Originally Posted by SayBob
I will be interviewing with NYLife,I eventually want to go independent, but desire good training because I want to have a good foundation. I have talked with several friends that are agents, both captive and indy....all have said captive would be a good way to start. I have a few questions for about indy as well.
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I have had some friends that told me it was good to start captive as well, and considered appointments at multiple firms and insurance companies.
I decided to go 100% independent with a solid
FMO behind me for insurance/annuity and a boutique broker-dealer firm for securities.
I have NO regrets about this decision at all, but it may be because I enjoy keeping most or all of my compensation, not being forced to lease an expensive office and hire staff, and also not deal with uplines or other management types. The freedom and the pay are definite pluses for skipping the captive crowd.
I have friends in the industry who are captive. While I'm not sure if this is the general rule, I make more money and work less than them, but do have more stress. The stress is caused by the fact that I have NO ONE to hold my hand; I receive 100% of my education from my previous college education, financial seminars nationwide, conference calls, product wholesalers, sales desks, books, and the internet. Also since I lack the big captive agency office, staff, and "bigname," it's tougher to earn trust in the beginning with some prospects.
There are pros and cons to every decision in life. I wanted to let you know that I am purely independent and recently had a situation where I was trying to take an account from a 62 year old broker from Merill Lynch. The account was mostly into mutual funds and variable annuities....which was very unsuitable for the client.
I ended up showing the client that as an independent, I don't have a boss telling me what to sell, I have little to no conflicts of interest, and that I would offer something different. I ended up taking the account and rolling much of the money into a combination of fixed indexed annuities, private REITs, and certain investment-grade bonds (not bond FUNDS). The client is very happy and I have earned a client for life in this example.
Another example is where I went head to head against an Unum-Provident captive insurance agent. I had a client with a Whole Life (paid to 100) policy with Unum.....I reviewed the policy with the client and knew that he could do better. With his permission, I went ahead and shopped the market, finding a perm policy that not only cost less, but provided superior value (Face amount and flexibility). The Unum policy was replaced the next appointment with an Aviva Indexed UL, set up to be a 25-pay!
Lesson learned: I would have never been able to help this client, and many others, if I was with Unum or another company that forced me to sell their product line only.
Because some of the above products cannot be sold at all captive agencies, it served as another reminder of the benefits of going indie from the beginning.
Again, it's up to you. If you have some capital to start up and are comfortable about getting educated without hand-holding, I'd recommend skipping the captive crowd. You can add more value to your clients' lives by having the power to shop around for them and really look after their interests....if a client needs a VUL for example, you can have access to 2-3 products from Mass Mutual OR as an indie have access to over 50-60 products from 20+ companies at your command.
However, if you have bills and/or a family to support and need the guarantees that come with being a salary+commish captive agent, I'd definitely recommend MassMutual or Guardian. Mutual of Omaha is another good bet if they still hire captive agents.
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