Hello. I’m an insurance agent.
The job of an insurance agent is much more than just selling insurance. It’s a great way to learn about your clients, their goals, and their needs.
However, in the long run, this isn’t enough. Insurance is not only about protecting our clients; it’s also about making sure that we feel like we are helping them achieve all of their goals. A client can be happy with us for five years and then everything changes. The client might want to get married, have a child, or start a business or other project that could change the focus of our relationship and potentially jeopardize his or her financial security. We need to make sure we are ready to help meet their needs in these cases as well.
For example, if you have been married for more than five years and you are expecting a child, but you do not know what that means for your career path after the birth of your child, we would want to talk about all the different possibilities for you professionally and personally so that you can be prepared for any potential change in your life after the birth of your child.
What I love about being an insurance agent
I’m pretty bad at describing my real job to people outside of insurance. I usually just say “I’m an insurance agent.” But if you ask me why I do it, that’s what I say: “I love working with people and solving problems for them.” The reason this makes sense is that what I do has a lot to do with how we live our lives. And this is not a niche market; there are many different ways to solve the same problem (e.g., some people are afraid of heights). So, in a way, I am in the business of helping people solve their problems. I have always loved working in the insurance industry because I love the art of problem-solving, and I love the feeling of creating something completely new that no one else has ever done before. When you are building something that has never been done before, you can drive forward with confidence and zeal and create something great.
For me, the most fun part about my job as an insurance agent isn’t trying to write up claims or sell policies; it’s helping someone else solve their problem. That is how we live our lives and how we solve problems in general (or at least, the way I think they should be solved). The simplest example: most people don’t know they are allergic to cats until they get bitten by one. And then they need medical help or avoid the place where they might get bitten again. We live our lives like that too — and sometimes this gives us trouble when we find out about something new (like cat allergies) for the first time: we need lots of information about it before we can decide if it is something relevant to us or not…
So, there is some value in knowing how things work from both ends: your company needs help to understand your market so you can offer benefits that resonate with your customers; your customers need you as an expert on their needs so you can provide good products at great prices. With all that being said, it is important to remember that this industry is incredibly competitive when it comes to the marketplace. When you are passionate about your product, your passion will help you stand out from the crowd — even more so than good marketing can help. This is why I think an insurance agent should be able to get into the game now (and why I think we’re going to see more people like this in our industry).
I love my job because:
- It’s simple — this is not a complicated business by any stretch of the imagination
- It’s rewarding — we’re making money doing what we love
- It’s exciting — if you want to make this your life’s work, there is no greater way to do it than to sell life insurance for many people who are living for the first time in their lives
- It’s unique — it is an entirely new industry that has developed over time through sheer hard work and perseverance by its members (and often some pretty good luck)
I love that we represent people who are vulnerable and need our help, who are not able to make decisions for themselves, who feel the need to call us to be helped through their financial problems.
I love that we worry about the people in our care. I worry about them too, and I care very much about them. We do this work because we want to be able to provide help to people who need it, because we want to give back as much as we can for what we receive in return.
I love that it is a job that is central to my identity and because of that I can’t imagine doing anything else in my life. I could never choose this path or any other path or even see myself changing from the way I am now without loving what I do now: being an insurance agent for life!
The challenges of being an insurance agent
This is a very difficult question, but I’ll share some of my thoughts:
I love my job, because it is a very good fit for me. I am an optimist and I hope to be able to help my clients in their lives. The work that I do requires being optimistic and taking a long-term view of things. However, the work that I do is fairly non-linear, and there are many times when things look bleak for the clients of my company. This makes it difficult if not downright impossible to take a long-term approach to assess risk; however, this is part of what makes it so much fun.
By the same token, there are moments when things look bleak for clients who choose to shop with me and are interested in purchasing insurance products from my company (or any insurer).
This brings me to one of the biggest challenges in our industry: how do you make changes which can have an effect on a client’s life one year or 10 years down the road? How can you truly make a lasting impact on someone’s life? We’ve all heard stories about people who have lost their jobs or families because they did something wrong or bought bad insurance (which I hear all too often). And while those situations don’t typically involve any personal responsibility — they just happen due to bad luck — they do affect others and sometimes change their lives forever. In today’s world there seem to be more opportunities than ever before for people to make negative changes in their lives. For example, through no fault of theirs, someone else (the other person) has lost his or her job or has had a family member lose theirs due to some sort of misfortune…and that person does not have any control over those events. It just happens. With insurance, we live in an increasingly uncertain world where things can happen at any time and even worse things might happen that are not foreseen at all by someone else (i.e., non-fatal illness). So how should we deal with these situations? How should we deal with them so as not to negatively affect our clients’ lives?
This brings me back around to optimism again: you need optimism if you want your clients’ lives to change positively. You need optimism because without it you cannot “accept” something will change; without it, you cannot say certain things will be different; without it, you cannot make the necessary changes yourself…
Conclusion
I love what I do.
I have worked with some of the most amazing people.
I have made some of the most incredible friends.
And I have witnessed some very, very bad things happen to other people too.
But those are all things I wouldn’t want to happen to me. (Although some bad things happened to me that should have.) It’s hard to not get too attached to clients and business associates and really take them seriously when they involve themselves in something so closely related to your personal life as an insurance agent. It can be a lesson in how one person can literally ruin your life and make you lose your job or relationships with friends or family members — even if it wasn’t intentional on their part.
But it could also be a great experience. And chances are many if not all of these experiences will continue for the rest of your career; there are no guarantees where your job is concerned, but this would seem like a pretty good shot at it for me (and many others). So why am I telling you all this? Because it gives you insight into the mind of someone who is truly passionate about their work and understands its importance in their lives: someone who will never stop believing in themselves and what they do, someone who has full confidence that they are doing a great job for their customers and for themselves, someone who sees no reason not to pursue what they love doing until success comes knocking on their door at least once every few years; we rarely get any guarantees when we pursue our passions — after all, we only live once! But one thing is certain: without passion, we would be nothing! We would be just like everyone else who doesn’t care enough about what they do to persist through times when they don’t really know where or how they will end up. Passion makes us go after things that scare us or make us feel scared; passion makes us believe in ourselves even while we don’t know exactly where our path leads; passion makes us pursue solutions that may seem impossible at first glance, but eventually work out anyway just because we can see the potential in it… That kind of work doesn’t come easy, but it certainly does pay off! And if you ever wonder whether you have enough passion for whatever profession you choose… just look back at your own career over the last few years.
I love my job because it provides me with a team of people who support me when I need them and give back to us when they are able. I love our job because we are free to make decisions based on what I believe will be in the best interest of my clients. I love my job because I can help others and give back to those in need.
