First Command Financial Services reviews about "pay"

They are crooks when it comes to paying you. They will lie about how much commissions are paid to them from the companies and then give you a portion of that money. You are expected to run your business by paying for help, rent, your own taxes for about 33% of the commissions paid out plus any bonuses. You also have to pay a monthly fee to First Command for their home office support. After you leave them, they will hold any commissions that came in for the next year and then release them to you but can charge you for up to 2-5 years for any charge backs that come. I'm not sure how that is legal since they don't continue to pay after a year. You might be surprised after you thought you moved on a few years later to get charges from them. They will push whole life insurance sales because of the larger commission pay out.

To start with First command holds its self out to pay "you" the advisor the most commission possible. Now that I have worked at another firm and have several friends at other top firms in the industry I have discovered that their pay out multiples are the same in some cases and lower in most cases. The kicker to this is that on top of paying you a lower or average rate for the work you do virtually all other firms cover you technology, office, travel, benefits and education costs. This shows a huge flaw in the payment system alone. While the First Command Leadership promotes a narrative of empowering families their commission packages, sales competitions and leadership are all geared to selling the highest commission product to clients. The only way to survive in this company is to continually sell insurance products. This model creates a glaring conflict of interest and when it is address you are told "its just the way it is" In my experience District advisors where either absent or only mildly interested when trying to create a sustainable practice. I was even told I was take bread off of my DA's table after he swept the majority of clients out of my office and into his book so he could get paid more. Despite have a strong base of clients in the area First command leadership chose to actively not service existing clients and instead promote only new accounts. The scars of this practice where evident when I met with several legacy clients who had been passed from advisor to advisor with little to no notification, service or real planning. After talking with several other current and training advisors at other firms I discovered First command actually has the shortest training and mentorship period in the industry. where most firms will pay you while you get licensed first command has you do this on your own time. The difference is dramatic when you consider the 6 months you have to "go independent" vs. the 1-5 years most firms use to teach you how to build a sustainable practice. The culture is very used car sales in fact I even I was even pitched life insurance in my interview. so choose wisely when considering this a career option.

Because you are working with individual employers the pay is low.

You're on the hook - pay for your office space, pay for your assistant, pay the home office each month for their "help", pay to go to regional training if you want to or not. Severely lacking in digital. Out of touch from a product perspective. If you don't have a second source of income, good luck making it.

- There is a BAD "Frat-Boy" mentality and favoritism among the District Advisors, which can make for an unhealthy work environment. - The District Advisor (DA) can make or break your career. If you end up having any type of personality conflict with them, they can disengage from your business which can make it very hard to succeed. - The pay & compensation structure while you are a W-2 employee (a 9 month observation period) is somewhat low for the industry, especially considering they will NOT pay you any commissions on products sold during this time, however, the bonuses can help. - Current restrictions to soliciting on military bases makes it very difficult to meet clients that fall within your target market while new minimum income restrictions to work with non-military eliminate many well qualified people that could use the expertise. - Much of the leadership is out of touch with the current demands on the military (again, target market) and they expect that the clients can just take off work to meet with you whenever. While this might have been true in the 90’s and early 2000’s, the reality is that our military men and women are taxed on their time already. - With your core market being military and having frequent moves, you end up losing the clients you've built strong relationships with due to overly strict territorial boundaries. To make matters worse, since you've already serviced most of their needs, there is not much incentive for their randomly assigned new advisor to take the time to give them the same service you gave them. This ends up to an inconsistent experience for many clients. - If you're fortunate enough to make it through the hourly/salary phase and become an Independent Contractor (IC), be prepared to spend several thousand dollars right out of the gate for overpriced laptops, home office support fees, office bills, and many other on-going "business expenses". - Their idea of work/life balance is allowing you to pick which 60 hours you work each week, even once you launch your own business as an IC.

Low pay during training high minimum income.