1.  A Hot Job for Hard Times: The Life- Insurance Agent Team 9 Nicholas Saunders, Michelle Nguyen, Garrick Robertson

2. Life Insurance Agents  Thousands are being added  Big companies planning to sign up more  Similar types of agents are switching (real-estate agents, mortgage brokers, bankers, lawyers)

3. Getting Started as an Agent  First years very difficult  Low Pay, almost all of it from commisions  Usually pay cut from former job  Lots of education  Many people after hired quit due to strain of job  All in All, it SUCKS!

4. WHY???  First, some background information

5. Background Information  1950’s- Life insurance agents common  Door to door selling  1980’s- families using proliferation of mutual funds and lower premiums  Less commission for agents

6. Continued Background  1990’s- whole life still hard to sell  Gets even harder to sell due to a scandal hitting the industry

7. Scandal  Term life- protects set time interval  Whole life- protects until death  Insurers pay interest on whole life, buyers can get back $$$  Expensive upgrades cheat buyers  Upgrades don’t cover cost of upgrades

8. Also  Lawsuits followed costing millions  Companies start requiring extra licensing from agents.  Forced agents to leave with policy

9. In Short  Scandal caused families to avoid whole life insurance  Life insurance agents get less commission  Companies employ less agents

10. Recovery of Whole Life  Didn’t have to worry about the Internet revolution that got rid of many agents for term life due to complexity  12% growth in whole life in 2009  Term life’s pitch “ Buy term and invest the difference.” became “lose the difference” when the stock market crashed helping whole life as well

11. What does that say about the Present?  Economic slump  Term life insurance less secure  Whole life requires more agents to form policies  More agents hired