Most companies train newbies on product knowledge when they should teach courses on marketing.  If any insurance or brokerage firm was truly out to support their reps they would have a disciplined marketing program and just plug in reps to produce sales.  They don't.  Consider that a lesson learned.

Go wherever you feel your talents are best served.

P.S. - Insurance is the foundation of every properly constructed financial plan.  I would rather be an "insurance salesman" than a "stock jock".  Any numb nut can sell the pipe dream that all of your money is going to appreciate in value.  It takes a true salesman to convince somebody of the opposite and get them to purchase an insurance product that is not mandated as a "must buy" by the state, like auto insurance.

[quote=Dewey Cheatham]

P.S. - Insurance is the foundation of every properly constructed financial plan.  I would rather be an "insurance salesman" than a "stock jock". 

[/quote]

It's true that insurance is a necessary part of every financial plan.  Problem is, there is a proper limitation on how much insurance is adequate for a particular person, and that limitation goes against the revenue of the insurance salesman.  And unfortunately insurance salesmen most often come down on the side of generating revenue for themselves and thus pushing clients, friends, relatives, even strangers, to buy insurance they don't need.

That's why many people are afraid to go near insurance salemen.

"That's why many people are afraid to go near insurance salemen."

At least when you meet with a rep from Northwestern Mutual or Met Life, you know you are meeting with an insurance salesan. My problem with AXA is that they dress up their reps to talk and act like a fiancial advisor, but in reality they are glorified insurance salesman- pushing their proprietary due to higher payouts, revenues that offset office rent/expenses/software, and that coveted company 401K match. Like I have said before, AXA has a great training program and thepotnetial to have a great platform, but at the end of the day the solution to all is AXA Equitable variable universal life policies ( that upfront is tough to turn down...)

Another example of why insurance salesmen have poor reputation:

From Baltimore Sun

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/yourmoney/bal-ym.cruz28 aug28,1,1722672.story?coll=bal-business-indepth

Q: My husband purchased an annuity through a dishonest agent. It is a fixed account that will pay just 2.25 percent for the next 11 years. It has been almost a year since he bought it, and they will charge a surrender charge of 14 percent if he wants to take the money out. Still, we want to transfer the money and open an IRA with a no-load mutual fund or discount broker. Would this be a wise decision?

A: It would be an impossible decision as far as the money in this annuity is concerned. Legally, you cannot take money from an annuity that is not part of an individual retirement account or a qualified retirement plan and turn it into an IRA. From the information you gave me, your husband made a lump-sum payment of $11,000 to buy what is known as a nonqualified annuity, one bought with after-tax dollars and not part of a tax-qualified retirement plan.

I do not know whether the agent who sold your husband the policy is dishonest, since I wasn't there to witness the transaction, but I will bet anything that the contract your husband has had for almost a year spells out the surrender charges and interest rate guarantees.

Also by law, annuities must include a "free-look" provision, giving you enough time - typically a minimum of 10 to 30 days - to look over the contract and cancel it if you don't like the terms.

What I'm saying is, your husband must take some of the responsibility for having bought this annuity contract. Still, if he feels the agent was less than honest and failed to disclose important information, he should contact his state insurance department and file a complaint. In some recent cases involving the questionable sale of annuities, particularly to seniors, insurance companies have agreed to drop surrender charges in the face of customer complaints and pressure from regulators.

If your husband's insurance company won't drop the surrender charges, then you need to decide whether he is better off sticking it out with this annuity and earning the 2.25 percent a year tax deferred, or paying the piper and putting the money somewhere else. In the latter case, if the policy is not quite a year old yet, he might want to wait until the first policy anniversary, when surrender charges often go down by a percentage point.

I can't make that decision for you, but I will suggest your husband can learn a valuable lesson from this experience.

Based on what you told me, I am almost certain he bought a teaser-rate annuity that paid a bonus rate the first year but then guaranteed no more than 2.25 percent in years two through 12. His mistake was buying an annuity with a surrender-charge period that extended way beyond the time an attractive interest rate was guaranteed.

And I suspect he failed to ask for a critical bit of information: the guaranteed "yield to surrender," based on the lowest interest rate allowed under the contract, in this case 2.25 percent.

The guaranteed yield to surrender is the minimum you would earn if you hold the annuity until the end of the surrender period. For investors, that is the rate that really matters, not the one-year bonus rate that many insurance companies like to hype. For example, a fixed annuity I saw advertised recently paid a juicy 7 percent the first year, but the guaranteed yield to surrender, after 12 years, was a mere 1.5 percent a year.

Hello Again !

now i Know i'm a Bit Late with this, but i just stumbbled Onto it !

Everyone since Childhhod, has heard Horror stories about Insurance, but Please keep in Mind, that the Insurance Industry is the Only thing Between many and Total Disaster !

Insurance for Quakes,insurance for Floods,Huricanes and the like, but That's just the Weather !  What about Financial Risks ?  Not so Sure now,Are you !

but let me explaine a little:

Your Bank,needs insurance ! So does your Broker/Dealer,etc.etc.!     Let's not Forget the Poor-Poor Pensioners, who'd be Left in the Cold-Cold Night !  be Thankful we're in a Nation with Hundreds in not Thousands of Insureres,All to Cover yer Butts!

my Best To all !

[/quote]

It's true that insurance is a necessary part of every financial plan.  Problem is, there is a proper limitation on how much insurance is adequate for a particular person, and that limitation goes against the revenue of the insurance salesman.  And unfortunately insurance salesmen most often come down on the side of generating revenue for themselves and thus pushing clients, friends, relatives, even strangers, to buy insurance they don't need.

That's why many people are afraid to go near insurance salemen.

[/quote]

Spoken like a truly uninformed, probably NOT life licensed, stock broker.

"Proper limitation on how much insurance is adequate..."

Selling appropriate face amounts of coverage is a suitability issue.  Please don't even try to throw "stock broker" rocks when discussing suitability.

I have never seen a beneficiary complain that a proceeds check was TOO BIG!  Have you?

[quote=FinclPlngPro]

[/quote]

It's true that insurance is a necessary part of every financial plan.  Problem is, there is a proper limitation on how much insurance is adequate for a particular person, and that limitation goes against the revenue of the insurance salesman.  And unfortunately insurance salesmen most often come down on the side of generating revenue for themselves and thus pushing clients, friends, relatives, even strangers, to buy insurance they don't need.

That's why many people are afraid to go near insurance salemen.

[/quote]

Spoken like a truly uninformed, probably NOT life licensed, stock broker.

"Proper limitation on how much insurance is adequate..."

Selling appropriate face amounts of coverage is a suitability issue.  Please don't even try to throw "stock broker" rocks when discussing suitability.

I have never seen a beneficiary complain that a proceeds check was TOO BIG!  Have you?

[/quote]

How many times have you heard policyholders complain about being suckered?

Oh, and FYI, my firm does sell life insurance and annuities.

[quote=FinclPlngPro]

[/quote]

It’s true that insurance is a necessary part of every financial plan.

Problem is, there is a proper limitation on how much insurance is

adequate for a particular person, and that limitation goes against the

revenue of the insurance salesman. And unfortunately insurance

salesmen most often come down on the side of generating revenue for

themselves and thus pushing clients, friends, relatives, even strangers, to

buy insurance they don’t need.

That’s why many people are afraid to go near insurance salemen.

[/quote]

Spoken like a truly uninformed, probably NOT life licensed, stock

broker.

"Proper limitation on how much insurance is adequate…"

Selling appropriate face amounts of coverage is a suitability issue.

Please don’t even try to throw “stock broker” rocks when discussing

suitability.

I have never seen a beneficiary complain that a proceeds check was

TOO BIG! Have you?

[/quote]



Hey Financial Planning pro, can you sell me a financial plan? I’ll see if I

can scrape up “PLAN MONEY” from the cushions of my couch, then I can

wipe my ass with it.