Sales

Career as an Insurance Agent

  • Updated On: 16-Feb-2023
Career as an Insurance Agent

Overview

An Insurance agent is a professional who sells life, health, property, or vehicle insurance policies. The type of insurance like life, health, accident, property, or vehicle depends on the insurance company he/she is working with. 

Job and responsibilities of an Insurance Agent:
  • Attend company meetings and programs to learn about new products and services.
  • Contact to the potential customer and setup a meeting
  • Meet the customer on schedule date
  • Advise a policy: It's all depends on the customer needs and savings. First, he/she should discuss and know about the clients saving, and existing insurance policies, if any. Ask client about specific requirements, if any, and based on all these advise the best plan.
  • Help customer in filling up all forms properly and check all documents needed
  • Submit all the document to the office
  • Follow up with the office until all process completed
  • Let customer know about the current progress
  • Make sure the customer will get all the policy documents after process completion
  • Follow up with the customer for renewal of policy or premium payment
  • Provide all information to customer whatever and whenever he/she asked
  • Help customer in the claim process if any
  • Help customer in all process after the period completion of policy

Skills for an Insurance Agent:
  • Good Listener: Should be good listener to understand what the customer is saying and ask questions if needed. It will help in understanding the customer's requirements.
  • Communication skills:  Good communication skills help in conveying information effectively and understand others.
  • Service Oriented: The job of an insurance agent is to help others, so he/she should be services oriented to get success.
  • Presentation skills: When selling insurance, your ability to speak and present go hand in hand. The content and your verbal presentation are the two main points of any presentation. You want to be clear and direct when you speak. Look at your prospect rather than away from him. 
  • Time Management: It will help you in saving your time and your customer time as well.
  • Analytic skills: This will help during customer claim evaluation or policy premium calculation. Also help in determining the best plan for customers as per their financial position.
  • Monitoring: Monitoring the self performance and the other working with you.
  • Management of personnel Resources: Motivating, developing, and directing people working with you and your team.
  • Socially active: Should be socially active. It will help in meeting more people and create a network.
  • Good Memory: This will help you in remembering details about all policies of the company. It'll give you confidence while meeting customer as you don't need to check papers for policy detail and you can talk more confidently to them


But there is no shortcut in this sector for success. You have to learn from your own experience. As it is a profession, where you asked people to invest their hard-earned money somewhere, you have to work hard to convince people.  

The Insurance agent's job is already having a bad reputation due to misleading people by some agents and selling wrong policies to earn more commission.

Eligibility

You can pursue this career based on the 12th also but it's good to have a bachelor's degree at least and if it's in Management or Marketing then it'll be a plus point for you, like BBA or MBA, etc. Most private companies prefer the management graduates people to hire.

How to be there?

To pursue a career in the insurance industry, one has to pass the entrance examination conducted by the Actuarial Society of India, Mumbai. Students who have passed 10 + 2 or equivalent exams are eligible. A License is needed to work in this field which can be achieved through a training program.

Who should choose this career?

This is a perfect career option for those, who have communication, marketing, sales skills, and the ability to convince people.

Work Hours

There are no fixed working hours in a day for an Insurance agent. In most cases, the agent decides their working hours. They fix the meeting with the customer as per their convenience. It can be the business hours or during the weekend too.

Salary

The salary in the government sector is as per the government rules and depends on the position. In the private sector, the salary scales are more lucrative. They take in management graduates to work mainly in the areas of marketing and sales with an initial salary ranging from Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000 per month.

Basically, it's a commission-based job. The agent will get a commission which will differ in each company on each policy sold. The fixed salary is also there, but it's very low and all your income depends on the commission. The agent also has a fixed target in each company to get a fixed salary. If you have the skills and good contacts then you can earn much higher than your fixed salary.

Career Scope

The insurance sector is growing in India and this growth will continue in the coming years also. There are lots of public and private companies are working in the Insurance sector and new companies are entering this sector. If you are thinking about a career in the Insurance sector and have the desired skills, then no need to give it a second thought. LIC, Aviva, HDFC Ergo, Birla Sun Life, SBI Life, ICICI, TATA AIG, and Star health are a few names of famous Insurance companies in India.

Pros and Cons

Pros

1. Opportunity to meet and make contact with new peoples

2. No degree required

3. Can earn high income

Cons

1. Take years to make reputation and customer

2. No stability of the job

3. Target based job

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