Agents can choose to place business with either a company insurance brokerage office or an independent insurance brokerage firm. Here are insurance brokerage listings for many of the various tiles used within the business. Find out the difference among insurance brokerage titles, and how to distinguish who's who.
Health and life agents can earn over 90 insurance designations. Fortunately, the numbers of titles for firms obtaining brokerage business are fewer.A listing is provided of many different title names used, and any actual differences that separate one's firm title from another. The potential producers that might write insurance cases for you should also know these differences.
Before this, it is critical because of some many misconceptions to define the terms broker and brokerage as they refer to life and health insurance. You would be surprised at how few of the general public understands what your firm title or function means. Likewise, hundreds of thousands of agents do not understand these terms. The mix up occurs primary with stock brokers and stock brokerage firms. That is what the majority of the public thinks of when hearing these terms.
Insurance brokerage firms of all different titles, obtain a written annuity, life, or health insurance case from a broker. All their producers should be called brokers and their cases called brokerage business. When an agent writes a case outside their primary career company, they are called a broker and their business is brokerage. There are many agents that are "agent brokers". They have a primary insurance company as an agent and submit business to a brokerage firm as a broker. There are also independent life and health insurance agents that should rightfully be called independent brokers, with the before mentioned group better referred to as semi-independent agents.
Writing brokerage business is a true form of independence of the agent's part. Rarely will this occur to any extent until the agent has surpassed a full three years of insurance dependence on career orientated companies. The three main reasons an agent writes insurance brokerage are independence, client needs, and higher commissions.
COMPANY INSURANCE BROKERAGE
What truly baffles insurance agents is the fact that some of the insurance companies training new insurance career agents often operate and highly promote through large advertisements their brokerage operations. They preach to the agents that they should only do business with the career company you are licensed with. Moreover, agents are firmly reminded they have all the products they need, and the company is supporting them 100%. Meanwhile the company insurance brokerage operation is trying to pilfer away as much business as possible from the career agents of fellow insurance companies. Less confusing of course, are the expanding number of insurance companies that only accept brokerage business and have no agency force of their own.
Starting with one insurance company brokerage operations, you have many different variations and titles among the people that distribute the products. A main difference would be those that are directly employed by the insurance company as a salaried or salaried plus bonus individual. Others have an independent contractor style contract, with fringe benefits like health insurance missing. They are paid through a combination of commissions and overrides along with possible production bonuses.
Director of marketing, national director of recruiting, director of product development and sales, Northwest marketing director, divisional director of disability sales, are just a taste of titles usually reserved for higher up home office employees. Many of these have never sold or brokered an insurance policy! Among them are fortune telling number crunchers with little reality of what it takes to be a successful brokerage manager. In turn, rarely do they do the actual recruiting of agents. The sad part is that they frequently set the company recruiting, marketing, and budgeting policies that others must follow.
The common one company insurance brokerage devoted titles include General Agent, Brokerage General Agent, Regional General Agent, State Manager, Managing General Agent, District Manager, Director of Brokerage, Wholesaler, and Regional Manager. If an insurance company is brokering three main products, they for example, may be LTC Brokerage Manager, Annuity Brokerage Manager, and Advanced Life Brokerage Manager. The inter combinations of titles are virtually countless. A high percentage of these one insurance company brokerage operations maintain the name of the company in their firm name.
Here is one conflict of interest. As some insurance companies want to sell as many insurance brokerage cases, as possible they often contract with independent marketing organizations and national brokerage firms. There is frequently true competition among them, going after agents and brokers to acquire insurance brokerage. It should be mentioned what the danger factor is. When you rely on just one insurance company what happens when your prime product is suddenly dropped, your territory is cut, your position is eliminated, or when another insurer buys out the company?
INDEPENDENT INSURANCE BROKERAGE LISTINGS
Non-existent just 25 years ago, independent insurance brokerage firms have erupted on the market scene. Here are some reasons why. First brokers like to find a company that can give them the best product for their client, or the highest commission when they make a sale. With some independent insurance marketing firms representing over 50 companies, they can sometimes do both. Some national firms are so powerful that they can dictate that an insurance policy develop a product only they can distribute. Insurance companies know that they can keep adding new policy features or constantly introduce a rehashed, but now called new policy. Insurance marketers love promoting a familiar product that has new features, a new name, or new commission structure. As insurance marketers like to make money, unfairly some of those where the highest override exists, are the products most heavily promoted . A 35% override sure beats 20% on a similar product in the mind of numerous marketers.
Titles that independent insurance brokerage marketers have on their contract include product distributor, national wholesaler, and exclusive product marketer, along with all independent contractor titles mentioned under one-company marketers. They often distinguish themselves by keeping their personal name out of the firm's official name. Others insert the word independent or national to separate them. Usually they promote a variety of company insignia trademarks or names in their advertising materials.
It is essential to describe briefly independent insurance marketing organizations. Over 250 independent insurance brokerage firms are associated with to at least one of the top 20 independent insurance marketing organizations. While 250 out of 15,000 to 20,000 separate brokerage titled operations does not seem significant, it really is. The smaller firms combine contracting and some advertising to form the larger independent insurance brokerage marketing organization. The organization thereby is able to obtain a higher compensation level contract with more insurance brokerage companies. Although sometimes members only operate in one state, others cross-territories, even on a national basis. The longevity of profitability for these firms is amazing, especially when compared with brokerage firms overall. The dues and advertising cost sharing is well offset by the extra training tips, bonding, shared marketing tricks, and higher overrides they could receive on their own.
Who's Who in major league, big-time insurance brokerage is constantly changing. Some are 3-generation family owned firms, and others mightily spring up and disappear just about as quickly. One of the key factors never mentioned above is of great magnitude. That factor is service. What can you do to make sure your broker stays your broker? Regardless of what title you or your firm has, all is irrelevant if the broker writes one case and moves on elsewhere.
Well published author, Don Yerke likes to concentrate on what you don't know or what no one else dares to print. Tell it like it is.
Watch for his new paperback book debuting on Amazon early this summer. It is loaded with great insurance marketing and recruiting information.
Come and get your FREE "Think and Grow Rich" Ebook by Napoleon Hill instantly. The website address is [http://www.agentsinsurancemarketing.com]
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