Pros
Training- probably one of the only pros of this company, considering they have to train their agents so well to deal with all the trouble of the "leads" they're given. Genuinely good people- who have unfortunately just fallen for the lies. I met many, many amazing people in this company, it is just sad to see how brainwashed they can be. I know because I was too. Good introduction to life insurance & understanding the hustle it takes when you're new to the industry. Amazing eye opener to the truly amazing opportunities in life insurance when you're at the right place :)
Cons
Where do I even start? Per the title, yes, they will force agents to leave positive reviews on Glassdoor, indeed, google, yelp, BBB, etc. to try & make this company look better. They literally have review contests for agents to incentivize them to do so. Why would a good company need to do that? Why do agents have to be tricked into leaving a positive review for the company they currently work for? Anyways, for the real reason you're here... RECRUIT, RECRUIT, RECRUIT!!!!!! Recruit or die culture, this is the same thing across every agency within AIL. They will throw the word "growth" around basically everyday, & they'll tell you "it's a growth opportunity" to be able to recruit 24/7, which is laughable. If you are not going to, or don't want to recruit at an extremely, extremely high level, there is honestly zero reason to even consider AIL & you can stop reading right here. At AIL, you will feel like you work for a recruiting company, that is disguised as an insurance company for legality reasons. There's a reason why for this, you make WAY more money from agents selling under you then you do off personal sales. Very low commission on personal sales to be able to cover the upline spread, it's weird to me that the guy at the top is making MORE commission than the agent who actually sold the policy. Isn't there a name for this kind of business model? LOW COMPENSATION - they start agent commission at 50%, with it going up to 60% after you submit $10,000 in business, or after first 90 days, whichever comes first. Once you hit 60% commission, they will advance you 65% of that 60% upfront, so when it breaks down, you are literally making 39% upfront commission on your personal sales. The other 35% is "backend" pay, that is said to pay out after month 13 of the policy being on the books. Well, average 13 month retention for AIL policies is very low...if that gives you any insight on why they wait until month 13+ to pay the rest of what they owe you. AIL has some of the lowest compensation in the entire insurance industry, don't worry though because they will justify it to you by saying "but you get free leads", followed by fear mongering of how expensive leads are & talking badly about other insurance companies, etc. Again, very shady & deceitful. You shouldn't need to defend & explain to agents why they are receiving such lower compensation than other people they know in the insurance industry. "LEADS" - advertised as free (which they are), but they are NOT life insurance leads. They are 100% bait & switch leads. The "leads" are people who request for child safe ID kits online to fingerprint their children etc, only to be contacted by an AIL rep who is going to squeeze a 45 minute life insurance pitch in after talking about your child safety kits for 3-4 minutes. So shady, so wrong, so deceitful. The pitch comes after the agent has tried to force the "lead" to give them all their family & friends info so they can solicit insurance to them as well. But it's disguised as "no-cost benefits package" to deceive the people into giving family & friends info out ... But wait, there's more! You'll be told at the interview how you only will get Union leads, & you'll see police officers, fire fighters, etc. but then in reality, you get a "lead pack" full of child safe ID kit requests from 2017-2019, that have also been worked by multiple agents. These poor people trying to get child safe ID kits to protect their kids, have essentially been put on a mass AIL telemarketer list for the next 3-5 years. Ask any agent in AIL when is the last time they sat with a police office, fire fighter, or veteran as a lead. They haven't. Free leads are the most expensive leads to exist for an agent. The best lead in the entire company is policyholders. As an AIL policyholder, you will be contacted by a different AIL agent EVERY SINGLE YEAR for the lifetime of you having the policy so that an agent can try to upsell them every single year. I'm still not aware of any other insurance company that generates their own policyholders as "leads" for random agents to try to upsell. Policyholder leads were my favorite to run as well, but now I just feel beyond guilty I tricked these people into buying such an overpriced product for the 3rd or 4th time in a row... I now understand why so many policyholders I met with were so angry & upset with he company or with the previous agent(s). MANDATORY MEETINGS- oh you thought because you're 1099 that you were actually independent? Try again. Mandatory zoom meetings, mandatory to be on zoom all day during the field, & then wait until you're in "management" & you have multiple mandatory meetings on top of this every single week. They might say they're "highly advised" or "strongly recommended" now, after their class action lawsuit a few years ago for this exact reason, but if you don't show up to the "strongly recommended" meeting, prepare to be scolded, potentially threatened, & strong likelihood of being punished. They'll threaten to take your leads away or recode your agents to someone else, but don't worry...you're still a "business owner" & an "entrepreneur" LOL "CULTURE"- this is their favorite word to use & talk about having a great culture. But it's more of a CULT-ure, they will do team outings & buy bottle service at the club to make all the agents think they're rich, this is all part of their brainwashing to try to trick agents into staying. They'll follow this up by telling you that you need to buy some designer belts or designer shoes, so people can see you make money, then go lease a brand new Benz or Audi or Porsche so you can post it on social media to show people you make money, then go lease a high rise apartment in a big city so you can really show people you make money. They don't care if you are rich, they only want you to LOOK rich so that you can recruit. Most of the company is full of $50,000 millionaires. CULT-ure. POOR PRODUCTS FOR CLIENTS- if all of that above wasn't enough, you are also going to be selling one of the most expensive products, while also being one of least competitive product portfolios on the entire market. An overpriced product, that is targeted to be sold towards lower income families- that doesn't feel like it has a lot of integrity or morals behind it. Combine this with some of the slowest & worst customer service I've experienced, it makes sense why most policy holders cancel their coverage within the first year. All other life insurance agents love seeing AIL clients because it's one of the easiest replacements they every come across. If any AIL client ever sits with another insurance agent, it's pretty much a guarantee that policy will be replaced. Ask anyone else in life insurance how they feel about coming across clients with AIL :) LOSING MONEY - no, not chargebacks. Chargebacks are apart of insurance regardless, but AIL does give you a bonus on top of your commission...but- you have to maintain multiple requirements in order to actually get your bonus. The first thing is a certain retention or persistency level, which I understand, I wouldn't expect any company to pay extra for poor business. However, they expect brand new agents to maintain minimum 84-86% persistency rate their ENTIRE first year in business... Industry average for life insurance is around 70% persistency. How does a brand new agent expect to maintain 86%??? They're set up for failure from the start. I also don't know of any other life insurance company that will take away over 1/3 of your income due to a retention or persistency rate below 86%. Being off bonus goes for personal production & management team production. It is incredibly easy to be off bonus because their requirements are ridiculous (by the way, about 85% of your income as a manager comes from bonus), & it's also very easy to be off bonus as an agent, due to selling a poorly rated product. As an agent, your bonus will make up roughly 35% of your income, & if you're off bonus, it is always for a minimum of 1 entire month. NO MATTER WHAT. It's crazy to think about potentially making 2/3 of what you'd normally make for an entire month because of having an 83-85% persistency rate as a brand new agent. Very sad. WORK LIFE BALANCE? There won't be any of that. Be prepared to work 6-7 days a week, every single week, 10-12 hour days if you want to make more than $1,000 in a week selling AIL products. I could go on & on, but the end of the day, the common denominator in all of this is dishonesty & deception. This company is full of lies, lies, & more lies. Oh, I almost forgot the best part- if you do choose to make the mistake of working for AIL, you better not ever leave them!! If you do leave, they will do everything & anything they can (regardless of legality or ethics) to make it as difficult as possible for you to EVER work in insurance again. They'll falsify chargebacks, steal your business from existing clients to create more chargebacks, contact your clients to speak poorly of you upon leaving, & then try to roll any of your agents chargebacks up to you so they can claim a "debt" balance that you owe them, they'll send you to Vector One & this will prevent you from ever getting appointed with another insurance company until this "debt" is cleared. So basically, the message is- if you leave AIL, you can NEVER work for another insurance company again. AIL or nothing. *** Side note, no, I did not get sent to Vector One, so I'm personally not bitter about anything related to Vector One. However, I know many, many agents who have not been so fortunate. So please, if you made it this far, RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN. This is one of the shadiest companies I've ever come across & I am so grateful I educated myself on how the life insurance industry actually should be. God bless.
