Florida/Tampa P&C Salaries

[sppa]

Hi all,

I currently sell life insurance and I considering going to the P/C side.

Can you share what would be a reasonable starting base salary?

One employer I interviewed with offered a commission of $10 per auto, $25 per home and $10 for umbrella . Base salary of 30K....no renewals

Some leads would be given, I would mainly be smiling & dialing.

I'm apprehensive being in an office for 40 hours and making minimal sales.

Thanks

 

[indienoise]

Sounds like a state farm sort of offer.
There is really no "standard" compensation package, it will be different everywhere you go. You can run on the hamster wheel but get a guaranteed salary, if that's your thing. You could also get an opportunity to eat ramen now but caviar later. Some producer positions may not afford a base salary, but get renewals going forward. You may find something in between.
Even the best compensation package is useless without proper support and training. Unless you somehow just happen to be a natural at p&c. Still, having someone to help you avoid learning lessons the hard way is worth something.
I would recommend investigating a number of opportunities to see which fits you best.

 

[KenP]

Hi all,

I currently sell life insurance and I considering going to the P/C side.

Can you share what would be a reasonable starting base salary?

One employer I interviewed with offered a commission of $10 per auto, $25 per home and $10 for umbrella . Base salary of 30K....no renewals

Some leads would be given, I would mainly be smiling & dialing.

I'm apprehensive being in an office for 40 hours and making minimal sales.

Thanks

Small world. I work personal lines in a South Tampa agency. Just received an offer to go elsewhere that I'll be taking, so a few important things I want to give to you here:

When I joined here, I was burnt out at GEICO, so I wasn't in the mindset to negotiate salary by the time I got my offer here. I was just ready to get out of that corporate office. Now that I'm leaving, I actually found out this salary was low and they expected me to bid up. Whoops.

But that said, the salary was $33,000/year. Commission/bonus was much more generous than your offer, too: new business was $30 per policy (unless it's like a $120 renters policy, naturally), but also any policy that was $5,000 in annual premium or higher, it switched to 2% of the premium (so $100+).
Any re-writes we did for retention - think when a customer calls and asks why renewal jumped up so high, they need us to shop - was worth $20/pop, too.


Mind you, this was a hybrid sales/service role, so if that would bother you, then expect to get more offers like you had for pure sales, though maybe a little more generous on the commission they give. Understandably, a service/sales hybrid would likely offer higher salary but less commission would be on the table; not necessarily less $ per sale, but less sales because some of your time and effort has to be used to service. That gets baked into the higher salary.

The thing is, though, I haven't had to make a single cold call. This agency is pretty well established, so it's all been referrals and new customers calling us, not the other way around. This would probably be a big change from the life & health side of things :P

You mention being apprehensive of making minimal sales... Is that because of generally being bored or fear of getting cut for not meeting quotas? I ask because the nature of being service/sales means I've rarely had time to breathe here (in a good way). There's always something to do. The pressure on quotas isn't as high, either, because they understand I need to service as well. Even so, it's very rare I brought in less than $20,000-$30,000 in new business in any given month.

Finally, for reference, the new offer was $45,000 salary, 250/month allowance for health insurance, and will qualify for earning commissions after 6 months. The latter is mainly because they want to be fair to the current agents and not have a newcomer immediately cut into the available money pot, so to speak. It's a solid deal for me since the salary is so much more generous anyway.

Note it's the same situation where the leads are knocking at our door, no cold calling required. A big point to make here is this second opportunity was only really available because now I've already got much more experience in the whole basket of personal lines. The first opportunity took me in knowing I only knew auto from GEICO, so I had to learn and dealing with the growing pains when it comes to homeowners policies, etc.

So the original offer is more similar to your situation. Some insurance knowledge, but will need to learn a lot coming in. Even so, if I'm being honest it sounds like you're getting a pretty raw deal. Especially so if you're captive and not independent, since you're entirely at the mercy of a single company's product development decisions.

I don't think it'd hurt to get as many interviews and offers as you can, then decide from there. Hope that helps and feel free to ask me anything

 

[Rick Deckard]

I hate to post exact numbers but I secured a 3 year deal that starts with a small salary, say around $2500-$3,000 a month plus I get 40% on the front side my 1st year. After 12 months the salary decreases about 15-20% and then again into year 3 but between the new business and renewals that kick in I should be fine.

I'm a little more sales seasoned/savvy than most walking into this. I passed the state test in 2 weeks and this state requires a mandatory 200 hour class that must be passed in order to obtain your license (wink wink), it takes most a minimum of 3-4 months to get the license plus the pass/fail rate of the 165 question test is over 50% FAIL.

Life agents are a dime a dozen(sorry-don't get mad) but a P&C agent that actually knows what they are doing is a lot harder to find. I might also add finding a Life agent that truly knows what they are doing is not easy to find either. I am going to add my Life Lic to my P&C shortly, like in the next 4-8 weeks if I can.

Just an example but I can save people an extra 5% on their auto thru Auto-Owners if they take a simple life policy for a handful of dollars, they come out ahead and I get a little extra Com on top plus it opens the door for a bigger and better life policy down the road...were those light bulbs I heard exploding off in the distance...no it must have just been gas from the coffee I drank earlier.