Insurance Sales Jobs - Which One is the Best?

With the plethora of insurance options out there it can be very overwhelming when trying to determine which type of insurance career might be the best for you. Of course everyone is familiar with life insurance and car insurance. Just open the Yellow Pages and you will find page after page of agents willing to sell you these popular policies.

If you are considering insurance as a career, I suggest you look at some different options. The fastest growing segment of the insurance industry is the voluntary benefits segment. As other segments of the insurance market and the economy as a whole remain steady or decline, voluntary benefits continue to grow at double digit rates.

Voluntary benefits are typically sold through employers. The employer agrees to offer voluntary benefits to their employees at no cost to the employer. Then the VB provider makes presentations to each employee to determine what insurance policies they would like buy through payroll deduction. Examples of VB products would be short - term disability, term life, limited medical, and cancer insurance.

The great thing about this form of insurance sales is that the employer doesn't pay anything out of pocket like they do many times with group health insurance. In fact many times the company will save on their FICA taxes and their workman's compensation costs. The cost of VB products are deducted from the employee's paychecks before taxes are taken out. The short term disability product will often make workman's comp claims go down. Another advantage to this approach is that employees have been found to prefer to buy their insurance through their employers. They feel the company has vetted the VB provider and trust their recommendation. Also, it simplifies their life with payroll deduction so there is no need to write an additional check every month for another bill.

Insurance Sales Jobs - Which One is the Best?

The first sales position in this industry is the opener or direct sales rep. They sell the employer's on allowing them to come in and offer their products to the employees to complement the benefits the company already offers like vacation, 401k, and major medical. The commissions for this position are very generous. Most companies tend to load up the incentives for signing up a lot of cases. As a first year rep, you will be encouraged to pursue companies with less than 100 employees. They are easier to sell and you can get a decision more quickly. I interviewed with a VB provider a few months ago and they had 1st year openers making over $160K.

The secondary sales position is the enroller position. The enroller makes the one on one sales presentation to the employee after the opener gets the go ahead to offer their VB products to the company. The enrollers can make good money (though they don't make as much as openers) depending on the number of cases they have to work on. They are somewhat dependent on the openers to generate the cases. Some companies like Aflac will combine the opener and enroller positions so if you sign on with Aflac you would do both roles.

Aflac is the largest VB provider in the country. They are almost always hiring. The turnover can be high because it is a straight commission opportunity as most insurance sales jobs. If you get out there and generate the activity you will see the results.