Insurance Agent Forum

[milla]

This question may be directed for Hoosierdaddy or Newby...

If you are going to try and work for a funeral home selling pre-need insurance, do the funeral homes pay a salary to you or are you just independent and while you are selling pre-need you are also putting in a plug for the funeral home's great rates?

I just don't know how this whole process works...

Newby had a post awhile back that said if you can get hooked up with a funeral home, they have thousands of leads they will give you. He also said that one way to do this is to call Forethought or another final expense carrier that you may be appointed with and ask their funeral division if they know of any funeral homes in your area that are looking for pre-need agents...

Newby sounds like he has a lot of knowledge on this topic and I was hoping he could enlighten us further...

Anyone else have experience on this that could chime in???

-Does the funeral home pay you or they just use you to help people pay for the funeral homes service just like you use the funeral home for their leads?
-Will Forethought or other carriers give you names of funeral homes looking for agents even if you are not contracted with them or do you need to be appointed with them first?
-Are there that many funeral homes looking for agents? I have been searching every newspaper and jobsite on the web for pre-need positions and found nothing.
-If I was going to go around and introduce myself to some funeral homes and ask if they could use my services, what would be an example sort of "script" to use to help them to decide to hire me?

Sorry, just some questions. I am really intrigued by this and would really like to know as much as possible about the best way to do this.

[midwestbroker]

I interviewed with a local funeral home that was owned by a large corp that has funeral homes all over the US (I do not remember the corps name).

The position was one that you are referring to. It was a commission only position, but they did have benefits. They wanted someone to call their current list of prospects and people who own burial lots to sell pre-need plans. Also, to attend when families were arranging funerals and sell the family members later on pre-need plans.

I passed on the position since I like being independent.

Most funeral homes that I have talked to have their own pre-need plans they sell through the director or assistance there. They prefer pre-need over FE since they start getting money right away and do not have to wait for the funeral to collect. At least that is what I have found.

[Newby]

Funeral homes are not paid until death with preneed insurance. Mid-west broker is describing cemetery property sales not funeral preneed insurance.

Yes, contact the pre-need insurance companies. ForeThought, Homesteaders, NGL, Lincoln Heritage, Monumental, etc. Call their pre-need division (not final expense) and ask who the area rep is for your state. Get his phone number and find out when he will be in your area. Unless you sound aweful on the phone, you will get a meeting with him.

Good funeral homes that are locally owned and do between 150 to 500 funerals a year are the best place to be. They can be very choosy about who they will put in there. If you can't afford a few nice suits, a decent car and present yourself well, you may as well forget it.

Corporate owned funeral homes on the other hand (owned by SCI, Dignity Memorial, Carriage, Alderwoods etc.) use the mirror test on interviews. The people who work in those funeral homes longer than one year are ALL bottom-feeders.

They don't "give you" thousands of leads. You are surrounded by them but funeral directors don't recognize things like that. If they did, they wouldn't need you.