The Career of a Captive Agent

The insurance industry can be a particularly lucrative career choice. After all, well-established families and businesses want to protect themselves and their assets, and you’re able to provide a desirable service that does just that.

However, being a captive agent, working exclusively for one particular insurance carrier can limit your growth and career. Thankfully, however, working as a captive agent isn’t the only option, so why not look into becoming an independent insurance agent instead?

Here’s why being a captive agent could be limiting your career, and why there’s no time like the present to make the switch.

You don’t always get to do what’s best for your customer

As a captive agent, it’s your job to provide your customers with the insurance they require for their life, home, family, and business. However, as you sell insurance from one provider alone, you’re limited in what you can offer your customers.

Even if you believe another company’s insurance products could suit them better, you’re bound by your employment agreement to push your company’s products, even if the solution doesn’t necessarily solve their problems. As a result, many captive agents face a moral battle over whether to sell a product that’s not suited to their client or send them to another insurance provider and risk their job.

As an independent insurance agent, however, you’re able to sell the best insurance products to suit that client’s requirements. You aren’t bound by any agreements and can, therefore, cater to your client’s needs with far more effectiveness.

Hidden agendas

As with most large corporations, customer satisfaction is essential, but so too is the bottom line. The more money the company can make, the better it is for the brand’s overall image. However, to make more money, some insurance carriers often push their captive agents to do what’s best for the company rather than the customer.

This can often take the form of pushing one product over another – even if it’s not suitable for all customers and discontinuing insurance products which can result in losses of customers. While stopping a product may not hurt the insurance provider at all, it’s cutting off the relationship with the agent who may rely on that commission to get ahead.

As an independent insurance agent, you are solely responsible for making a living for yourself. Therefore, you do what’s best for your customers to earn a good name and reputation. After all, status is everything, and nearly half of all consumers use a search engine to find out more about a person before doing business with them. If the results aren’t in your favor, you risk losing business.

Strict quotas

When you’re a captive agent, your insurance carrier will have strict quotas you must meet to get ahead. However, there is only so much insurance you can sell to a person, and with so much competition in the marketplace, reaching those quotas can be tough. If you aren’t able to meet your quota for the month or week, you run the risk of losing money. As a result, you go to work stressed out and can find yourself in a financial and emotional mess in which you’d rather not be.

While an insurance agent can earn a reasonably sizeable income, the strain and stress of meeting often-unobtainable goals are enough to have captive agents thinking about making the switch to becoming an independent agent.

Being a captive agent can limit your career in more ways than one. You can earn a less-than-impressive reputation based on the requirements of your company, and you may find yourself unhappy in your work as a result. If you’re tired of being held to ransom as a captive agent, there’s no time like the present to find out more about how to become an independent insurance agent.