Thinking about selling insurance with American Senior Benefits (ASB)?

Curious to see if American Senior Benefits is the best place to have a long-term insurance sales career?

Whether you’re a licensed agent or thinking about getting your insurance license, this review explains how American Senior Benefits works from the perspective of a licensed insurance agent, breaking down how the company operates, what products you sell, and my opinion on the company.

Let’s get started!

NOTE: Make sure you take a look at my insurance sales job review article for a more detailed look at other insurance sales career opportunities.

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• • About

• • Products

• • Prospecting

• • My Thoughts

About American Senior Benefits

American Senior Benefits is a company focused on marketing those near or at retirement age to get the income and the benefits they need.

Its agents are provided with a large network of tools to serve their clients in a competitive marketplace.

Product Line-Up

Here’s a list of insurance products ASB agents have access to when they meet their senior clients.

Medicare supplement

Medicare supplements through American Senior Benefits are designed to bolster customers’ Medicare plans with other solutions, including Part D plans.

American Senior Benefits works with several partner companies to give their agents a range of solutions to match their client’s financial and physical needs.

Life insurance

Term life, whole life, universal life, and final expense life plans can be bought through American Senior Benefits using trusted third-party providers.

Your job as an American Senior Benefits agent is to help seniors distinguish between the plans and find the carrier that best suits their needs.

The main difference between term and whole life is that term life plans last for a predetermined period, often in increments of ten years.

Universal life plans have extended coverage that includes death benefits.

Depending on your clients’ needs, they will need you to explain the benefits of each type of coverage.

Long-term and short-term Home Health Care

Long-term care may be an impending or current necessity for a lot of your clients at American Senior Benefits.

Plans include helping people with hospice and facility stays, treatment options, live-in nurses, and any other help the client needs for their immediate or long-term care.

American Senior Benefits also offers some hybrid plans that combine life insurance and long-term care for a comprehensive benefits and coverage package with one premium.

Annuities

Annuities are how your senior clients can supplement their retirement income to pay for the things they need.

They protect and bolster savings with both variable and fixed index annuity plans available.

The difference is whether the annuity amount is tied to a stock index, meaning it will shift in value with the value of a stock, or if its value is tied to a fixed investment plan.

Retirement plan

As an American Senior Benefits agent, you will help many clients prepare for their retirement and secure the retirement they have already planned.

Since you will be dealing with clients that are making plans that have to hold up for decades, you will need access to American Senior Benefits’ network of third-party insurance providers to get them the plan that matches their needs and budget.

Specialized health care

For senior citizens, health care for vision, dental, and critical care are more significant than they are for average insurance clients.

Due to the possibility of hospitalization, cancer, stroke, heart attack, and general disability, a specialized health care plan can help your clients pay for their intimidating medical costs.

How you get prospects

The company provides you with insurance leads that are senior clients, but you pay for them.

Many employees recommend searching the leads yourself. American Senior Benefits do offer training opportunities, however, including 1-on-1 coaching and annual conventions.

Leads include aged final expense leads, direct mail final expense leads, and other insurance leads.

Is American Senior Benefits a scam?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfQiJ8Db6xo&t=218s

American Senior Benefits is a legitimate company.

They emphasize recruitment over training salesmen, but those with experience should have no problem reaching premium percentages.

How To Quit American Senior Benefits

There are many reasons you may want to quit American Senior Benefits, 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 American Senior Benefits 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 American Senior Benefits. 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 American Senior Benefits 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 American Senior Benefits.

Companies Like American Senior Benefits

Let’s take a look at some insurance agencies and companies similar to American Senior Benefits 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

Here are some points of consideration you need to make prior to joining American Senior Benefits

Commission

Selling insurance products through ASB or any agency is a straight 100% commission opportunity.

Basically, you eat what you kill =).

And when you make your sale, it’s imperative you maximize your earnings to the highest allowable level.

Why is this important? Because many insurance sales organizations are not fully transparent on what top insurance sales commissions are for agents.

While it’s likely an agent can earn a great income from commissions at American Senior Benefits, it’s also likely you can find higher commission opportunities with the same companies ASB offers elsewhere.

And while I don’t know how dramatic the difference is between ASB and other organizations, there are agencies like mine that offer commission levels 30% to 70% higher.

Sounds crazy, but it’s true.

Either way, if you do interview with American Senior Benefits, make sure to ask how commissions work.

How do you get a raise in commissions? If commission levels are lower than other organizations, ask why that’s the case.

If you aren’t getting solid answers and feel something is off, then trust your gut.

Recruiting Over Producing

Be aware that the vast majority of insurance sales opportunities are focused more on you recruiting than you producing.

Unfortunately, the multi-level marketing “pyramid scheme” mentality reigns supreme in the insurance sales world.

And with that mentality brings a host of issues, such as an inordinate preoccupation with mass recruitment over sales skill development.

However, you’ll find with mass recruitment that focus varies between agencies. Some focus hot and heavy on it while others don’t make it nearly as big a deal.

When you interview with ASB, make sure to ask how much the agency focuses on recruitment versus sales skill development.

Personally, I think agents should focus on becoming good at selling insurance before recruiting and training new agents. Really, what in the world can an inexperienced agent teach another inexperienced agent?

Sounds like a giant waste of time and energy to me =).

Lastly, the acid test to see if the American Senior Benefits agency you’re considering joining is too focused on recruiting is how much they talk about Rolexes, fast cars, and other blatant materialistic pursuits.

If you see that in their rhetoric, then you have your answer!

Releases And Vesting

With any organization and not just American Senior Benefits, most likely you’ll have to sign some sort of contract as an agent.

While this is normal and customary, you need to ask the agency you’re considering joining about releases and vesting.

Releases

When you join an agency, usually you get appointed as an agent to several insurance companies that offer coverage to your clients.

However, if your agency fails to deliver on their promises, and you’d prefer to sell with the same insurance companies elsewhere, you’re stuck using those companies through your first agency if you cannot get a release.

A release is a legal document that allows you to move your carrier contracts from one agency to another. Without it, your carrier contracts are stuck as you cannot have multiple carrier contracts.

Ask your American Senior Benefits agency about their policy on releases. Having a policy to release in writing is best.

Vesting

Vesting is another word for ownership of your clients.

Many organizations I’ve reviewed do not allow you to own your book of business until a number of years have passed.

And if you leave the agency prior to the vesting provision ending, then you lose all future commissions as they are contractually transferred to the agency you’re quitting!

To me, this is crazy.

Insurance sales is about developing renewal and passive income, especially if I’m responsible for buying or generating my own leads.

In my mind, these are MY clients, not the agency’s clients. I did all the work to acquire them, and I believe I should be paid the appropriate commissions, whether or not I work with any agency.

So make sure to ask about vesting provisions with your American Senior Benefits agency you’re considering.

Ask if you’re 100% vested from the first day. And if not, how long must you wait before you own your book of business?

Personally, I would only work with organizations that allow me to own my business outright from the first day, 100%.

Summary

I hope you enjoyed my article on American Senior Benefits.

My goal was to provide clarity and transparency on how the company works, and what circumstances you need to be aware of.

I recruit agents nationally into selling products like final expense, Medicare Advantage, and annuities. You can go here to learn more about how my agency works.

Check out my Agency Success Stories as well as my best-selling insurance sales books.

And feel free to leave a comment below. Or message me here.