I was an agent with Farmers until I caught fire and couldn't work for 5 weeks and missed my quarterly numbers.
For those who wants to get into the program or only been in the program for less than 4 years, get out now before it's too late. As a 6 year agent with 3800 PIF who just resign, I can give you a run down of the whole picture
Auto Insurance
You will be spending all day making excuses for the company on billing and auto system mess. You will be wasting your time drowining in the the current of concurrent transactions and submitting the same auto applications 4-5 times. Customers will receive cancellation notice and incorrect or complicated bills due to the system mess. Also be ready to hire a staff dedicating on checking triggers because you will get heart attacks if you check it daily. At renewal you will find everyone's mileage has been changed to 20000 to 40000 miles a year and every receive a big fat increase and you will be so busy dealing with angry phone calls. Management would claim they are short on budget to fix the system, but will spend unbelieveable amount of money hiring third party companies to call or send customers rating qustionnaires to verify everything you write , which is no different than "this call maybe monitored or recorded for quality control purpose" in AT&T(to think that they told you that you're a business owner really cracks me up), basically distrusting agents and finding an excuse to raise rate and make profit. I believe the legal term for this pratice is call Switch and Bait. They have changed a million things on auto system and have disclosed none to you until you painfully find out on your own. To sum it all up, the MCA processing system is a piece of crap.
The management will never announce to you Farmers auto business is in huge crisis and they don't know what to do with it yet. You will always hear lies that they the system will get better---as I have been in last 6 years. Life Insurance--- Their term rate is so high that I am too embarassed to quote them. The VUL and permanent have higher surcharge than other company's that I can't even recommend them to my friends and relatives. Agents who sell a lot of those are simply better bullshit artists than others. When customers refinancing, some agents would tell customers these "investments" of 10% will make better than the mortgage loan rate of 5%, therefore it makes more sense to take out a portion of their loans to invest in those VULs, what they neglected to mention is the sales charges and uncertainty of the investment. Farmers will do nothing to these agents because they are making profit. Do you want to work for a company that place profit above ethic???What would that say about you?
Your DM
They are all the same, they have different appearance just so you can tell them apart. At first they are very supportive, as soon as you convert to career the Farmers subsidy waiver schedule and contract quota pretty much takes care of your effort on quota. You now become a self-run money machine and will never hear from your DM even though they make an over write on every single piece of business you write. I take it back, you do hear from them when they need your help to meet certain numbers to make them look good on certain campaigns. It's all just an ego games they play competing amongst themselves. Every district meeting you will hear the same old story about sell more life insurance, because that's where DMs make the most profit. Most will do anything and everything to get you in the door, including lying and cheating. They are all the same, smooth talkers and lying without finching. They only have different looks just so you can tell them apart. Most of the district promotions are a joke. To make $300,000 residual every year you would have to bring about $3Million premium for the company, and all the incentive they provide is some pathetic trips or some cheap electronic gadgets. What are we, 15?
They all do the same---posting everyone's production every month, just like when you were back in high school teachers used score boards of grade so students would study harder. This sales management and motivational technique is so 80's.
The award programs
Having been to Champion and Toppers many times, I don't feel very successful judging from the effort I made, my expenses versus my bottom line. Their award programs are by PIF regardless of how much premium, so it's good for the company's goal and not yours. Their life insurance are based mostly on face amount and on quantity of life policies and bullshit like that, not based on the premium you bring for the company. When you do make those so called trips, all you hear is bunch of snorty people bragging none stop about their PIFs and how much staff they have, some of these people have horrible values in life but still being regarded as heros by the company. Do you really want to get into a place like that? In Farmers you are a superstar if you sell 100 juvies and a failure who doesn't deserve any awards if you sell 4 big life with less total effort, even the total premium being the same.
Your folio
....is a very deceiving thing because for the pathetic 10% they pay you there are staff expense, office expense and everything else. Now that the company's auto is in crisis the residual income is also becoming an illusion because dealing with angry renewal and billing calls and paperwork is basically a nightmare that you don't want to get yourself into. How does it affect your health and marriage--- I have heard at least 4 top producers agents who died of heart attack and high blood pressure at young age of 40s. In Champions most agents aren't in shape due to lack of time to exercise. What do you expect when you value money on top of everything else? Divorce rate in Farmers is also very high, regardless if you run the agency with or without your spouse. Is this what you're willing to sacrifice for the company?
Management
Uh...So much to say, not enough space.
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