who sells insurance?
A number of people working in different capacities sell insurance. The majority of sales are made by either insurance companies direct, independent sales people, insurance agencies, Field Marketing Organizations (FMO’s) or a number of other groups. People selling for only one company are called direct sales or captive sales people. Both independent agencies and agents will usually sell a number of different companies. Captive agencies will sell various companies as well. In fact, agents in captive agencies can only sell products approved by the agency. FMO’s provide insurance contracts to both independent sales people and agencies as well.
How do you sell insurance?
Making money in the insurance world can be a challenge. Getting a contract to sell is fairly simple. The only hard part is figuring out which companies are needed. Many agents use a quote engine to help find the best companies. Agencies and FMO’s can also provide sound advice. Getting contracted involves, filling out a paper contract, having E and O insurance and an insurance license. Companies will check the applicants background. Some companies and product types require a certification prior to selling. This is most common in Medicare sales.
How do you make sales?
The hardest part of insurance sales is getting in front of prospects. Training, sales skills, preparation, good products are all important. None of it matters if you are not getting in front of prospects. Agents will use a number of ways to get in front of people “activity”. They included, cold calling, mail response leads, natural markets, community meetings, seminars, cross selling and a number of other methods. Seminars, mail leads, online leads and community events seem to be used most often. Our agency offers a free Medicare lead program. We pay full commission and provide leads at no cost. learn more about our free lead program
Compensation
Insurance sales is usually commission based work. Agents need to be careful with companies that offer you an advance contract. The companies will usually advance the commission payment for the first 6 months to a year. Advance length depends on product type and company. Most life companies will pay a compensation from 60% to 120% depending on a number of factors. Medicare and health business is usually a lump sum payment and then pays an annual renewal. Both Long Term Care and Disability as well will pay from 40% to 70% depending on various factors. There are advance charge backs. This means the policy did not stay in force for at least 1 year. The agent is then responsible to pay back the unearned months. Some companies will have a charge back for up to 2 years.
Getting started
Insurance sales takes time to learn. There are a lot of facets to learn to become a good insurance broker. As a result, the average agent needs to be willing/able to live off a modest income in the first year. Income will increase every year due to renewals. In brief, agents need to find ways to build their book as quickly as possible. As shown above, there are a number of ways to get started quickly.
You can either call our office at 203-796-5403 with questions or Email us at admin@croweandassociates.com
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