An Insurance Agent’s Review Of Senior Life Services (SLS)
By David Duford - January 03, 2023 - 5 Mins Read
Most likely you’re reading this article because you want to learn more about starting a career selling final expense life insurance with Senior Life Services out of Vero Beach, Florida.
Is working for Senior Life Services as an insurance agent a good idea? You’ve found the right article to find out.
Let’s jump right in!
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About Senior Life Services (SLS)
Senior Life Services (SLS), founded by Rory F. Dougherty, is a subsidiary of Florida Insurance Services, Inc. established in 1978. Over the years, Florida Insurance grew to become a major provider of life insurance and health and annuity products along the east coast of Florida.
The Senior Life division of Florida Insurance Services, specializing in final expense life insurance, was established in 1996.
A year later, the division was renamed Senior Life Services and it quickly became one of the largest national providers of final expense insurance. Senior Life Services is headquartered in Vero Beach, Florida and operates in 42 states.
The mission of Senior Life Services is to help provide the necessary funds to help families cope with the death of a loved one.
They offer two types of final expense insurance: guaranteed issue and simplified issue life insurance.
With over 15 carriers, Senior Life Services offers a broad range of products to their customers at the lowest possible cost.
How selling with Senior Life Services works
Senior Life Services aims to provide insurance agents with the best possible tools and resources including final expense leads, an excellent sales environment, ongoing training, support, and compensation.
Agent training, including lead generation, selling, marketing, and learning how to tailor insurance products to meet the customers’ needs is an essential part of working for Senior Life Service.
Around the beginning of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Senior Life Services implemented a telesales based strategy, allowing agents to sell over the phone, remotely from home.
However, you also have the option of selling face-to-face as well.
Senior Life Services leads
Senior Life Services provides insurance agents with free leads like direct mail leads if face to face, or digital leads, etc., if selling over the phone.
All of them have signatures of the people they were mailed out to, meaning that agents are contacting only prospects who are genuinely interested in their products.
Senior Life Services shows its agents how to work with every type of lead and what are the best ways to maximize those leads.
As part of the training, agents learn what types of leads are available and the most effective ways to communicate in order to get the desired results.
However, some agents have expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that SLS targets low-income customers to whom it can be challenging to sell insurance.
Senior Life Services Commissions
Working for Senior Life Services is 100% commission based. Agents can increase their commission depending on their personal production.
In addition, the company organizes contests, promotions, and offers numerous incentives.
Is Senior Life Services a scam, MLM, or pyramid scheme?
Senior Life Service is not a scam. It is a legitimate company that holds an excellent A+ rating with BBB.
SLS is not a multi-level marketing (MLM) business opportunity or pyramid scheme. The company doesn’t have multiple layers of agents, mentors, and trainers and is not suitable for agents who are primarily looking to recruit.
How To Quit Senior Life Services (SLS)
There are many reasons you may want to quit Senior Life Services, for example, you ran out of money to invest in leads, you ran out of prospects to sell to, or you simply found that the business of selling insurance wasn’t a good fit for you.
The good news is, quitting Senior Life Services is easy.
Here’s how to do it.
First, start by doing your due diligence and find another insurance agency to work for. We recommend you review our Free Agent Resource Guide here for tips on finding a quality insurance agency to join.
Once you find a new agency or carrier to join, you can go ahead and switch your affiliations.
You should keep in mind that as an insurance agent, you are licensed by the state and not by the company. No insurance agency can prevent you from stopping your affiliation with it and doing business with another organization.
You may need to cancel the affiliation with Senior Life Services. The termination usually needs to be filed within a 30 day window, however canceling affiliation is not always mandatory.
To become properly appointed with the new insurance carrier or agency, you simply complete contracting with the new insurance carrier.
Typically, the window for companies to process affiliations is very short, with most companies approving insurance agent carrier appointments within 1 to 2 weeks on average.
Bottom line, quitting Senior Life Services is no big deal. Simply find another organization that’s better suited to your insurance sales career goals, submit contracting through the new organization, and within the next few weeks, you’re good to go and can stop doing business with Senior Life Services.
Companies Like Senior Life Services (SLS)
Let’s take a look at some insurance agencies and companies similar to Senior Life Services in case you’re interested in doing a comparison.
Symmetry
Symmetry Financial Group is an insurance marketing organization based out of Swannanoa, North Carolina.
SFG specializes in several life insurance markets, primarily the mortgage protection insurance market. The company also offers final expense insurance, a type of whole life insurance designed to cover medical bills and funeral expenses after the policyholder’s passing.
Bankers Life
Bankers Life was established in 1879 in Chicago, Illinois. The company is a subsidiary of CNO Financial Group.
Bankers Life offers life insurance, long-term care, annuities, Medicare (Supplements, Advantage Plans, Part D prescription drug coverage), critical illness insurance, as well as vision and dental plans. It targets the senior market, typically people age 60 and older who are near retirement.
People Helping People (PHP)
People Helping People was established in 2009 in Northridge, California. The company serves the middle markets for insurance-based financial planning. It focuses on term insurance, index universal life insurance, and fixed indexed annuities.
American Income Life (AIL)
American Income Life, a wholly owned subsidiary of Globe Life Insurance, is a major provider of supplemental life insurance. The company was founded in 1951 and is headquartered in Waco, Texas.
American Income Life’s core markets are labor unions, credit unions, and associations for insurance solicitation. Its insurance products include life insurance and supplemental health.
New York Life
New York Life, established in 1845, is the largest mutual life insurance company in the country. It offers premium life insurance, long-term care insurance, retirement income insurance, and investment plans, including annuities, mutual funds, and ETF saving plans.
USHEALTH Advisors
USHEALTH Advisors is a wholly-owned national sales and distribution subsidiary of USHEALTH Group, one of the largest employers of health insurance agents in the United States.
USHEALTH offers individual health coverage plans and a number of related supplementary products. It specializes in marketing innovative and affordable health coverage plans. The company is focused on providing healthcare solutions to individuals and families, as well as self-employed and small business owners.
Equis
Equis is a marketing organization for independent insurance agents and agency builders.
Its main product is mortgage protection life insurance, designed to reduce or eliminate the threat of foreclosure or eviction if the insured passes unexpectedly. The company also offers final expense, living benefits, and indexed universal life insurance products.
Freedom Equity Group
Freedom Equity Group, based in Arroyo Grande, California, is an independent marketing organization (IMO) that contracts with insurance companies to promote and distribute a range of life insurance products.
Freedom Equity Group focuses on selling life insurance and annuities. Its main product is indexed universal life insurance, a form of permanent coverage that provides a cash value in addition to life insurance.
My Thoughts
I’ve been an independent final expense agent since 2011, and now that you understand a bit more about how Senior Life Services works, I’d like to share my thoughts with you.
How much do free leads cost?
One of the advantages of working with Senior Life Services is that, unlike independent agents, you don’t have to worry about investing your own capital to generate leads.
Senior Life Service provides free leads!
However, as always, there are pros and cons to every business deal.
Potential For Less Commission
This is not unique to Senior Life Services:
Any insurance agency providing free leads will ultimately provide much lower commission levels.
So, how big of a commission difference are we talking about?
While I’m unsure about Senior Life Services’ exact commission levels, but I’ve seen other agencies with a staggering 50% to 70% difference in commission levels compared to how my agency operates.
Let’s do the math and see just how seriously this would affect your annual income!
Imagine you write $100,000 in final expense premiums for the year.
In this hypothetical example, you’re with an agency that provides a 50% commission level contract and offers free leads, meaning you’ve made $50,000!
Now let’s say you’re an independent agent at an agency like mine. The average commission level is around 100% to 120%. But let’s be conservative and base our argument on a 100% commission level.
Remember, you will have to pay approximately $2,500 a month on leads ($30,000 a year).
So, a $100,000 final expense premium multiplied by 100% commission equals $100,000 in revenue.
Now, you need to factor in your lead expenses. $100,000 minus $30,000 equals $70,000 in net income.
That’s $20,000 more in income! Compared to an agency that offers free leads at a reduced commission level, that’s $200,000 in additional income over ten years.
And, of course, this difference in income depends on YOU! The more deals you close, the more you could make as an independent agent.
If you’re naturally talented at selling final expense, you won’t benefit as well financially compared to an independent agent buying his own leads in the long run.
Vesting, Pay Direct from the Carrier, and Releases
When you talk to whoever recruits you at SLS, make sure you ask questions about the following issues.
I don’t know 100% how they operate, so it’s always a good idea to directly ask the agency you’re considering joining.
#1 – What vesting provisions apply to your contract?
Vesting refers to who owns the “book of business” that you write. This is important because who owns the “book of business” decides who gets paid if you lose your job for whatever reason.
Many agencies won’t allow you to own your book of business until several years have passed. In some cases, it’s only a year or two – worst case, you might have to wait a full decade before you acquire full vesting ownership.
However, ideally, you want to own your business entirely from day one. That’s how we operate at the Duford Insurance Group.
#2 – How does the commission program work?
Make sure that your carriers pay you directly – not the agency. The more people in between you and your money, the more complicated the process becomes.
At my agency, my agents are paid directly from each insurance company. It simplifies the payment process, and I strongly recommend you request this no matter which agency you work for.
#3 – Will the agency release your carriers if things don’t work out?
Imagine you join an agency, but things just aren’t as you thought they would be. You want to leave. However, there’s one problem – you like the insurance companies they’re partnered with.
I don’t know exactly what SLS does in this circumstance.
However, if an agency refuses to release your carriers, you’ll have to wait six months before moving those carriers to another company, even if that agency offers the same carriers.
This makes things deliberately tricky for agents who want to move on but have gotten used to a particular carrier.
Summary
I hope you enjoy this article and understand a little more about how an insurance sales career with Senior Life Services works.
I train new and experienced agents to become top producing agents in final expense, Medicare Advantage, and annuity sales.
If you’d like more information about how my organization works, click the link here.
Make sure to also check out my agent success stories as well as my best selling insurance sales books.
January 03, 2023
January 03, 2023
January 03, 2023
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