What Today's Insurance Agent Needs to Know to Survive in the Internet Economy

There are over five hundred thousand licensed insurance professionals in the U.S. The average income in our industry is less than thirty five thousand dollars per annum. In the insurance industry perhaps more so more than any other industry, the professionals earnfortunes and the amateurs make little or nothing. However in the insurance profession there is not a fine line between the professionals and the amateurs, the differential is gigantic. As a by product of our new economy, the competition for jobs is a frenzy. To compound the employment trouble, each year thousands more will graduate college and enter the job market, adding to the millions already hunting, and the thousands who had planned on retiring but cannot because their nest egg was wiped out in the stock market crash. As the economy continues to decline more individuals are going to be launching businesses of their own once they begin to realize their job prospects are nominal and continuing to decrease. Many will be lured to the insurance profession. We are already seeing a migration to our industry from the real estate, mortgage, and financial services industries, with many more to come. The competition for clients is overwhelming and will continue to get more intense as more agents look to stake their claim. In my opinion the stuggle for new clients will not be staged in the living rooms or on the kitchen tables of main street USA as in the past. It will be fought in Cyberspace. Within five to ten years the traditional brick and mortar insurance agency will be as extinct as the dodo bird. Ask any insurance company executive what agencies are the top producers and they will tell you the agencies conducting their business online, overwhelmingly, outsell and out earn their brick and mortar competitors. The days of Joe and Pat Jones securing health and life insurance policies for their family from an agent who came to their home are short lived. Like most from their generation, Joe and Pat both have jobs, they get home later than June Cleaver did. They battled traffic to and from work. They had to drop off and pick up their kids from soccer practice or dance class. The last thing they want to do is visit with an insurance salesman and be pitched something at 8:30 p.M. Or on Saturday. They want to learn what�s available to them online at home, when it's convenient (which is usually after the kids go to bed). They want to look at quotes online, do the studying themselves, THEN have a professional help them decode the data they�ve found and coach them how to break down this weighty financial service themselves. They also want to be able to apply online. They never want to see an agent! They only want to deliberate with one when they need their questions answered! This is the new world in which health and life insurance agents find themselves. But this new world will offer a tremendous opportunity financially to those that can adapt. Those that choose not to, will not only revert they may eventually lose the big part of their customers. The fact is that our industry is influenced by the CUSTOMER not the insurance companies or the agents. And the internet is where the prospective customers want to look to get their health and life insurance. For the professional agent the internet allows the greatest financial opportunity since the conception of the insurance industry. Having an online agency removes ALL geographical and time restrictions. If you learn how to market, automate and outsource, you can actually earn commissions twenty four hoursa day EVERY day! The leading online agencies are creating millions of dollars per MONTH not per year and they have NEVER seen or met with their clients. In Chapter 8 I'll explain to you how to create thousands of dollars every month NOT by competing with the big online agencies but by piggybacking off their advertising efforts.
Keep in mind, we all market the same products from the same insurance companies. The points that will differentiate you from your competitors are marketing, the information you offer to your customers, how you communicate and how unproblematic you make it for the customer to pick you as their consultant.Se to work. The agent who is the best in those areas will cut whatever slice of the online insurance pie they crave.



Rick Liuag spent over 20 years as an executive for several telecommunications and technology companies before starting his own online insurance agency in 2004. He has been a top individual producer for mulitple companies each year since 2005. In 2008 Mr. Liuag founded Integrated Resources Inc. A company designed to train and mentor insurance agents on how to market and sell more health and life insurance online. In 2009 he authored the ebook "How to Build Your Own Online Insurance Agency", an interactive training manual on what web based tools and strategies work best for insurance agents to prosper in the new internet economy. Learn more about the ebook at http://www.Theautomaticagency.Biz