Do you want to protect your assets? If yes, then you’ll need to cover those assets with life insurance. Life insurance covers up your losses to a certain degree.
But to do that you’ll need to understand the life insurance policy properly. And to help you understand every insurance company hires agents on their behalf. They help the client to realize the importance of a life insurance policy.
Who is the life insurance agent?
A life insurance agent refers to a certified person that has the necessary qualification to sell the insurance policy on behalf of their native company. Their main duty is to help you understand the insurance policy and choose the best policy for you.
Are you wondering what a life insurance agent does and what it takes to be an insurance agent? Follow us through the upcoming segment as we discuss different aspects of being a life insurance agent.
Let’s begin.
How Does A Life Insurance Agent Help A client?
The primary job of a life insurance agent is to help navigate you to selecting the best life insurance policy for you. Just so you know, choosing a life insurance policy isn’t a simple task.
Understanding the policy contract and acting on them in accordance can be hectic work. Especially if you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. That’s where the insurance agent comes through for you.
They help you understand every aspect of the policy and help guide you to choose the right one for you. By explaining the package deals and benefits, drawbacks, etc. Basically, they make the difficult technical terms of the policy easier to understand. Doing so, help you to cover your needs from the life insurance policy.
How Does A Life Insurance Agent Make Money?
Mostly an insurance agent earns their keeps on a percentage basis. They get a certain amount of percentage on each insurance policy sold. That means with an increasing rate of the sold policy their percentage rate also increases.
A hard-working life insurance agent can earn 100000$ per year. However, their income solely depends on their sales and their percentage. They get up to 8 to 10 percent commission on each sale. However, not every agent gets paid via commission, and some of them get paid on a monthly basis.
But in comparison, an independent agent earns more than a captive agent. Because they are eligible to work with different agencies and thus, gain access to a vast amount of clients. That leads to earning more commissions. And as you know more commissions mean more earnings.
Life Insurance Agent: Independent Agent Vs Captive Agent
Since we’ve already mentioned a little about an independent and a captive agent, let’s have a further discussion about them.
As you know by now, life insurance agents are divided into two groups one is an independent agent where you work on behalf of different agencies or companies. On the other hand, there’s a captive agent who works on behalf of a single agency or a company.
Independent agents are not bound to one agency, which gives them the flexibility to scout for potential clients of their choice. Whereas captive agents are bound to a certain company which gives a limited client source in comparison.
However, both types of agents have the flexibility to choose their potential clients. The difference is in source, one is bound and the other is not.
Required Skills For A Life Insurance Agent
Being a life insurance agent isn’t a child’s play, they need hard work and need people-pleasing skills to master for being a good insurance agent. We’ve prepared a list of required skill sets for a life insurance agent.
Let’s go through the list together, shall we?
Financial Backup
Although it’s true life insurance agents do make a lot of money, however, they are inconsistent, there’s no guarantee of the amount they will make. So, they must have a backup source for difficult financial conditions.
Also, a beginner agent doesn’t start making much money for at least 2 months. So without a financial backup, they can’t get up to their potential roles.
Patience
The life of an insurance agent isn’t easy, yes they make a lot of money, but it comes with great patience. In the line of life insurance, marketing is everything. They need to deal with lots of different types of people, and not all accept their policies and terms. That means in this line they have to face a lot of rejections.
But they need to have the drive to keep at it until they convince the potential client, which requires patience.
Multitasking Capabilities
An insurance agent needs to handle lots of tasks at a time, which requires vigilance and multitasking capability. Otherwise, they would be overwhelmed with the workload.
Convincing Personality
For a life insurance agent, a strong convincing skill is a must. Because people don’t always wish to take a chance with a life insurance policy because they tend to think it’s a lengthy process.
An agent must have the capability to convince those clients to get on board with the policy. Otherwise, continuous rejection can make them demotivated.
Willingness To Learn New Things
Willingness to learn new things each day is essential for the life insurance agent. They must show a willingness to continue to grow in this business if they wish to be successful. They must train their mind to learn from every single thing happening around them. It’s a never-ending learning process.
Attention To Details
Attention to detail is a key skill for an insurance agent. Selling insurance policies requires a major focus on clients and their needs. The key is to notice the smallest of details, otherwise, they can’t understand a client’s needs and henceforth failed to sell a policy.
Money Management
A life insurance agent also needs to have money management skills. As we mentioned there’s no certainty that they will have great sales every month. If they can’t manage the money inflow and outflow then it’ll be problematic and harder to sustain their work-life properly.
Last Words
A life insurance agent comes as a blessing for you, if you’re new to the life insurance policy and know very little about it. As they help you with every query and translate everything in such a way so that you’ll understand the process with ease.
In the above discussion, we’ve already shown every necessary aspect of a life insurance agent. We hope it’s enough for you to take the necessary help from an agent to get your life insurance policy.
