Agents for life insurance have a very difficult job. To be a life insurance agent, you need to be both kind and responsive like a friend and cold and almost cruel like a professional salesperson. The best life insurance agents can make this hard job look easy, but making a good living in this field is more like walking on a tightrope than taking a walk in the park.
It seems hard to sell people life insurance because it's not easy to convince someone to pay money for something for the rest of his or her life that won't help anyone until after he or she is dead. Some policies are more flexible and give the beneficiaries access to some of the money while the customer is still alive. Other policies, on the other hand, often make it so that the beneficiaries can't touch all of the money until the customer dies. Because of this, many people are hesitant to buy a life insurance policy when they could easily put that money into a portfolio of stocks or mutual funds that could make them more money and give them more freedom. A good life insurance agent must be able to explain to these kinds of potential customers why life insurance is better than other financial options. This requires not only a strong conviction under pressure but also the ability to explain and persuade.
Most salespeople can leave as soon as the customer signs the contract, but a life insurance agent has to stay involved with the customer until the money is paid out to the beneficiaries. Even after a customer buys a life insurance policy, the agent's job isn't done. This has a lot to do with how agents find new customers. A big part of the business that life insurance agents get today comes from word of mouth. Because of this, it is crucial for an agent to stay in touch with all of his or her clients.
A life insurance agent must keep in touch with his or her clients on a regular basis, just to check in, in order to keep a good relationship with them and get them to recommend their friends and neighbours to buy policies as well. If there is a problem, the agent must be quick to respond and take action in order to keep the customer's trust, which leads to more business. Since being a life insurance agent requires a strong relationship between the agent and the client, it is not surprising that many people who sell life insurance are starting to move into other areas of financial planning as well. By being able to offer a customer a variety of services, the agents are maximizing their own efficiency and earning potential while also increasing their customers' satisfaction.
