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I have an interview at New York Life Insurance today, does anyone think this is a good company to work for?

I hope I wont just do door to door sales or phone soliciting. Am I asking too much since this will be my first job at an insurance agency?

Public Comments

1. Insurance is a rogue industry. I would choose a different career path.
2. I used to work for them as an agent a little over 8 years ago for about 3 months. I can tell you about my experience with them, but remember this was about 8 years ago and some things may have changed. It was my first insurance agent job and my second job since graduating college. The job I had before was in retail sales, so I was fairly green to insurance. To answer your first question "is this a good company to work for?" The answer is: sure. They are a financially strong insurance company. They treat their employees with respect (at least this was my experience). And they have some of the best insurance products out there. BUT, the agency position at New York Life is completely what you make of it. You should know that the burnout rate is extremely high in this industry. Only 11% of agents that enter this business will be there after the first year. And of the 11% that make it past the first year, only about 25% are still there after 3 years. Make no mistake about it, New York Life is a production driven company. They expect their agents to produce business for them. After you sign a contract, they give you about 6 months to produce a sizeable amount of business. If you don't produce, then you get asked to leave. They had a great training program when I went through it (sales, insurance product knowledge, etc.). But don't expect them to give you leads. You are completely on your own. The catch line when I was with them was "Be in business for yourself, but not by yourself." They practice what they preach with this line too. They offer you training, they will give you their programs, etc. But they do not help much when it comes to soliciting business. Also it is a 100% commission position. When I started there, the first project was to come up with a list of 200 people who you could call on to solicit insurance. If you accept a contract with them, they will be expecting you to call on your friends and family to sell them life insurance. Then after you sell to friends and family, they expect you to call them for referrals. So after you go through your list of friends and family expect to do some cold calling. Keep in mind when you sell your friends and family you ask them very personal questions (i.e. How much money to you make? Where are you placing your assets?) Many people don't feel comfortable asking these types of questions to their friends and family members. (I didn't.) But you have to do this in order to succeed at New York Life. Will you have to go door to door or phone soliciting? No and Yes. They don't require you to go door-to-door, but I knew some agents that did this. As far as phone soliciting, yes you would be. But you would not be soliciting the product, only soliciting people for appointments where you can sell the product. When I was there, they required us to make 30-50 phone calls a day. If you are a sales oriented, enjoy meeting people, good at handling rejection (and there is a lot of it), don't mind soliciting family and friends and asking personal questions, and all ready have an extensive network of family and friends, then financial services can be a good business. There are people in that business making well over 6 figures a year. But for every person making 6 figures there are about a hundred agents barely making $30,000. Not that it's relevant, but I left the business because I wasn't comfortable asking my friends and family detailed financial information. I also recently moved into a new city, so I did not have an extensive network. I eventually started working in a P&C insurance agency with a family member who was able to train, teach and show me how to get referrals and sell. This worked out a lot better for me. Good luck with the interview. Let us know how it goes.
3. Well, they're a FINE company (not an agency! know the difference for your interview!), but the VAST majority of hires they do, are for straight commission sales. That means, door to door o rphone soliciting. And 95% of new agents wash out. So, if you don't want to sell, be honest with them up front, you don't want to sell. You might want to see if the interview is a sales job, before you even bother going. Hint: if there are 20 other people in the room, listening to a pitch, it's a sales job.