When you become an insurance agent, your job is to help your clients find coverage for every possible outcome in their life. Whether it’s personal, family, vehicle, property, or business insurance, you listen to their requirements and find the best policy to suit their exact needs.  

However, when you’re a captive agent, you must provide a policy that’s within the realms of what your insurance provider offers. Even if those policies aren’t in your client’s best interests, you have to make it work. When you’re passionate about insurance and your connection with your clients, this can be a tough pill to swallow. What do you do when you know your client would be better off with a different insurance package, one that you can’t offer? You become an independent agent.

Becoming an independent agent and breaking away from captivity as an agent for an individual insurance company could be the best decision you ever make. We’ve outlined just a few of the many reasons why below.

Expand Your Offerings

As previously mentioned, captive agents can’t offer an insurance product that a competing company provides. Even when you know it will suit them better; you’re forcibly loyal to one “brand.” However, as an independent agent, you have the power to choose. Becoming an independent agent gives you control to provide your customers with the best option to suit them, not what suits the company. As a result, you can rest assured your customers are well covered for any eventuality in life.

Set Your Own Hours

Captive agents are confined to working 9 to 5 with often no leniency. The average American works 34.5 hours per week, but what if you could work even half that and do what you wanted to do with the other half? That’s the reality of being an independent agent. You set your own hours, work when you want to, and enjoy an excellent work-life balance that many people could only aspire to have.

Profitability

While, of course, you have the potential to earn bonuses on top of your salary as a captive agent, the earnings end there. As an independent agent, you set your own hours, so, therefore, you set your own earnings. You can earn as much as you want if you’re willing to put in the work. What’s more, the average income for an independent agent is only getting higher.

If you’re considering making the switch from being captive to free, there’s no time like the present to look at your options.

Happiness

Too many people are unhappy in their line of work, but often it’s not so much the work as the corporation or company for which you work. If you’re passionate about working with people, helping them prepare for their financial futures, and providing solutions to problems, then you don’t have to stop being an agent just because you don’t like the people you work for.

Becoming an independent agent when you’ve been a captive insurance agent for so long can unleash happiness that’s long been lost in the shadows. You now get to build key connections with clients, sell products you know will benefit them, and work with several different insurance companies at any one time. The ball is entirely in your court, and this can lead to better job satisfaction and a happier and healthier home life.

There are so many reasons why captive agents are choosing to break the chains and work for themselves and those who have made the switch can surely enlighten you with more. When you’re tired of the daily grind and are feeling empowered to make a change, go ahead and make it. You’re sure to find life as an independent insurance agent offers a sense of freedom you never knew existed.