This article covers the advantages of selling life insurance over real estate. Once you decide to change your career, you must first pick an industry. If you’re tired of the 9-5 Monday to Friday schedule, then your top two options are life insurance and real estate careers. There are some other industries, but these two dominate the jobs recruiting market. Both are predominately commission only “jobs”. Jobs in the loose sense of the word. You work and get paid, but you set your own schedule and pay.
Step 1 Is Choosing
The first thing you must consider is your initial investment. This means how much time and money do you have available or willing to invest? In both cases you must pass a state certified tests to get your license. Once you get your life and health insurance license, you can sign a contract with insurance providers through their general offices or join another brokerage, which already has contracts signed. In any case, you are your own boss and can sign contracts with as many partners as you want. 100% commissions are yours to keep. You may share a case with another broker, but that decision is entirely up to you.
Once you get your real estate salesperson license, you have to join a real estate office and be part of that office and share your commissions with the office broker. If you join a real estate franchise, then you may have access to multiple offices, but still have only one broker you’re tied to.
Step 2 Understanding Obligations
Being a captive life agent, meaning joining a general office and working solely on selling one company’s products has some benefits, but also comes with a load of responsibilities. You receive your own space in a prestigious office, have support directly onsite from your instructors/trainers. However, you also get a schedule of trainings you must attend, none paid, and you must fulfill a sales quota. If you do not sell, you’re “fired.”
By becoming an independent life and health broker you are not do not have a set schedule of must attend classes. Any new industry will require you to get training, but being a broker, you do it at your own convenience. In both case, i.e. captive agent or independent broker, your only mandatory overhead is a E&O insurance (Errors and Omissions). All other investments, such as advertising, websites, promotional material is up to you.
As a real estate salesperson your are locked into one office. In case of franchises you will most likely get some professional training just like a captive life insurance agent. You will receive your desk, and can use the company’s logo when promoting your business. The cost here is that you share your commissions with your broker and unless you can list and sell a house yourself, you must split your commission with multiple folks. The other big investment is advertising. If you’re looking to list houses or homes, you must invest heavily into advertising. In the end, you invest your money, but share your profits.
Step 3 Count Your Total Investment
Your life and health license is issued for one state, however, to sell in another state, you do not have to go to for another state test. All you have to do is purchase a license for that state. The licensing fees vary by state, but generally range around a hundred to couple of hundred dollars for 2 years. We’ve prepared a page with detailed instructions and links to join us here for you to review.