Im a New to the Industry (Farmers Insurance)

[JJIA24]

Re: Im a New to the Industry. (Farmers Insurance)

Just my opinion, but I still call Bullshit.

Sure an experienced agent with staff can handle that much, but not a newbie, still being trained, going to all of Farmers stupid meetings and training meetings. Leanring the product, the system.

And Farmers Cali rates completely suck ass, so simply put, I dont believe you. I think if you were doing that much business, you would stumble on enough life insurance to get you your numbers, especially with their simple term crap policy,

If you really were, then good for you, but I just wont believe it.

And you say you went career in 39 days, well, you have to have 40 P&C and 4 life ISSUED in that time frame, so I guess if you write cheap nothing simple terms, you could do it, but still hard to believe. I mean, when did you have time to learn products, policies, etc. You had to have time to learn HOW TO RUN this business. Lots of follow up and stuff, I just dont see it for a newbie, an expericened agent, sure, just not a newbie. Again, just my opinion, but if you did, then good job.

RBA, its all good. You are entitled to your opinion. 39 days was pretty easy with all my friends and fam to contact not to mention writing a non med 150k simple term crap policy. Believe it or not, but I had nearly all 40 policies written before I had 1 life policy written. Remember I also said that if I didnt have BW I would have been up a creek!
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JJIA24,
Did you earn the "Order of the Blue Vase?"

I did & still have it.
FYI: for those that haven't been a FIG agent: Interesting book/story they give you at career school when you start. Only time in your career with Farmers you can earn it is in the first 6 months and completely related to Life Insurance sales.

Memories.....

NOPE! I was a complete failure and regardless of all the P&C business I was writing my DM still gave me crap. I wrote 8 not 9.

 

[jhuang]

Re: Im a New to the Industry. (Farmers Insurance)

RBA, its all good. You are entitled to your opinion. 39 days was pretty easy with all my friends and fam to contact not to mention writing a non med 150k simple term crap policy. Believe it or not, but I had nearly all 40 policies written before I had 1 life policy written. Remember I also said that if I didnt have BW I would have been up a creek!
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NOPE! I was a complete failure and regardless of all the P&C business I was writing my DM still gave me crap. I wrote 8 not 9.

DM's don't know how to appreciate hard working agents. They are all about sales, not training.

 

[VaDwayne]

Re: Im a New to the Industry. (Farmers Insurance)

Farmers is extremely strong in a few narrow niches including restaurants, condo associations, Hotels, towing and large workers comp. You do not want them to heat up in one of the niches where you have a lot of business.

Thanks for the advice, I guess I can blame the lack of commercial accounts on lazy agents.

 

[Guest]

Re: Im a New to the Industry. (Farmers Insurance)

JJIA,

I want to know how you were maintaining your online leads, they tend not to be very good, meaning, they shop often, they lapse alot, dont make payments, just want an ID card and never make the second payment.

Were you spending more a month than you were bringing in?

Were you doing other marketing other than online leads?

 

[peewee]

Re: Im a New to the Industry. (Farmers Insurance)

Farmers is extremely strong in a few narrow niches including restaurants, condo associations, Hotels, towing and large workers comp. You do not want them to heat up in one of the niches where you have a lot of business.

You are absolutely correct, their rates are hard to beat in certain niches in commercial. Now here's where that gets nasty. You can quote almost anything and most will fly through the system based on your answers. However, what they don't tell you and glitches in the system are issues where it requires an underwriter to approve but the system doesn't tell you that, so you submit it gets automatically approved and all is well unless there is a claim, then they will file against your E&O because you should have KNOWN it took underwriting approval. Here's an example. BBQ restaurants with an outdoor firepit. You can quote it and submit it with no underwriting intervention and no clue you'd need anything else. Not so. These type establishments require underwriter approval to be legit despite the fact you can quote and bind with no clue it requires an underwriter's approval. They have to know the distance of the pit from the establishment, that they have a fire extinguisher near by, etc. etc. and a lot more. So why is there not a trigger on the quote engine that tells you? It's one of the "pits" they let you step in to learn the hard way. When/if it burns to the ground you will find out. So here again, is a situation where Farmers puts their agents in the wind and then sticks it to them if/when they have to pay out a claim. Bad business, bad ethics, bad system.
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Thanks for the advice, I guess I can blame the lack of commercial accounts on lazy agents.

Why not blame the agents - the company blames them for everything else. They eliminate our best selling products, have an insanely poor billing system, poor communication for their agents, absolutely terrible auto program whereby they screw all household members when there is one youthful drivers, FA2 ripoff pricing, ......yep it's us low life agents at it again.

 

[JJIA24]

Re: Im a New to the Industry. (Farmers Insurance)

JJIA,

I want to know how you were maintaining your online leads, they tend not to be very good, meaning, they shop often, they lapse alot, dont make payments, just want an ID card and never make the second payment.

Were you spending more a month than you were bringing in?

Were you doing other marketing other than online leads?

RBA at first I was managing all of my leads with an excel spread sheet, but then I wised up and got leads 360. I had a friend over there so I got a good deal. I did have a lot of turnover, but I also really was smart about turning an auto lead into a auto/home policy. I would say that an average month I was receiving upwards of 50 leads per day from various sources. I was also very wise in choosing the lead carriers as to their return policy.

Other marketing I was doing was working with a short sale specialist and I even joined a networking group which was a total waste of time. I also had a great connection with a large community that handed out my cards for all renters. I would turn those into 2-3 policies as well.

I worked long hours and got an office almost immediately.

 

[infoe]

Re: Im a New to the Industry. (Farmers Insurance)

RBA at first I was managing all of my leads with an excel spread sheet, but then I wised up and got leads 360. I had a friend over there so I got a good deal. I did have a lot of turnover, but I also really was smart about turning an auto lead into a auto/home policy. I would say that an average month I was receiving upwards of 50 leads per day from various sources. I was also very wise in choosing the lead carriers as to their return policy.

Other marketing I was doing was working with a short sale specialist and I even joined a networking group which was a total waste of time. I also had a great connection with a large community that handed out my cards for all renters. I would turn those into 2-3 policies as well.

I worked long hours and got an office almost immediately.

what success did you have with leads 360? I used dialyourleads and had moderate success...the problem was that being a captive your the last kid on the block to receive the lead. (moreso because of all the captive email filters)

 

[Bob Klee]

Re: Im a New to the Industry. (Farmers Insurance)

IMO, Leads360 is one of the best tools in the industry. We use it with my sales team. Our Sales manager & sales folks Love it as do our ASR's [CSR for you is our ASR's: Agent Service Rep's.]
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what success did you have with leads 360? I used dialyourleads and had moderate success...the problem was that being a captive your the last kid on the block to receive the lead. (moreso because of all the captive email filters)

RE: "last to receive the lead" due to being a captive agent.

One way that might help is to ask for the lead in Plain Text vs HTML. We used to have to do that with Allstate Agents.

Do they allow you to use an email in the cloud [using Explorer or Firefox] like Gmail or Yahoo? If so, the leads could be sent there instead. I agree that some captive companies filters can tend to delay the arrival time of the lead.

One other solution would be to have your own inexpensive laptop just for that business use.

 

[easy8521]

Re: Im a New to the Industry. (Farmers Insurance)

Read the posting and the info stated makes alot of sense. Farmers seems to be a turn style.

 

[Guest]

Re: Im a New to the Industry. (Farmers Insurance)

Read the posting and the info stated makes alot of sense. Farmers seems to be a turn style.

Post of the year!