Best Insurance Company / Reputation

[KaseyNM]

I'm new to the forum, and was wondering if there was a general consensus about the best company, or best products by company.
Term I think is pretty irrelevant, but what about Whole Life? And LTC?
Do you think mutual companies are 'better' than non-mutual ones?
And how many companies still have proprietary products? I know Northwestern Mutual does, who else?

 

[wfs]

I'm new to the forum, and was wondering if there was a general consensus about the best company, or best products by company.
Term I think is pretty irrelevant, but what about Whole Life? And LTC?
Do you think mutual companies are 'better' than non-mutual ones?
And how many companies still have proprietary products? I know Northwestern Mutual does, who else?

Why do you think term is irrelevant? Surely many clients need and qualify to have term as part of their insurance portfolio.

 

[KaseyNM]

I just meant that I think term is a pretty even playing field.
Term is an incredibly important product, but any 'competitive value' is based on it's convertibility to a solid whole life policy, and having a disability rider on it. (Right?)
I could be totally wrong in my thoughts on that, so I'd love to hear discussion if there are other points I'm not considering as far as a 'best' term product.

 

[Josh]

I just meant that I think term is a pretty even playing field.
Term is an incredibly important product, but any 'competitive value' is based on it's convertibility to a solid whole life policy, and having a disability rider on it. (Right?)
I could be totally wrong in my thoughts on that, so I'd love to hear discussion if there are other points I'm not considering as far as a 'best' term product.

Are you looking for the best reputation or the best products? I suspect they're two different critters. The "best" products are probably relative to an individual needs and portfolio of a carrier in a given time.

As far as reputation goes, there are a bunch of companies that get ranked for most admired companies here: Insurance: Life and Health - Most Admired Companies - FORTUNE That's the 2012, but it is probably still relevant in 2014. I don't know how the measure the level of admiration, but from the list it looks an awful lot like companies brand work vs portfolio and products.

Most Admired
Rank Company Overall score
1 Prudential Financial 6.27
2 Aflac 6.24
3 New York Life Insurance 6.20
4 Northwestern Mutual 5.89
5 TIAA-CREF 5.88
6 MetLife 5.87
7 AXA 5.71
8 Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance

Aflac made the list, but I don't know (m)any agents on here arguing they have the best in class products.

 

[KaseyNM]

Yeah, consumer opinion can be fickle and baseless. I was hoping to get some opinions from inside our community of agents.
So, more of a question about best products.
Historically who's whole life policy pays the highest returns?
And proprietary products, who all has them?

 

[LGilmore]

Kasey?

What makes this business is that there is absolutely NO best at everything, so your question really doesn't have an answer.

Imagine if there was one company that was best at everything? Why would there ever be a need for any other company? Why would there be a need for agents?

What is good is various companies decide they are going to be "best" at a certain plan, for a certain person, for a certain time and those all vary.

The fact that so many companies are the best at something at someplace at sometime keeps this business competitive and BEST for the consumer.

 

[WinoBlues]

Of that list I have two. And write many others. Not having any 6 of those would not affect me a bit.

 

[DHK]

Yeah, consumer opinion can be fickle and baseless. I was hoping to get some opinions from inside our community of agents.
So, more of a question about best products.
Historically who's whole life policy pays the highest returns?
And proprietary products, who all has them?

You're brand new to the business. You still think this is about comparing products!

ROFL!

One day, you will discover something: You NEVER are in competition with product vs product. NEVER!

If you THINK you are at that point... it's because the level of trust isn't there yet, and you didn't teach your client that price isn't the consideration, but the strategy.

It's agent/strategy vs agent/strategy. It's the mindset behind the recommendations... not "NYL vs NWM".

Once you get to that point... you'll realize that you can still make a "bad policy/bad company" sing and dance... and still sell a boatload of it.

Only amateurs try to find the "best" product/company/reputation as a primarily selling point.


Oh, and if you're selling whole life because of "dividend performance" (as a quasi-investment)... then you STILL have more to learn.

 

[KaseyNM]

You're brand new to the business. You still think this is about comparing products!

ROFL!

One day, you will discover something: You NEVER are in competition with product vs product. NEVER!

If you THINK you are at that point... it's because the level of trust isn't there yet, and you didn't teach your client that price isn't the consideration, but the strategy.

It's agent/strategy vs agent/strategy. It's the mindset behind the recommendations... not "NYL vs NWM".

Once you get to that point... you'll realize that you can still make a "bad policy/bad company" sing and dance... and still sell a boatload of it.

---
Why would I want to sell a boatload of bad policies from bad companies?
---

Only amateurs try to find the "best" product/company/reputation as a primarily selling point.

---
How does one 'skip' the amateur phase and become an instant expert?
... I thought participating in a forum with others in my industry, and asking questions would be a good start.
--


Oh, and if you're selling whole life because of "dividend performance" (as a quasi-investment)... then you STILL have more to learn.

-- would you care to elaborate? Or do you prefer to talk just down to someone with less experience in the industry than you?

 

[DHK]

I did elaborate.

BTW, if you're going to type within someone's quoted box, use a different color text. It will help to determine what was quoted and what are your comments.

You can't "skip" the amateur phase. You have to go to trainings (other company training in addition to the kool-aid from NML), read industry magazines, obtain your designations, and keep learning.

Another good tool... is the search function. Take a look at some of my past posts, as well as posts from Larry Tew, BNTRS, scagnt83, Tahoe Ray and others. There's LOTS of information about the advanced uses of life insurance for personal planning.

And once you're cured of the NML ego that you've been infected with, maybe others may be willing to help you more.

Until then, you're stuck with your mindset.


You really don't know how much I just helped you in my posts. Remember, the great majority of posters here are NOT career agents. We graduated and learned (eventually) how to undo the 'mutual programming' that we got so we can serve our customers best and get paid 2x as much for doing so.

Always remember: Even a "bad policy" will still pay out a death benefit.

In golf: it's not about the clubs... it's about the swing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZthiWZmgcPo

----------

Here, I'll get you started:

http://www.insurance-forums.net/for...ce-new-life-agents-t29999.html?highlight=Life