Embracing Liberation: My Transformational Journey Beyond Insurance Sales
One would assume that the insurance industry provides a steady income and a level playing field for anyone. However, everyone seems to know someone, usually a close family member of a beloved, sweet uncle, who was not made for this industry.
I quit being an insurance agent and in this article to tell about the challenges that I faced during this time and the reasons behind the hasty move to quit the job.
The Initial Allure of the Insurance Industry
‘For many,’ he adds, ‘the attraction of entering the industry is based on the promise of decent financial rewards, a flexible lifestyle, and the opportunity to help clients meet their insurance and risk-control needs.’ Then reality sets in.
The Demand for Sales Prowess
High-performing insurance agents have to like selling, cold-calling and schmoozing people. The ‘quota stress’ is intense because ‘revenue contributions’ (aka sales) need to be met every month, quarter and year, and can be very stressful to employees who don’t like being ‘salesy’.
The Struggle with Commission-Based Income
Although there is much more income potential with a commission-based job than with an hourly rate, the income can also be irregular. Unreliable commissions make it difficult for agents to save for a home or afford to have children.
The Emotional Toll of Rejection
In fact, insurance agents have to face rejection almost all the time as clients refuse insurance offers for different reasons, leading to all kinds of emotions being experienced. This repetitive rejection can have a long-term impact on their emotional wellbeing, such as a dent in confidence and motivation.
Ethical Dilemmas and Client Trust
Agents also face goals, in the form of sales targets set by their agencies, which sometimes pull in the opposite direction from their need to do what’s in the client’s best interests. This peddler’s dilemma, as Susan Phillips at Georgia Tech and her colleagues call it, can lead to ‘cynicism and compassion fatigue’.
The Demand for Continuous Learning
Because the insurance business is dynamic — with policy changes, legislative regulations and market shifts — we must continually learn, evolve and adapt our techniques.
A Change in Personal Goals
Some of this comes down to shifting personal priorities: a career in insurance ceases to fit with an agent’s sense of life goals, which morphs into family, work-life balance, or a different passion.
The Quest for Authenticity
Commonly, setting aside one’s role as an insurance agent (or whatever) is a consequence of striving to adopt a life that is truer to one’s sense of who one is and what one truly cares about. It is about carving out the space to find fulfilling work.
The Journey of Self-Discovery
When agents leave the insurance industry, they often ‘find themselves’: they explore other lines of work, seek employment that matters, and embark on new adventures.
The Courage to Embrace Change
Even so, it takes courage to quit being an insurance salesman – to embrace change in life, to try to do something different with your life.
The choice to quit a career as an insurance agent is a deeply personal one, rooted in the sum of many compelling forces. Perhaps, the profession has become a source of dissonance: it lacks what one seeks in a career? Perhaps, there are hidden values to be expressed and explored? On a somewhat milder note, perhaps it is a matter of being true to oneself (Wikipedia). By personalising the quitting journey through individual narratives, we want to underscore that quitting is not a failure but a misstep, and this too is simply another part of navigating a more fulfilling way into the true calling.
