Adventures In Insurance – Part 2

If you did not read my post about working with an insurance company then stop reading this, find that blog posting I made called “Adventures In Insurance” and read it before continuing.

Well, my adventures with working as an Insurance Agent, or “Insurance Producer” as they are called in this state, continues to haunt me, even though I left the company 6 months ago. I shall explain.

As you noticed from reading my first blog on this, I did not make much money. In fact, now that my taxes are done, and I have calculated up all the commissions received and applied all the expenses I documented, I realized I made about $1,200 for 4 months work in gross commissions. That is before taxes.

Since I was a contracted agent to the insurance company, and not an employee, they did not take any taxes out but I get to claim my expenses. So, I claimed my expenses for these 4 months. Between mileage to and from appointments, cost of my insurance license, training materials, and other such deductible expenses, I was left with a grand total of about $120 of gross profit.

Not counting the first month because I was in training and not calling prospects, I made about $40 per month. Let me see, that is $10 per week, with an average of 40 hours in a week; I made about $.25 per hour. That is one quarter, 25 cents, 25 pennies. You can’t buy a cup of coffee with that pile of money. Yup, I was rolling in the big money. But wait! It gets better.

Recently, I was notified that due to policy cancellations, I owe the insurance company about $180! Yup, because the insurance company paid annual commissions on all polices issued in advance, I had to refund any unearned commissions. So, my $120 of gross profit dropped to a loss of $60.

Calculating that back I lost $20 per month, which is $5 per week or a loss of $1 per day.

Glad I didn’t stay for another 6 months. I would really be broke.