Worst>Job\Ever^

This post inspired by Nickel, at FiveCentNickel.

I sold life insurance.

Yuck!  I'm a freaking pariah!  I mean, I might as well have become a used car salesman, or a personal injury lawyer.

So young and so naive.  I wanted desperately to get into the field of financial planning.  I had some experiences teaching friends about the basics of banking, insurance and investments, and knew that I wanted to do that for a living.  At a career fair on campus I met a recruiter for Northwestern Mutual Life.  I went on the interviews, talked to the top agents, and made very clear that I was interested in the whole process, not just the insurance.

"Of course!" they responded,  "we want you to get licensed for investments, and take care of the entire picture for your clients."

Well, guess what.  Within a couple of weeks after starting, they hurry you along to get your insurance license.  After that?  "Go get out there an sell some insurance, son!"  Not only that, but is there a marketing channel?  Is there some sort of list of potential clients that I can at least work from to get started?  Nope.  "Let's sit down and make a list of your family and friends."

You can imagine how popular I was among family and friends for that brief, but seemed like an eternity, six month stint.  "Oh no, here comes lamoneyguy (that's not what they call me).  Look out, he may try to sell you some insurance!"

When I reminded the people who hired me that I came in hoping to work with clients with their investments and other parts of the financial picture, they told me that would come later.  They believe that insurance is the foundation to the financial plan anyway, so sell that, and we can talk about investments and such later.

Make no mistake, the commissions on life insurance are remarkable.  Well, the commissions on whole life are remarkable.  Term insurance commissions?  Not so much.  So, that was the job.  Call classmates and family friends.  Tell them about this new career that I was "so excited about!" and go see them for lunch.  Try to sell whole life to everyone I know, then ask them for referrals to their friends and family.

The breaking point was a trip to Vegas.  I was at a Blackjack table and the dealer shows an Ace.  "Insurance?" he asks.  I remembered reading somewhere that players at the blackjack table should generally not buy insurance when the dealer shows Ace, except for rare cases, I said to my friends, "Never buy the insurance."

My buddy started to laugh, and said, "hey, don't you sell insurance?"  Everyone had a chuckle at that.  And I thought, "Holy Crap.  I sell insurance.  Time for a change."

That was as miserable as I have felt about any job.  I wasn't helping people, I was selling to them.  No one around me seemed to care if what we were selling was the best possible solution for their clients.  The commissions were fat, that's all that mattered.

Comments

[Amanda]

Good thing you got out when you did! I've also found that insurance salesmen make rather dull cocktail party conversation... :)

[Medicated Money]

Great story! Quick question: What did the boss say after a sale of term life insurance compared to whole life insurance? Did you have increase pressure to sell whole life, or was the commission difference pressure enough? It always amazes me the amount of people that still buy the stuff (whole life, that is).

[lamoneyguy]

The pressure was a combination of the commission difference and the boss/entire office. Pretty much no one sold term. It was a last resort, but rarely used.

The commission difference was enough that even as you knew in your head that you weren't going to stay and make a career there, you still knew that in order to make a living you couldn't get by on term. Unless you sold a lot of it. Problem was that the company's whole life products were good relative to other whole life products (for whatever that's worth), but pricing on term was pretty high.

[Amy Jo]

haha I sell cars and we ar nothing like that any more but still a funny pic!?!