Bankers Life reviews

This is probably one of the worst career decisions that you could make in a life time. Believe me - I use to advocate for Bankers. Every time I read a disgruntled review I thought "pssh, they're just lazy and don't have what it takes." Let me tell you, people aren't just making things up. Their stories are real. Expect for the managers that leave fake 5 star reviews with the whole "unlimited compensation" catch phrase. Let me tell you why they recruit so aggressively even to get people who have no experience in the industry. Because.. people who finally realize it's a lousy company to work for eventually leave (within the first 3 months if they're smart). I'll walk you through my experience. A 20 something year old with no insurance experience.. gets a call to come in for an interview. About 25 people in that interview room which is really a company presentation. A lot of people complained about that on Glassdoor calling it a scam (it's not, but it's still a lousy deal), but I thought hey no problem I'll give it a shot anyway. I study and pass my Life, Accident and Health exam the first try ($85 for State License app, $50 to take exam, $60 for online study course) NOT PAID FOR BY BANKERS. ok. whatever. Got to invest in yourself, right? Next, Bankers tells me I must attend a 5-day new agent course somewhere upstate (I live on long island) So that's about a 2 hour drive each way. I could have stayed at a hotel (only like $400 for a week, right?) by the way NONE of which Banker's pays for. So I suck it up get through training. Now they put me in the office which is basically just a [boiler room] call center. I was told I had to make thousands of cold calls to build my client base and that I would hate it until I could go off referrals. Again, people complained about it, but I was determined by any means because I'm a go-getter. So I'm in the office calling all these old people who don't even want to discuss their life or health coverage unless they're getting something for free. It was like I cared more about their security than they did. By the way the typical script is sorta like "GM this is ___ from Banker's Life calling to see if you received a package we sent regarding affordable life/health/etc." Of course we never sent anything, the mangers just said to lie. And when they respond "No I haven't" you say "oh well NP I'm actually going to be in your area on ____ day" and basically try to convince them to meet up for an appointment. 97% of the time you will get "not interested," cursed out, DNC list request, or *click*. The other 3% they might agree to spend time, but when you get there their "relative" (who is probably them) will say "oh they stepped out of town. come back next week" after you drove 30 minutes or whatever to see them. On the rare occasion that you DO make a sale (maybe one every other week or so for like maybe $150-$300) then expect that commission to be eventually charged back (reversed) in the likely event that the client will lapse their policy (not pay premium consistently for the entire year). Overpriced product portfolio is just one problem. You see, Banker's Life is a *rewrite company*. When an agent leaves, they'll send a newer, hungrier agent to "review" all the clients that the former agent had. Sometimes the client might need less insurance or is interested in a different type for ex: a policy with an investment component. So what the new agent and the client will do is agree to let the current policy (with the old agent) cancel and then write a similar policy (with the new agent). This gives the new agents a small amount of commission to keep them from starving. The old agent gets the chargeback and must pay back all commissions from that cancelled policy. Some of the veteran agents that have been there for 6 months-1 year become so financially invested in the business that they can't get out. They've written so many policies, spent the money from commissions on bills, sustenance, etc, had so many policies cancel, got CHARGEDBACK and had to write EVEN MORE policies (many of which will cancel and chargeback) so that they could pay off the chargebacks from previous policies. Then they get stuck in this never-ending cyclic process of trying to stay afloat. Your manager will tell you "do not give up." That's because you are a drone to be utilized at their disposal until you find the sense to move onto a better career. The stockholders and CEO don't give a ... about you either. That's why there's no base pay, no training compensation, no dental, vision or health benefits and commission rates are low (even for a captive agency). There's no mileage compensation for your car and you are 1099 (independent contractor) so your best bet to recoup from that is deduct as a business expense. So think of it this way.. Bankers is NOT a scam. INSTEAD.. it is an insurance pyramid scheme.. one that is EXTREMELY difficult to climb and one in which ONLY the top execs bank loot and the mangers make sort of a decent living.