Becoming an insurance agent is an easy task but succeeding is not an easy job. Though there is no qualification required to become an insurance agent, it takes a good quality to convince people to buy something and decent graduation to understand, calculate, foresee, and impress a prospective lead. If you know what to know before becoming an insurance agent, it would be much easier for you to penetrate the financial industry. This job often seems rosy as you are your own boss, earn a 5 digit income a month, flexible work schedules, etc. The majority of these may be true, but potential hard work is required to achieve all these.
Let us first understand the pre-requisites for becoming an Insurance agent:
- Excellent Public Relations: There are incidents where less talkative people have become insurance agents, but it takes a lot of effort to succeed. Lively and vivid people tend to be more successful in this arena with excellent communication skills and public relations.
- Network: The network plays a crucial role in an agent’s success. Those who have a good network or can build up a good network make up the most. Friends, family and extended family, acquaintances, or the general public can be the prospective leads. Smartness to get all of these sources in touch is essential.
- Good Calculation skills: While selling a policy, the agent should do calculations and project the client’s financial condition after years. Good analytical skills should be an asset to the prospective agent, and this is the foremost thing to know before becoming an insurance agent.
- Advisory Skills: All policy options available, the agent should suggest the customized option to the client. A quick understanding and the ability to advise the utility of a policy to a client considering their financial condition is the key to selling a policy.
- Post Sales service skills: Once the sale is made, regular contact with existing customers helps build relations and gives a chance to cross-sell, hence a skill that will help maintain high retention of business. Once the above skills and conditions are loaded in a would-be agent, it is good, to begin with, but there are few other things one should know before becoming an insurance agent.
- There is no salary: Being an insurance agent is not a salaried job. Remember, you can earn only commission for the policies you sell. The more policies sold, the more income you can generate and vice-versa. It is not the commission on top of a salary.
- Don’t get ready for a fixed income.: Though you start reaping a decent commission, it is not fixed and keeps varying month on month. It just depends on your sales and hard work.
- Learning is a continual process: As the policies keep changing with time and circumstances, your subject matter expertise is not static. You need to keep learning about the new inclusions constantly. So, there is no seniority kind of thing over some time.
This article is to acquaint you with the possible scenarios as it is always essential to go for groundwork before you get into a new thing. As we said, it is not rosy; becoming an insurance agent is not too difficult either with the skills mentioned above. A zeal for constant learning and the experience in handling people makes you competent enough over some time. Hope the article ‘The things to know before becoming an insurance agent’ clears your doubts and gets you started!!
Must read: 4 Qualities That Make a Good Insurance Agent.
Common questions people ask before becoming an Insurance agent:
- What should I know before becoming an insurance agent?
- What skills do you need to be an insurance agent?
- Is an insurance agent a good career?
- Do insurance agents make good money?
- How do insurance agents get clients?
- How do you successfully sell insurance?
- What certifications do you need to sell insurance?
- Do you need a degree to sell life insurance?
- What is the commission for life insurance agents?
For the answer to all these questions, click here and connect with the RenewBuy expert team.