Support and Training for Insurance Agents?
Monday, November 5, 2012 Cailie Currin My nephew recently began what we thought might be a career in life insurance sales after not being able to get a job in the field in which he holds a master’s degree: teaching. He seemed to be in a good situation and was excited about the work and the prospects for both personal and financial success in the industry. But that came to a quick end when, after a couple of short months, he was asked to go door-to-door. That was something he was not prepared to do.
I was surprised to hear that he had suddenly left the field. I also totally understood not wanting to go door-to-door selling insurance. He has decided that substitute teaching is a better alternative.
I think someone who would have been an asset to the industry was lost in what seems to have been bait and switch training. He never would have studied for his license and started the training if he had been told he’d be going door-to-door. Having been licensed he was excited about the industry and his career. He is very social, well spoken and a superb networker. He was excited to turn those skills into sales.
Now he is soured and cynical about the same industry – no longer likely to speak highly of it. It seems a shame to me, particularly as I read over and over in trade publications about the importance of supporting and training agents for longevity. It didn’t happen for my nephew.
Reader Comments (3)
Door-to-door insurance sales? Wow... that's a company stuck in another century. Damages the professional reputation so many agents seek to promote, too. If your nephew liked the work prior to the D2D stuff, though, he might want to check with other carriers before abandoning the industry altogether. Some still invest quite a bit in their field force.
Training is one of the important part of insurance field because one must be know how to handle the customer and different situations to interact with the customers. Training and support both are relative and perform simultaneously to perform better.
I was visited today by two representatives of Bankers Life and Casualty who were somewhat insistent on me sitting down with them to discuss my upcoming options for Medicare. I had already researched my options and told them I had no interest in discussing anything with them, since I had already decided on not only my options, but also on the provider I would be selecting for these options. They kept pushing to sit down and discuss the "confusing" Medicare options. I never opened the screen door to them and for that I am thankful, since I'm rather certain one of them would have stuck their shoe in it. These tactics of cold contact to households where individuals are reaching Medicare age (openly divulged by offices of the state you're living in) are asinine and quite often as deceptive as gypsy roofers. If the insurance industry is so hard up for clients and money, perhaps they should stop paying their CEO's so many bonuses and invest in their employees and the product they're trying to sell. Honest insurance is a dying breed, bordering on extinction.