Life Insurance Sales | Selling Life Insurance | Agent Jobs and Career

If you want to do life insurance sales, you first have to become an insurance agent. Insurance agents will typically make the first contact with these insurance consumers and will market certain insurance products. Life insurance sales is mostly a consulting job.

They will answer questions about the insurance products they offer from people who have request life insurance quotes. It also involves selling through consultative selling skills. They will also help the costumers find the right product that fits their needs and make commissions of the sale.

Selling life insurance involves being knowledgeable and competent in a variety of products. Not sell products like term, universal and whole life insurance. You will also sell health and disability insurance in many cases as well.

Insurance agents are often called insurance producers. These producers can carry one insurance product from one insurance carrier, like from Met Life for example, often can carry multiple lines like auto insurance, health insurance and home owner's insurance from multiple different insurance carriers.

It's very rare that an insurance consumer actually goes directly to the insurance company to buy the insurance. Insurance sales agents act as middlemen to offer insurance products that are provided by insurance carriers. Insurance sales agents don't sell life insurance products they back themselves.

Insurance sales jobs offer many great benefits including making a limitless income, opportunities to advance and in many cases the ability to work from home. In addition, life insurance sales can lead to selling other financial products.

Most agents sell life insurance typically when they start out in this business. These are policies that payout to third party beneficiaries when the policy-holder dies. In essence, policy-holders will never see the claim money, because if they do, they're supposed to be dead. When they die, a beneficiary like a spouse or children will receive the amount due them from the claim.

They can also have other benefits embedded in the insurance policy that pays out retirement or other supplemental income after a designated amount of time after the policy-holder has paid a certain amount into the policy.

Insurance sales jobs also allow for the selling of annuities, which looks similar to this expect it's a specific instrument for guaranteeing retirement income. These jobs involve helping clients do personal financial planning that incorporates analyzing and advising people on their financial liabilities, debts, and retirement plans.

Many agents easily add financial instruments like financial planning advice, stocks, bonds and mutual funds to their lines of business.

These jobs usually start out in this arena because it has a relatively high commission, it can be a very low cost product so it can be easier to sell, and this is typically not as complex as the other types. In addition, you can usually get licensed after a one week class and a fairly short state licensing exam.

Sales Jobs

In order to start, you have to learn how to sell insurance at the most basic levels. But once you do that, advancement from selling life insurance often involve cross-selling additional lines like auto insurance, home owner's insurance, business insurance, property and casualty insurance, and disability insurance.

Many choose to advance by getting additional certifications or licenses. Some get the Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) designation which require agents to get a certain level of experience under their belt.

Other choose to begin cross-selling financial products like stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other types of securities. In order to do this, you have to be registered with the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) by passing their Series 6 and/or Series 7 licensing exams. Series 6 allows you to sell mutual funds and variable annuities and Series 7 allows you to sell normal securities like stocks and bonds.

Life insurance sales is actually a great place to start for someone who is interested in becoming a stock broker, financial adviser or other form of financial sales. Like I've already said, selling life insurance can lead to other forms of selling financial products.

This is especially a great opportunity for those who don't have the educational background to go directly into financial advising. Many times, financial sales requires a bachelor's degree or higher. Gone are the days when stock brokers and other wall street professionals made millions without a college degree.

But the great news for you if you don't have a college degree is that you can get your start in life insurance and work your way up. Here's an insight too. If you can't sell life insurance, you won't have able to sell other financial products like stocks, bonds or mutual funds.

Sales Profession

Don't be mistaken, selling insurance has many similarities to other sales jobs. If you want to be success, it will involve being aggressive, knowing how to talk to people, cold calling insurance leads, effectively presenting the value and benefits of products, and selling yourself as a trustworthy adviser. Insurance jobs can be very competitive. Insurance sales agents are very often competing against other reps.

I remember going to my first sales appointment from a cold call I made with a warm lead provided to me by the insurance agency I worked for. I was startled to find that I was the third insurance sales agent they had talked to.

It was a start wake-up call. I realized then that this job requires the highest level of competitiveness and charisma. People buy for a number of reasons.

But I've discovered over the years that when most variables about the product or service is equal, the customer will buy from the sales agent they like the most. So if you want to sell life insurance it's important to engender people's trust.

There is also a new world of life insurance settlement out there. This is a new industry that turns life insurance policies into an investment. It could also be another source of income for you down the line.