American Income Life Insurance

I just have a question for all of you that worked or work for this company. I am wondering about the children's whole life policy. I was looking to purchase coverage for my kids at a low cost in the event of (God forbid) their demise. Recently a friend was witness to his daughter being hit by a car. She is very lucky...she suffered a shattered femur and traumatic brain injury which could have resulted in death. This got me to thinking...what would I do if something like that happened to one of my kids? Aside from losing my mind how would I afford to pay for burial expenses? My father in law just passed away a year ago and the cost of his funeral and burial was around $20, 000. That is alot of money for someone who doesn't have insurance and doesn't have $ in the bank. The policy costs for both kids would be around $30 a month. I think that this is reasonable but am worried about the coverage and payouts (since it is a whole life policy). I don't want this to be a hassle for anyone and I don't want to waste my money. It seems that the only complaints I see have to do with the employment side of the business not the coverage etc. Please let me know.

My Experience with AIL.
Here are a few points to take into consideration:
Now I will be the first to admit that prior to working for AIL, I had no sales experience or background. I will also admit that working for AIL taught me that I don't possess (or perhaps that I refuse to adopt) a sales mentality. Of course this is only relevant to this experience. Again, having no other sales experience to compare it to, it would be wrong of me to "bash" the practice of sales and those who have succeeded in it. Another note to point out is that AIL is a large company made up of many different agencies. As such, there isn't one standard operating procedure for the company as a whole. That being said, I still see a lot of similarities between the stories above and my own, similarities that eventually led to me leaving the company.

I was in need of a job, as my previous job was a contract gig, and it had ended. Finding myself on unemployment and wanting to get back into working as soon as possible, I accepted a phone invitation to an interview with AIL. I understand now that my desperation to work was my first blinding pitfall. I knew that the position was with an insurance company and that it would be for an insurance agent position, so in that regard I was not lied to about that as others have experienced. AIL was in the process of opening a new division in the Portland, Oregon area that would specifically cater to Veterans. Having spent time in the military, this appealed to me and I had thoughts of being able to help other Vets.

The interview process is as described by others on this site: a 3 part process. I completed all three in one day, the third which gave video presentations on company overviews and testimonials from current employees. I was also introduced to my MGA, Chris LaFond. Chris has done very well for himself. A 20+ year veteran of the company, he has traditionally been what I would refer to as a "fixer": he would travel to other areas and spend time fixing those agencies for the company whose numbers weren't up to par. Now he was tapped to lead this division. He's loud, passionate, and extremely talented with words; all the makings for a great sales leader.

Upon being offered the job, I took to the task of studying for the licensing exam. Now, here is where some of you will think it unfair, but my fees for this were waived due to the fact that I am a Veteran. I did have to pay for the exam itself, but I was told to keep the receipt so that I could be reimbursed (not through the company, but come tax season). That was an $80 cost and I made sure to pass the test on the first try to avoid having to pay again for a retake. Then, I began studying and memorizing a 7 page script. It had been preferred that I memorize it in 4 days, but I lucked out and had a week as the state of Oregon took it's sweet time to assigned me my producer number. Now it is true that all of this time was unpaid, but I did it from the comfort of my home and so I have no complaints on that.

Once I had the license and script, next came the filed training. My field trainer and the person I was eventually "coded" to was Travis Vanderberghe, a 14 year veteran of the company. I have nothing bad to say about Travis as he was very patient with my training and always willing to listen to my concerns. When I left the company, the only feeling of guilt I had was having wasted Travis's time. I began to "shadow" Travis on actual appointments for a couple of weeks. At first I was an observer watching the script in motion, then I gradually would perform as much of the script as I felt comfortable with. While it may come easier to some, memorizing a script and actually performing one are two different beasts. Next came "cross-pitching", in which I would travel to appointments all day with Travis. I would complete one appointment, and Travis the next. If I made a sale, it went to Travis, and vice versa. I'm not sure if this is a common practice with other sales jobs, but I found it weird. Eventually I would be released on my own.

As stated by others, two days a week you are required to be at the office for training (both business applications and motivational) and booking sessions. The pretext for setting appointments was that these Veterans were receiving no cost benefits through their service organization (VFW, AMVETS, American Legion). This free benefit is real and is an AD&D policy that is provided to the Veteran through membership to their respective organization. In order to receive it, a yellow card is filled out with name, beneficiary name, address, and phone number. These cards are turned in to the service organization and then forwarded to us, thus creating our "leads". Booking would usually begin in the early to mid afternoon and run until 9pm. According to our MGA, Chris, the goal was to book 5 appointments minimum for every day you were working in the field. You would call through your stack of "leads", sometimes multiple times because people wouldn't answer their phones, until you made your booking quota or until the night was over. If you managed to make your quota, you would then call for other agents to help them fill up their schedule. There were a couple of issues I had with this:
1.) The average age of the Veterans was 60+. After a certain time in the evening, I found it rude to call them. This did not matter to Chris.
2.) We were expected to help each other out. However, other agents (not SGA's or MGA's), who were senior to us were allowed to leave immediately if their schedules were filled, a double standard to the "work as a team" practice that was preached.
3.) We were expected to be at office meetings, otherwise there was verbal criticism for not showing up. Yet there were other agents who never showed up. I knew their names, but never met them the whole time I worked there. Again, I felt it was a double standard because we were newer.
4.) Setting appointments was solely based on the premise of delivering these no cost benefits. Nothing was ever mentioned by phone that insurance was to be talked about. In fact the phone script all but promised that the whole appointment would take 15-20 minutes (which is not true). That started to bother me as I felt I was lying to people. Why couldn't we be honest with them? This is where I would like for you AIL "True Believers" on here to justify this practice. And don't give me the "if you give them a way out, they will" crap. People either want the product or not, it's that simple. Sure, you can force them and take advantage of their weakness to say "no", but that's not writing good business, another cornerstone that is preached constantly.
5.) There's no real tracking involved with the "leads" unless they are sold, or flat out tell you to shove it. Case in point, I had many calls where I was told that another AIL agent had already spoken to them within a day of me calling. Another, less common problem, was contacting a "lead" only to find out the card they filled out had been sent in a year, or two, or three ago, and no one had bothered to contact them in a timely manner.
Consistently I was home by 11:30 or midnight on these days, a sore spot between me and my wife.

In the field is just as it sounds, you go to appointments and make the sale. You're assigned a territory to work and that's where you schedule your appointments. At one point my territory was an hour one way drive from my house. Chris liked having two hour blocks for appointments, an hour and a half to seal the deal with 30 minutes travel time to the next destination. So 2 hours of commute with 5 appointments = 12 hour days. Remember kids, it's all about numbers. The idea was 5 appointments a day, with 2 sales a day. I didn't mind the driving, or the long days. Here's what I did mind:
1.) Sometimes your appointment cancelled or was a no show, so your appointments weren't guaranteed. This gave way to a practice known as a "drop by". So you have a cancellation. You can either call through your "leads" and try to fill the gap, or you can try to do a drop by on a potential client who has avoided answering the phone. Here's a little fun fact about that: regular people don't appreciate you dropping by unannounced; Veterans like this even less. Several times I was confronted on people's front lawns and given a good cursing out. This actually leads to a loss of a potential client. Chris did not care about this. In his mind it was a chance to "turn something out of nothing".
2.) If a sale was successful, then the whole appointment was roughly 2 hours, with completion of the paperwork via lap top, physical paperwork to be filled out, and other little things. This meant your 2 hour scheduling window went to hell real quick. Now you're late to the next appointment and have to call and apologize or reschedule, something I found quite tacky. Chris would ask if I could reschedule the appointment for the same day, sometimes as late as 10 or 11pm. Who does that? Would you open your door up that late a t night?
3.) Most Veterans I saw were Vietnam or older. Of course this was the target group as the older you are, the more you pay. Unlike the union member side of AIL, we specifically sold burial insurance. The idea of the product is great, but the age is what drives the cost. These are small face value policies, averaging 4K to 10K. Most couples were paying $150 a month or more. We had a computer program that would let us run the numbers and be able to show the client potentially what their cost would be. Now we were instructed to use a set of numbers that were "middle of the road", so that if the sticker price was too much, then we could adjust the numbers and "down close" them. Another tactic incorporated to make sales. I agree it's nice to give the client options, but down closing was frowned upon and portrayed as I had failed to explain the product or importance of it (mostly it frustrated them that I sold a lower dollar amount policy).

If you had a bad week, then a road trip was organized to help you make it up. Road trips were seen as better opportunities because you and several other agents would travel to an area that hadn't been visited in months. You would work the crud out of the area for a week or more and sale lots of policies. I made several road trips and barely sold enough polices to cover my gas expenses (remember it's 100% commission and all travel expenses are on you). In fact I had to sleep on the floor of my manager's hotel room because I couldn't afford a hotel for a week.

In other occasions I was criticized for the car I drove, the lap top I owned, and my military service. I was still serving in the Reserves at the time and thus it took away time that I could have been making AIL money. When discussed with Chris that my intentions were to retire with a pension from the service, it was questioned as to it's worth. Previously I had served on active duty and then transferred to the reserves. Chris used the analogy of "I was a pro baseball player and now I just play baseball with some guys on occasion" to describe the difference between active duty and reserves, of which I found insulting. Funny, he runs a division that targets sales of insurance to help Veterans.

In the end, I worked hard for little return. I barely kept my marriage, my house, and my military career. Within two months of me leaving I received notifications that every one of my polices dropped (probably transferred to Travis, at least that's my hope). And I'm sure my departure was chalked up to "he had issues" as I had heard Chris say of other agents who quit. It's true I had issues: with the lack of ethics, feigned concern for my well being, and my failing home life. On one occasion I remember talking to Chris about an issue between my wife and I (a dumb mistake on my part). Chris's answer "to surround yourself with people who share your same desire to succeed". You mean divorce my wife because my value of her is worth way more than this job.

I was told "opportunity unlimited", and that I could make $1000 a day. I made about $8, 500 while I was employed there for roughly 5 months.