Would You Join World Financial Group?

Worst idea in the world.

They call themselves Financial Planners. That, my friend, some scary sh-t.

Are they still beating that "life and invest the difference" melody? Maybe if it doesn't work out you can take a position with NAA.
 
I'm currently an agent with WFG and I'll give you my opinion without a bias towards negative or positive, but more about my own experience:

-You can offer Term, Indexed UL policies, Long Term Care (also LTC Rider in the IUL Policies), Mutual Funds, IRA's, Annuities, etc.. With the Transamerica carrier, you can offer up to $250K in coverage without a medical exam but obviously the rating is lower than somebody who takes the exam. The IUL has a flexible premium (personal example: a client of mine started off at $100/month and lowered her premium to $63/month to keep it and then switched back to $100), has a floor of .75% on interest earned and a cap of 15%. If you need to borrow against the Policy, you can pull out up to 90% of the cash value and the interest charged, for the first 10 years of the Policy, is .75% and 0% starting on the 11th year. Also the loan isn't forced to be paid back, meaning that if a person passes away and they have a balance it'll get subtracted from the death benefit. In addition, if done the right way, the cash value and death benefit can all go to the beneficiary's.

-Recruiting: yes, you will get bombarded on recruiting, but when you receive an override (which I will not say here how much, but way over $500) for somebody who came in business with you and somebody else trained, I don't see it as a bad thing.

-"The one on top makes all the money ", yes, but through promotions you can also reach the higher levels in business.

What will be required? You have to develop a contact list. I sat down with a couple who told me that NY Life had a requirement of obtaining 200 contacts from him and 100 of those had to be with a phone number and address. So it goes down to the same, about " the more people you can talk to, the better you'll be."

-"I was told I had to recruit friends and family" and I always thought "I would've LOVED to have had all my friends doing this, but they live in another Country" and then one of my childhood friends wound up getting in the business, and currently writing up policies, with another person.

I too had a negative view when I started the business and then I educated myself more and I called around other companies, such as Ameriprise who charge between $1000- $2000 to look at your financial info and charge $500 a visit plus charge you different fees to do business with them, all this told to me over the phone by an agent.

-"You can get a higher contract with XYZ Company": true but all you can do is personally produce. In WFG the Broker position has a 81% contract level.

The only challenge with WFG is if you don't have people to see and the clients you do get don't have too much money to pay in to a plan, which obviously won't pay you as much.

Just my 2 cents about it.
 
I'm currently an agent with WFG and I'll give you my opinion without a bias towards negative or positive, but more about my own experience:

-You can offer Term, Indexed UL policies, Long Term Care (also LTC Rider in the IUL Policies), Mutual Funds, IRA's, Annuities, etc.. With the Transamerica carrier, you can offer up to $250K in coverage without a medical exam but obviously the rating is lower than somebody who takes the exam. The IUL has a flexible premium (personal example: a client of mine started off at $100/month and lowered her premium to $63/month to keep it and then switched back to $100), has a floor of .75% on interest earned and a cap of 15%. If you need to borrow against the Policy, you can pull out up to 90% of the cash value and the interest charged, for the first 10 years of the Policy, is .75% and 0% starting on the 11th year. Also the loan isn't forced to be paid back, meaning that if a person passes away and they have a balance it'll get subtracted from the death benefit. In addition, if done the right way, the cash value and death benefit can all go to the beneficiary's.

-Recruiting: yes, you will get bombarded on recruiting, but when you receive an override (which I will not say here how much, but way over $500) for somebody who came in business with you and somebody else trained, I don't see it as a bad thing.

-"The one on top makes all the money ", yes, but through promotions you can also reach the higher levels in business.

What will be required? You have to develop a contact list. I sat down with a couple who told me that NY Life had a requirement of obtaining 200 contacts from him and 100 of those had to be with a phone number and address. So it goes down to the same, about " the more people you can talk to, the better you'll be."

-"I was told I had to recruit friends and family" and I always thought "I would've LOVED to have had all my friends doing this, but they live in another Country" and then one of my childhood friends wound up getting in the business, and currently writing up policies, with another person.

I too had a negative view when I started the business and then I educated myself more and I called around other companies, such as Ameriprise who charge between $1000- $2000 to look at your financial info and charge $500 a visit plus charge you different fees to do business with them, all this told to me over the phone by an agent.

-"You can get a higher contract with XYZ Company": true but all you can do is personally produce. In WFG the Broker position has a 81% contract level.

The only challenge with WFG is if you don't have people to see and the clients you do get don't have too much money to pay in to a plan, which obviously won't pay you as much.

Just my 2 cents about it.

I get the impression from your post that this is the only insurance experiance you have to draw from.


>>""personal example: a client of mine started off at $100/month and lowered her premium to $63/month to keep it and then switched back to $100)...""

So that we have a better idea can you give us the specs on this case. Age, sex, tolal fave amount and premiums please.
 
I'm currently an agent with WFG and I'll give you my opinion without a bias towards negative or positive, but more about my own experience:

-You can offer Term, Indexed UL policies, Long Term Care (also LTC Rider in the IUL Policies), Mutual Funds, IRA's, Annuities, etc.. With the Transamerica carrier, you can offer up to $250K in coverage without a medical exam but obviously the rating is lower than somebody who takes the exam. The IUL has a flexible premium (personal example: a client of mine started off at $100/month and lowered her premium to $63/month to keep it and then switched back to $100), has a floor of .75% on interest earned and a cap of 15%. If you need to borrow against the Policy, you can pull out up to 90% of the cash value and the interest charged, for the first 10 years of the Policy, is .75% and 0% starting on the 11th year. Also the loan isn't forced to be paid back, meaning that if a person passes away and they have a balance it'll get subtracted from the death benefit. In addition, if done the right way, the cash value and death benefit can all go to the beneficiary's.

Nothing unique here compared to other similar products.

I too had a negative view when I started the business and then I educated myself more and I called around other companies, such as Ameriprise who charge between $1000- $2000 to look at your financial info and charge $500 a visit plus charge you different fees to do business with them, all this told to me over the phone by an agent.

Trust but verify. It's been 12 years, but Ameriprise (formely American Express Financial Advisors) is a fee-based planning firm and they charged at least $795 to do a basic plan. I'm sure it increases from there.

In fact, you can do a little research and look up the ADV Part 2 on file with the IAPD (Investment Advisor Public Disclosure) from Ameriprise and get an idea of their fee schedule.

Ameriprise, while they can and will work with someone who will pay their fees, they are looking for a more 'upscale' prospect with money to invest on a fee-based basis... not necessarily a middle income prospect.

Two different markets.

-"You can get a higher contract with XYZ Company": true but all you can do is personally produce. In WFG the Broker position has a 81% contract level.

You can recruit as an independent agent and earn an override. The question really becomes: What do you bring to the table for new agents if you do it?

I don't WANT to recruit. Earning 80%+ without having had to recruit and no minimum production requirements is pretty good to me.

The only challenge with WFG is if you don't have people to see and the clients you do get don't have too much money to pay in to a plan, which obviously won't pay you as much.

That's the only challenge for EVERYONE.

Profiles Of Success - What It Takes To Be A Top Earner | InsuranceNewsNetMagazine.com

If everyone is going to have the same challenges, why is the upline at WFG entitled to a greater share of the total compensation/override on the products that YOU sell? What value to they EACH bring to the table to help you so they are earning that compensation?

Do yourself a favor: Add up all the different levels of compensation and add it to your own commission. Then add in a % for WFG to keep (they aren't a non-profit organization). Now... who is doing most of the work to get the client to buy your recommendation? You are. So...why are they entitled to all that, when you could have 80%+ for yourself without recruiting others?
 
You can actually be a independent producer at 81% without a requirement to recruit.

About my client, she was one of my first one's and I was a split agent on it. She smoked like a chimney, got $50K in coverage initially and her coverage has gone up as well.

One last thing: other insurance companies offer 5% rates of return and charge 4-8% if a client wants to take out a loan. How is that similar to offering .75-15% and the withdrawal is .75%?

And I can service the same clients as Ameriprise without charging all those fees for a 20 minute talk.
 
I checked them out. Something I ran across was if doing outside business which in my case LegalShield you can only advance to a certain level. I don't know if that has changed but to me that was a biggie. Also from my understanding to be 65 licensed a agent was also required to get 6 and 63.

There were also a few red flags I ran across but of course those were personal issues I had with the contract. Hey everyone starts somewhere.
 
One last thing: other insurance companies offer 5% rates of return and charge 4-8% if a client wants to take out a loan. How is that similar to offering .75-15% and the withdrawal is .75%?

And I can service the same clients as Ameriprise without charging all those fees for a 20 minute talk.

First, please find me a company that offers a 5% rate of return every single year of the policy? None of them do as an over-funded policy will take about 10 years to reach "break even" (cash values > premiums paid). After that, it certainly gets better, but 5%? Rather optimistic.

IUL, on the other hand, which is what you're describing, offers the chance to capture upside volatility of the underlying index. You cannot promise a guaranteed rate of return, unless you have a floor (which you did by choosing the index option with a .75% floor).

Second, the charges on life insurance loans are meaningless. Huh? When someone takes out a loan from a life insurance policy and they pay back AT LEAST the annual interest due, the money is credited BACK to their policy and restores the promised earnings as shown in the illustration. So, does it matter if it's 5%, or 10%? As long as the insured/contract owner pays the annual interest every year out of their pocket to the policy, it will restore the earnings promised in the illustration. You get to keep the interest you are paying back to your policy.

Life Insurance Planning

You don't have anything "extra special" with "your company". Only some kool-aid that promises that "it's better than everything else out there"... and it simply isn't true. There are other great products out there and you don't HAVE to be with WFG to offer them.
 
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