American Income Life Insurance review: not true 21

It's been three years since I left AIL to start my own business and I'm still getting my renewals every month. These naysayers don't know what they are talking about. Maybe that's why they don't post their actual names. Think about it...

Again, Paul Lund, you're such a major tool I can't even comprehend. Who defends a company after leaving it three years later? If it's so good, why did you leave. And to the original poster of this thread, a lifetime renewal contract is not unique to AIL. Most other reputable insurance companies have had that for a long time. AIL just tells you that as if they had just invented the wheel or something. The sad thing is that since they have a 95% agent turnover rate after only 6 months, you won't see any of that anyway.

I'm betting the original poster on this page isn't with them as of today anyway. And I agree with mjd101010, Paul Lund is a major tool.

It's called a multi-level marketing scheme. Basically it's a pyrimid scheme, but legal. I've run into several insurance companies that operate this way during my job hunt. They'll hire absolutely ANYONE and use them for their contacts (friends and family). You don't make money from selling lots of policies yourself, you only make money by bringing in new recruits and mooching off their contacts. They feed off of excitement, not fact. This is why their "interviews" seem more like church sermons and their HR people seem like motivational speakers. Yes, some people do manage to make a living through these companies, but they are a lucky few.

http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/careers-601428-American_Income_Life;_ylc=X1MDMzk2NTExMzc4BF9yAzIEbGlkA0hKMTAwVG9wQ29tcGFueQ--?ultsrc=HJ100§ion=TopCompanyList

What is not legit about a fortune 400 platnium company with an A+ superior rating with AM best (the best rating to achieve) and a company that was just listed as the top 37th company to work for in america by yahoo hotjobs 2009 . The only company on that list that provides supplemental benefits to the working class man. You have not heard about the company because they dont advertise because they made an agreement with the union board to not advertise to help keep the cost down. SO do some real research based on facts rather than opinons and reading peoples slander!, and b/t/w the company doesnt allow agents to write up family! The leads are union members, its a niche market

I am a new agent with AIL. They have never asked me to try to get my friends to be agents or to sell insurance to my friends and/or family. In fact, my boss himself commented that what he likes about this is that you don't have to pester your friends and family. Compared to an MLM (which some are comparing this business to) where you always have a hidden agenda every time you talk to anyone. (If I were to sell insurance to my mother, I could not collect a commission from the sale) Also, with MLMs, you have to try to sign people up right away, and get them to sign people up and get their people to sign people up, etc. This isn't like that.

The leads come from the fact that AIL works with the unions. I'm not going to spell out their whole approach, but basically we get people from the unions who have received letters from their unions about benefits available to them, and then those people respond indicating an interest. And we get a lot of responses because we have a good program, good rates, etc. We schedule about 10 appointments a day on the average. And no, renewal contracts are not unique to AIL (sorry, I didn't really catch where anyone said that they were, but someone else apparently had that impression) but what is at least a little unique is that AIL provides the agents with the leads (not the other way around) at no cost. Some agencies actually charge their agents for leads.

I've been in training as I just started. I went with my boss out in the field this week and it was a slow week because it was thanksgiving week. In spite of that in two days with only a small handful appointments, I watched my boss make $1, 000 in commissions. I'm thinking, if he could do that on a slow week, I can certainly make at least 2k per week on a normal week when I get to know the product. And I'm sure that's the reason Paul Lund left AIL to start his own business... because he made a lot of money and he could. In fact, that's my goal as well. I have some other entrepreneurial visions of my own, but I don't have capital... yet. But I will.

I should also mention that since I've started working there, naturally I've met other agents. None of them have any complaints - and that's pretty unusual. I don't think I've ever worked anywhere were there weren't people who didn't like the company. They've all confirmed that they are making good money. But I also know that there has been some turnover, but some people just don't do sales. It's not everyone's thing. That's not anyone's fault, that's just how it is.

I used to think that a salesman had to be "schmoozey". When I was a kid I heard my Dad say that a good salesman could sell ice-cubes to Eskimos, and so I had this concept of a "good salesman" as being someone who would coerce people into buying something that they do not want or need. But that's not true. And since I've come to realize that that's not true, I've also come to realize that I myself am a good salesman - so long as I like the product. Because I like to talk to people, and not in a "used car salesman" kind of way. And the guy who first interviewed me... he wasn't schmoozey. In fact, if anything he was kind of dead-pan. And my boss is the same way. You know, it's not like watching a televangelist on speed or something, they're just very matter-of-fact when they present the product, and that seems to be what people respond to.

Anyway, I don't know what kind of experience other people have had working at other AIL offices, but so far mine has been pretty good and is looking very promising. If the opposite ends up being true, I'll be the first one to come back on and talk about it. But based on what I've seen first hand, I don't think that's gonna happen.

My one piece of advice to anyone who is reading these posts in an effort to find the facts: Be suspicious of anyone who makes statements like they're stating facts but doesn't back them up with any real information (such as someone stating a statistic but without telling where they got the information or how they know it. You have no way of knowing if they heard it second, third or fourth hand - or for that matter if they're just making it up). Trust more the people who can give facts based on experience. A person with experience has a lot more credibility than a person with an opinion.

In response to scam or talk

This person is correct, an agent can NOT write up someone in their family it is whats called "controlled business" in which the Agent will get a "NOPRD" which means NO PRODUCTION, which means you don't get paid. So the person who stated they make sure they write up their families was very incorrect, I do not get paid from writing anyone up in my family (unless in the VERY slim chance it passes their glance and they accidentally do) which give the agent no incentive to sign up everyone in their family.

MJD101010

Paul could have left for numerous reason, could have been health, family, personal you or i have no idea. but if he has left and STILL has positive things to say about the company that says something.

what positive things do you have to say about your previous employers? Most people can usually say none.

To MichaelAIL:

I think its sad that you go on here defending AIL saying you won't get paid for writing own family members. That has exactly what to do with anything? I mean you are actually showing us yet another reason why not to work with AIL. I would love to debate this process with you further, but you can't even tell me why AIL has that policy can you? Tell you what, you reply to me the REAL reason why agents don't get paid for family business and I'll debate this with you further. I'm betting you won't, cause you work for AIL and you do not have an original thought left in your brain.

Fail (a great name for you),
The reason some insurance companies do not pay you for writing immediate family is because it is considered "controlled" business. When someone is paid on commission and they are allowed to write a bunch of business for their family members the temptation to write all your family and then fade away (as many in many industries do) is a concern. AIL focuses on "Retention" which is not just writing business, it's writing good business that will stay on the books. Other companies that are not concerned with quality business expect you to write policies for your friends and family. I pity your inability to understand this simple concept. Did you bump your head hard as a child? AIL has a policy that may be able to help you;-) Sorry I can't write it as I'm sure you would be a fascinating appointment, with all your friendliness and charm, ... not to mention that I'm retired.

Paul,

The REAL reason that AIL has this policy is because too many AIL agents would write business on their family members (large premiums), get advanced on it, and then quit cause they know that working for AIL sucks. Roger Smith told me this himself. They had so many agents leaving and doing this practice that they had to come up with this rule. It has nothing at all to do with "Retention." As someone who worked for AIL you should know that AIL's retention is a joke and one of the worst in the industry. This is the major reason why agents are only advanced 2/3 of their paycheck. AIL knows that, at best, only approx 60% of all business written will be on the books after 6 months. 60%! All other reputable insurance companies have a 90-95% retention after a year and expect no less from their agents.

And for these reasons is why you're a tool.

You're a child that makes stuff up as you go along. Sad Fail, sad.

So an insurance company will actually advance you 65% of your entire ANNUAL commission less than one week after only submitting a signed application and one monthly payment AND you start getting paid on the back end in only 9 months instead of after a year (and you claim that isn't a good deal)? WOW! That is almost unheard of in the industry as anyone with any experience would know. Could it be that the other 35% is held for up to 9 months and released in the form of an additional monthly check so that any advances an agent received from a policy that was denied or withdrawn does not have to be charged back to the agent's weekly advance check? Oh that sounds just awful, ... yeah right.
So let me clarify: You get advanced 65% of the WHOLE YEAR'S commission before the application even reaches underwriting. Yep, that's a great deal, regardless of your baseless claims.
Keep changing your name genius. I'm sure NO ONE can figure out that these complaints and insults are all coming from the same bitter person using different login names. Wow, you're special. I mean that.

The reason you do not get paid on business you write up for you family is for multiple reasons. First, because they don't want you focusing selling life insurance to your families, because the family may end up buying for 2 reasons. First because you're family, and two because when you're family you also have a hard time saying "NO".
Another reason is because American Income has an agreement with the Unions, Credit unions, and associations that we will TRY to see their members in a timely, and professional fashion. Meaning that if we have 25 agents and 24 of them are focusing on their families because it's an easy sell, it makes it hard to keep that commitment up.

And finally because when you do sell to families what ends up happening a lot (in all insurance companies) is when that agent quits or changes insurance companies the families all cancel their policies because that agent tells them he/she has a better policy and that they should (being that he is the insurance professional.

Let's debate further.

Major Tool

the "real" reason AIL does not allow that is NOT because they have the worst retention of business in the industry. You didn't even TRY to research that piece of information did you? You just randomly pulled that out. Because you can see who has terrible retention of business, and AIL is not at the top. But since we are just talking about AIL I will keep it with that and not throw any other names out, just in case you get them confused. 60% is a number you just pulled out because if you did any research you'd realize that 60% is STANDARD for insurance companies that deal with majority whole life insurance (and even Term unless it's a term only company). AIL is at a 72% Industry standard for their retention of business from Point of sale to 1st year on the books and from that point on if a policy pays in for longer than a year goes from 72% to (not completely accurate) 81%. And whether or not Roger smith told you that himself(which i doubt, but will not debate you on the matter since i have met him on several occasions myself). Like i stated in my above post, that is not a problem with just AMERICAN INCOME that is a problem in ALL industries when that happens. Let me repeat that last part, people writing a lot of business on their families and then quitting is a major issue for all insurance companies and it happens all the time. AIL actually did something about it though.

But on a better note, AIL did go one step though you do NOT get ADVANCED on your family it does all go into your "back end" and if you don't know what that means, which if you know roger smith so much you should undoubtedly know, but it means your residuals -aka- renewals. When you write up your family your PVFC increases but you just do not receive an actual advance or paycheck.

Anything else you want to debate on?

I enjoyed reading this. Looks like Fail is just a grumpy person who couldn't sell. I know Paul and he left to spend time with his family while his wife went back to school. The simple fact that he could take this time out of his career is because of the renewal income that AIL was providing. I too left AIL after about 3 years and 6 years later I still get a monthly renewal check. These checks were a great boost to my income while I tried different business ventures. I have now gone back to AIL as of this week and look forward to making a meaningful income on my own time as my own boss.
It's not for everyone. It is hard to reach out top families and spend time in their home to sell them a product. But if you are good you can do great things at this company.

AIL Mark L... I think one of the last things that you said is kind of what it boils down to: It's not for everyone. I think one gripe that I do have from the experience that I had there was that my manager tried to put across the "anyone can do it" mentality, which just makes you feel like crap when you can't. Myself, I'm not really a salesman. I wish I were because I can still see that the opportunity was tremendous. I'm good at talking to people - just not too good at talking people into things. Also, I can't sell something that I'm not passionate about, and I'm not passionate about life insurance. Not that its not a good thing... just not a passion of mine. If it were, I think I could sell it because passion is contageous. And its not something that you can fake. Well, maybe some people can, but I can't.

I have a good friend who is seriously considering getting into the business and I have encouraged him to go to AIL because, if nothing else, its a good place to get trained in the business.

Honestly, I think that the reason it comes accross as "scammy" to people is they act too desperate to get people on board. I told my manager this when I was there. When you're interviewing people you have to make them feel that you're deciding wether they're a fit with your company or not... not "Oh please, oh please come and work with us!" At least I felt like that was an issue at the office I worked from.

I hooked up with another group after I left AIL and they're really not that much different, but for some reason AIL has aquired the "scam" image that seems to dog them that other insurance companies don't have. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but I do think it has something to do with the thing I already mentioned. If they would stop acting so desperate to bring people on board I think that they could shake some of that image. That's my opinion, anyway.

DBSmitty, you're completely right most offices, or at least a lot of them are looking to hire most any one. I am an individual who does value my time for myself and the time i put in to the people i hire. So i really only hire people i Like, I have been with the company for three years and i've only worked with 7 individuals that i hand selected. Out of the Seven I have hired 5 are still with the company today. Out of those five 2 are MGA's (managers) one is an RGA(regional Manager) and the other 2 are personal producers. (I also have two that are in training right now, but they don't count until they are released)

I enjoyed your story mark and DBSmitty i think i asked this before but does your name 'DBS' mean Death by stereo? That's a great band!

Death by stereo, huh? That's great. No its just my initials.

I've read most of the different comments people have made, not only in this thread but others on this site and on other sites as well... the "anti-AILers". I think that they fall into different categories; many of them are people who are voicing an impression as though it were an established fact. But there are some who seem to have had a bad experience, either actually working with AIL or just bad vibes at an interview (usually for the reasons I described in my previous comment). I can't speak for everyone's else's experience, but I know that for me, my problem stemmed from 1. My own inability to do the type of work I was trying to do (I'm not a good salesman, as I mentioned before), and 2. A twenty-one year old manager who had the mind of a sixteen year old. Thought he knew everything.

I'm going to say something about the second issue because I think it reflects a problem in corporate America, but it really applies in a big way to the insurance business and to AIL because anyone can become a manager if they are a good producer...

I've seen it in other fields. Most of my career experience has been in IT and I've seen it happen there. You have a person who is a terrific programmer and a teriffic employee and the position for manager in the programming department opens up. So they make that terrific programmer the manager of the programming department. Is he a good manager? Not necessarily. There's a big difference between being a good programmer and being a good manager. Or to put it in insurance biz terms: There's a big difference between being a good producer and being a good manager.

Part of my manager's problem was that he was unteachable. You could not tell him that anything that he was doing was wrong. He felt that his being a top-notch manager was evidenced by how successful he was as a producer. Shortly after I left, AIL brought in other people to help him run his team because he was flailing so badly.

It reflects badly on upper level management to put the wrong people in mid-management positions. That terrific programmer/employee may have worked very hard and been very loyal... he deserves that promotion! But deserving it and beging right for the position are two very different things. But at AIL, there's not much choice. At least, not if what I was told in my initial interview was true (and I'm not assuming that it was, I'm just reporting): I was told that because its a union position, if you're a great producer and you want to be a manager, you cannot be told no, even if your managers don't like you. That's a little different than what my understanding in the past has been about how unions operate (seniority, not performance)... but that's what they told me. My manager was a perfect example of what I'm talking about: He was a great salesman (and I trained with him, so I saw him in action), but he was a lousy manager. I'm sure that his management skills will improve some when he grows up a little. But wether or not he ever becomes a really good manager has yet to be seen.

But I still maintain that AIL offers a good opportunity for anyone who has a nack for sales. There are other insurance companies that people could work with, but there's more one-on-one training at AIL than other work-from-home situations that offer conference calls and webinars as the main modes of training provide. Which is why I'm encouraging my friend to do it.

My name is Anthony Osborne, CFO of American Income Life and Regional Manager in Southeastern TN. Need help learning how to work your way up in this company? shoot me an email: anthony-osborne@utc.edu... I collect a salary of over a million per year and I can teach you the tricks!

I am truly grateful for this forum, both the good and the bad. I had two different "recruiting" calls from AIL since posting my resume on careerbuilder and monster. The first call left me with a much better impression of AIL than the second did. The first caller was very upfront that they were looking for a sales person with management potential. They were forthcoming that it was commission based and asked politely if this would be something I would be interested in. I declined as I am not a salesperson by nature and am a recently single mom who needs a steady base salary. The second call I received was much like the "complaints" I've read on this forum (this and other threads). I did not like the fact that they never identified themselves as AIL, only the "Hudson Group". It wasn't until I did research on the address and phone numbers that I discovered it was AIL again. I wholeheartedly respect and admire all of you with the drive and skills needed to make it in a commission only position and wish you all the best of luck. For those of you seeking employment, take this advice: it's a hard job market out there and if you think even slightly you have what it takes, give it a shot. If the idea of putting out money for the license or other expenses bothers you, don't do it. If you can take the risk and do as well as some of these representatives have, then maybe it's worth a try. I, unfortunately, do not have the liberty of taking what little time and gas and savings I have to try to make a go of something I know is not my strongest point - not with a small child depending on me, a house payment, etc., etc. I only wish the second "recruiter" had been as forthcoming as the first - it would have saved me and AIL valuable time and effort and resources.

Best wishes to everyone seeking employment and continued prosperity to those who have found a "home" with AIL. I think overall the concern is whether AIL's approach to the "interview" is completely forthcoming or not, and as I have had both a good and bad experience, I'll refrain from any specific opinion on AIL except to say, do your research, check it out, get the facts, then make the decision that is best for you and your family. Blessings to all!

I'm wondering what happened to "Tool?" Doesn't seem to come on here anymore. Probably cause he knows deep down that the company he used to work for is as much of a sham as he is.