Why insurance companies are bad for a finance career

Sorry for asking this question which definitely exposed my outliner's nature. But I'm really curious why insurance isn't counted as a serious financial product, apart from equity, debt, commodities and FX? And why my ibank friends hate insurance guys. Is it because they always try to sell insurance products to their friends or relatives? But as we understand it, ibank is sales in nature as well.

What's wrong with insurance guys that make them unlikable?

Your comments/insights would be highly valued.

 

I'm not sure, but "Insurance Salesman" has historically been the punchline for many jokes, kind of like the "Irish," "Lawyers" and "Blondes."

I've worked insurance when I was young. It was a pretty easy job, the people in my office were making bank, and there was not much work involved, asking questions and putting the answers into the Point-Of-Sale (POS) software. Not the modeling or analysis involved in most finance gigs, and most of the guys in my office didn't even have a university degree. If some 16yr old in a call centre can do your job, the ROI of doing your Uni degree isn't high enough to justify the buy-in and opportunity cost. Go straight into it after high-school.

That said, it is an introduction to understanding Risk, and a foot in the door.

If you can sell life insurance, it's like selling super, it's permission to write money, because people don't switch providers often, so your commissions each year on your own private renewal policies you write just add up as you build your client list, without much servicing of your accounts. Business insurance is another easy one to sell, because everyone needs public liability and other products in order to get rent/operate on a jobsite/qualify for government tenders/some other relevant reason. Easy base premium.

But yeah, it's not a "real" financial service, because there's not much you really need to know to sell it. You still have to be financial services qualified (I think? I remember having to take tests every month or so to make sure I knew my stuff) and you still have to be careful because you're not qualified to "legally give financial advice." But you don't need a degree for it, and you'll never use WACC, NPV, ROI, KPI's, or any real analytics in it. It's soft skills like marketing and selling all the way to the bank, and sales men are traditionally viewed as lower middle class, particularly those in insurance (with maybe a jump to middle middle class if you're doing life policies and B2B).

 

Thanks for your detailed reply! I really appreciate it. You mentioned it was the foot in the door. How possible is it for an insurance salesman to make a decent career in ibank or in the finance industry in general? Is such transition common? What shall I prep in order to make that transition? I have a roommate who's started selling insurances two years ago, and she's doing the same front line today... Thanks again!

“Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.”--William James
 

Honestly, I'm not the best person to ask because I'm doing Consulting and Audit, not ibank.

It's not a common transaction, but it's not impossible.

Honestly, best bet is to be doing insurance in a bank, before you get your undergrad, as i was, get your training in financial services products, then go to do your uni degree in finance/econ/commerce at a target, get a good GPA while joining a few clubs and societies so you have a "well rounded personality" while you're there intern at a few Ibanks, and then hopefully get an offer.

Basicly, the good thing was for applying for grad jobs, I had a bank on my resume, so I got interviews with banks who usually wouldn't look at me with my GPA. Mind you, I also had management positions that contributed to that too. Plus it gives you solid work experience, and it's better than McDs.

But I can't tell you more specifically because I don't know your or your housemate's situation.

 

Ah I see... I already got my masters in journalism, have no professional training in the finance sector, and want to find the foot on the door...I liked your ROI analysis in particular. Well, maybe I shall pass working as a financial advisor as my first foray into the finance sector..thanks again for your input.:)

“Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.”--William James
 
wsoutliner:
Ah I see... I already got my masters in journalism, have no professional training in the finance sector, and want to find the foot on the door...I liked your ROI analysis in particular. Well, maybe I shall pass working as a financial advisor as my first foray into the finance sector..thanks again for your input.:)

Ah, you were actually contemplating the job? It's good that your gut reaction was to be skeptical - I nearly got sucked into that when I was a teeny bopper sophomore in college. Good move.

in it 2 win it
 
wsoutliner:
Ah I see... I already got my masters in journalism

I'm not trying to be a dick, I just have to ask. WTF was the calculus behind getting a journalism degree? Was Art History booked solid? Seriously. Assuming you got your Masters in the last 10 years (and probably the last five), could you not see the writing on the wall of an industry in its death throes? Trust me, you're gonna get that question a lot in finance interviews, because it likely indicates pretty questionable judgment on your part.

Again, I'm not trying to be a dick, but when you've got guys like me who haven't spent a day in a college classroom making a living as a journalist (and believe me, there's more of us than you probably realize), what was the thinking behind spending all that money to get a degree in it? Was it some romantic Woodward & Bernstein kinda thing?

 

Outliner, here's the actual answer:

Insurance sales is retail finance. You don't deal with institutional clients or companies, and instead use your rapport with people you know to sell your service. You may as well be selling lemonade, as the "skills" you use in insurance sales don't apply at all to any career in high finance. It's not an "introduction to risk," as that entails actual risk modeling and statistical analysis. It isn't a "foot in the door" either - as I said, anything you learn is basically non-transferrable.

It's akin to working for Amway or some other MLM firm and trying to break into Saatchi & Saatchi or some other big Madison advertising company. Your experience is nearly irrelevant.

All that is aside the constant degradation of the name "finance" that goes on in the industry. Insurance guys go around saying they "do finance," when in reality they don't. "Finance" is what the actual risk management, IBD, corporate finance, portfolio management, etc. folk do.

in it 2 win it
 

Thank you insider for justifying my decision! How about wealth management and private banking? Are they sort of financial planning as well? WIll you count these two categories as "real finance"? I'm asking because I have an interview with a wealth management training company tomorrow. And a club friend from a local wealth management company told me they are defacto financial planning company, helping poor clients get financially educated and catch up with the world's 1%. I'm bewildered. Has wm been degraded/abused as well? Is wealth management in general the foot in the door? I'm studying a part-time diploma in banking and finance. But I'm not 100% sure if it is the right path for me to break into finance.

“Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.”--William James
 
wsoutliner:
Thank you insider for justifying my decision! How about wealth management and private banking? Are they sort of financial planning as well? WIll you count these two categories as "real finance"? I'm asking because I have an interview with a wealth management training company tomorrow. And a club friend from a local wealth management company told me they are defacto financial planning company, helping poor clients get financially educated and catch up with the world's 1%. I'm bewildered. Has wm been degraded/abused as well? Is wealth management in general the foot in the door? I'm studying a part-time diploma in banking and finance. But I'm not 100% sure if it is the right path for me to break into finance.

Private wealth management may be a good inlet to banking, however you have to make sure that it's for a legit firm. Private banking is definitely not a good way in to finance (if what you mean is those people who work at TD Bank or something).

Here's what I think your issue is: you may not understand what the worlds of finance are. There's the more institutional-focused side which is where IBD, research, trading, PE, and all that good stuff resides. Then there's retail finance, which includes financial planning and all that. You should read up and find out what the industry really is before you decide to embark on a journey to make it in.

Another point is that if your goal is to work in finance, and given what seems to be an ordinary understanding of the field, you won't be able to land a good job. You need to know things inside and out to find work, and not knowing what industries are which is not a good indicator. At your age (or at least your level of education) you shouldn't have time to be messing around with shitty jobs or fishing around. It won't look good to recruiters either way.

You want to do something and excel at it. If you can stay in journalism and do something extraordinary, you should. If you're absolutely set on doing finance right now, you should begin considering a MS Finance. MBA school is the best way to break in from another industry, but you need good experience to make it into a good program.

All said, I think you just have a whole lot more research to do on your own. Start talking to people in the field from your school (friends and alumni) and go to networking events local to where you are. If you can, visit NYC for the WSO Conference. Even watch some finance movies, if you can (Margin Call, Rogue Trader, Wall Street 1, etc.).

in it 2 win it
 
FSC:
It's not an "introduction to risk," as that entails actual risk modeling and statistical analysis. It isn't a "foot in the door" either - as I said, anything you learn is basically non-transferrable.

When I worked insurance, I was dealing b2b and coldcalling companies, not selling to friends.

I didn't say it was an introduction to risk, it was an introduction to understanding risk. There's a difference.

And it's a foot in the door, in the way a job at McD's is a foot in the door to work in general. If he's got nothing on his resume, insurance is going to indicate more than a retail job at Kmart or writing on a generic blog that he's interested in finance. It gives him a reference for his resume. That's all I was trying to say, and I don't know if that was clear.

But yeah, I wouldn't recommend it. It's up there with a high-school or a uni job, not a proper internship or a actual finance job, and it's too late in the game for that for the OP.

 

Insurance firms invest their premiums, so there is indeed a finance aspect in those firms. Otherwise, as others stated, sales =/= finance. The risk/actuarial stuff is also not finance, that is more like (correct me if this is incorrect) figuring out how to price the premiums for each customer or group of customers using statistics.

 

Outlier indeed...My patent lack of attention to detail would have killed me in my resume round of interview..

“Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.”--William James
 

This entire exchange is abysmal. For those with a keen eye, you spelt 'outlier' incorrectly in both your name and your original post. Here's my advice: stay far, far away from the industry. Also, I hope for the sake of journalists everywhere that you did not finish that degree at an English speaking program.

 

Thanks for your critique. That was another crucial heads up in my finance career. :)

I know I'm far, far behind in the game. Now I'm ready to position myself rationally, set up a clear target and wait until I get the necessary credentials and the right experience to break into a decent firm.

“Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.”--William James
 

Insurance sales has to be among the most boring careers of all time as it more closely resebles a fortune 500 operations desk job rather than a stock/commodities/debt sales role as you mentioned above. A day in the life of an insurance salesman probably involves coming in at 9, making cold calls, having lunch, making more cold calls and going home at 5 which is as monotonous and unstimulating as work gets. Furthermore, the compensation in the industry is awful and the industry as a whole holds no prestige and has absolutely no exit opportunities. The single pro of working as an insurance salesman is that it is very easy to break into, you could get a job in insurance sales with an associates degree and a 2.0 GPA.

"Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman." -- George Soros
 

Thanks for your succinct comment. No wonder another friend of mine has done insurance sales all her life! The thing I really appreciate is she's never tried to sell any policy to me.

“Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.”--William James
 

Insurance is so boring because it is the only product you buy hoping to never use it (I bet some WSO monkey will come up with another product).

Insurance Asset Management is "hot" and very peculiar. Basically, there are a lot of assets that need to be invested and matched with liabilities. Also this whole new solvency II regulation is encouraging banks to come up with more interesting products to reduce capital requirements.

But yes, overall insurance is boring, the products are boring and it is a very "old" industry. Usually people in insurance are old and have at most changed jobs twice in their entire life. What would you rather discuss, the new technology developed by microsoft, the new car sold by GM or single premium fixed annuities sold by Metlife in Germany? I can't recall any insurance innovation in the last 15 years.

 

Hold on a second. This isn't a "disaster" by any means.

OP said he's in HK and looking to work in banking. Judging by his grammar and usage, it's fairly obvious that he must speak another language. Since he's in HK it's probably Chinese, and given that banking still has a fairly warm job market in SEA, the guy isn't out of luck by any stretch of the imagination.

Outlier, I suggest you network more. Talk to people who can get you closer to the industry. I also highly suggest finding a way to formally educate yourself. Again, a MS Finance may do you well and - just in this case - maybe even the CFA Level 1. The CFA is often more highly regarded overseas and in Asia especially, and will definitely teach you a lot of the material you should know for a job in finance.

To wrap it up, your two priorities should be NETWORKING and EDUCATION. Talk to people who can connect you with other people, and learn the stuff relevant to finance such that you have an understanding of the work. Keep yourself busy doing something meaningful (your job in journalism, attending networking events and conferences), do the networking & education bit, and be as productive as you can from now on - within a few years you should be able to land a good job and if not, you will have made yourself into a viable candidate for MBA school. That's the best way to get into banking anyway.

Good luck.

in it 2 win it
 

I happen to work in the insurance industry (Actuarial Consulting) so perhaps I can shed some light on the issue. First of all, most people in the insurance industry do not actually sell insurance, that component is usually relegated to third party's. Even then, as a previous poster noted, the customers of insurance rarely change their policies year to year making the sales headcount lower than what would be at a retail bank. The vast majority of the workforce is involved in managing the liabilities of provider (i.e. adjudicating claims, pricing policies, structuring plans). While what they do is finance (i.e. managing claims on future income streams) they way they go about it is just plain weird. One often sees simple rules of thumb tied to 17th century math (i kid you not, when I showed a regression to one of the underwriters they got angry and started shouting!!!). This is mostly do to the EXTREME amounts of regulation that are tied to the industry. The underwriting standards are so specific that it is legally impossible to innovate (i.e. 19th century math) the liabilities of a North American insurer. In Europe where there are few barriers between insurance and banking, one sees genuine innovation (i.e. credit cards that offer free life insurance policies). On the asset side of things, there is finance that would be familiar to a banker (i.e. interest rate swaps, ALM, ERM). However because the industry is so coddled and sleepy, the insurers have no idea what they are doing and often lose large amounts of money making stupid derivative bets (i.e. the archetypal Muppet). That being said the quality of life in the insurance industry is hard to beat as there is little stress, good salaries, and few egos beyond prima donna underwriters.

 

The sector has been abused tremendously. Most insurance companies are viewed as pyramid schemes, new agents work under a more experienced agent who "shows them the ropes" but takes a % of business, this experienced agent gives a % of his business to a manager, who gives a % of his business to a VP, etc... The agents cold call for business and relentlessly hound people for their $, because they need to survive, most insurance sales positions are salary based (don't forget about the % your higher ups take) so they have to hustle to make anything. Because so many forces are stacked against them the tactics for gaining business are questionable at best.

Anyone can become an insurance salesperson, there are no barriers to entry. There are many people making lots of money selling ins. & it takes hard work. But I don't think its the most reputable career.

That IMO is why insurance is looked down on.

 

Must be an insurance salesman logged in throwing shit because every bit of this is true.

jbone24:

The sector has been abused tremendously. Most insurance companies are viewed as pyramid schemes, new agents work under a more experienced agent who "shows them the ropes" but takes a % of business, this experienced agent gives a % of his business to a manager, who gives a % of his business to a VP, etc... The agents cold call for business and relentlessly hound people for their $, because they need to survive, most insurance sales positions are salary based (don't forget about the % your higher ups take) so they have to hustle to make anything. Because so many forces are stacked against them the tactics for gaining business are questionable at best.

Anyone can become an insurance salesperson, there are no barriers to entry. There are many people making lots of money selling ins. & it takes hard work. But I don't think its the most reputable career.

That IMO is why insurance is looked down on.

If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!
 

If I get one more call at my desk from Northwestern Mutual or AXA I will kill a squirrel.

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 

True, it's a sales job with no barriers to entry as jbone said, but I think insurance products as a whole are inherently misunderstood and carry a undeserving negative connotation. Any product sold to someone who doesn't need it compounded by the fact it was sold BY someone who doesn't quite understand it is never a good thing, and that ain't exclusive to insurance (see 2008 global meltdown).

I think one of the problems that perpetuates this shitty view of insurance based careers is the lack of regulations and compliance regarding insurance sales. I worked in PWM for the past year as an analyst. We cleared through a major independent firm...there were compliance audits, reged classes, and whole host of other crap we had to go through on a regular basis to ensure we were being good little boys and girls when it came to "investments". Guess how much oversight there was regarding the sale of insurance products (other than annuity based products)? ZERO

 

Due diligence for insurance products is done at the insurance company, not the BD, so there are lots of abuses and any moron can get the job. When it comes to more sophisticated products, like annuties, the due diligence is done at the BD and the business is very different: the underwriting is very strict, the products are very intricate, and there's an overlap with portfolio construction without getting into actual IM. A lot of people don't realize that the annuity market is on par with the size of the entire PE market. Straight insurance sales is a R.A.C.K.E.T. for sure, but the PWM / private client teams selling higher end products are legit.

That and PWM gets no love on this site because most people are focused on corporate finance than anything else.

Get busy living
 

Because you really don't even need a college degree to sell insurance (i.e. cold call every name in the phone book)

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for freedom of thought which they seldom use.
 
Anihilist:

Because you really don't even need a college degree to sell insurance (i.e. cold call every name in the phone book)

That is true for life insurance, but most commercial brokers will not hire people without college degrees unless they have lots of sales experience and/or licenses.

"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man." ― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
 

The hate thrown down on people in insurance is the same shit we get as bankers or lawyers. The outsider who doesn't understand the field will tend to generalise. The reality is there are so many different streams within insurance it's impossible to say what type of person is suited to it, or what makes one successful, or to even generalise about it at all. Selling retail insurance products to mums and dads is a completely unrelated skillset to actuarial work as an underwriter or a corporate structurer for example. Insurance can actually be quite a prestigious career, and there is big money up for grabs at the top end, comparable to IBD. I know for a fact here in Zurich SwissRe is the no.1 employer of choice and you basically need a PhD to even get offered an internship there.

 
diverse_kanga:

Insurance can actually be quite a prestigious career, and there is big money up for grabs at the top end, comparable to IBD. I know for a fact here in Zurich SwissRe is the no.1 employer of choice and you basically need a PhD to even get offered an internship there.

Not true. I interviewed with SwissRe at OCR, and I do not have a PhD. They may require PhD for actuarial positions, but not for AM.

"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man." ― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
 

The answer is, don't worry about it. People want to care about what's the hardest to get into, prestige, etc. And they'll be just as dead in 100 years anyway, just something to feel super about in the meantime.

I will say that after reading Eddie's book, the NW Mutual/AXA guys remind me of the people who worked at Chatfield Dean back in the day.

 
Onetwobit:

There is some big money in commercial brokerage.

I agree. Personal Lines is a different story.

"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man." ― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
 

Life insurance could be sold online. The reason they don't is because labor is too cheap.

Commercial insurance requires constitutive sales. This means that the agents/brokers need to tailor their solutions to the clients needs. This is much harder to automate.

"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man." ― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
 
Best Response

It's looked down upon for the same reason that anything else referenced on this forum is looked down upon...because many people are like lemmings, following each other's opinions around like little sheep, and the more they follow the more they feel justified in following. It's a charade really. I think when making decisions a good weight to assign to other people's opinions is somewhere in the vicinity of 0%. They're not necessarily right or wrong, they're just not the kind of assessments that are necessarily relevant to you. Figure out the true pros and cons and judge for yourself, don't rely on borrowed thoughts.

OP, I don't know anything about insurance so I can't really comment on the question, although I will say that I do know it's not easy to be actuary since you have to pass a whole bunch of rather difficult exams, and as @"Vagabond85" alluded to, a lot of them basically serve as (fixed income) asset managers if they do the Asset Management in-house and don't outsource it to a third party.

 

I use to sell insurance. First as a licensed solicitor under an agent, and then as an agent myself. There is definitely money to made in it. But it wasn't for me and now I am looking hard for a corporate banking position. I have noticed that they industry takes advantage of a young people coming out of college. Most of them manage to sell to a few dozen people that they know and then quickly exit. That is fine by the company since they snagged those policies for relatively cheap. And every once in a while they will snag a rock star who just knocks it out of the park.

 

Indeed. After I completed my first degree (in biochemistry), I was looking for a position in medical or IT sales. I met with a representative for Sun Life Financial (a large insurance company here in Canada), and went through the interview process. My take on the whole experience was that they were looking for someone who would stop at nothing to sell. They required the applicant to fill out a "T-100" list off the top of their heads, which is a list of the top-100 people you believe you will be able to sell insurance too. There were other very "untechnical" interviews given by managers at the branch, and they didn't really seem too interested in knowing if you could even grasp what you were selling, so long as you had confidence and swagger in your personality. The whole thing creeped me out, and I decided to look elsewhere for employment. One of the strangest aspects was this pseudo personality questionnaire that they administered electronically, with results supposedly ranging from "don't proceed" to "strong proceed". I believe it was not so much a test of "fit", but rather, a way of pumping up the applicant in preparation for getting an offer.

 

I've held two internships in the Bermuda insurance industry and I can easily say that corporate re/insurance (not as a sales rep) can be a very lucrative career path, and it is certainly not imo, something to look down upon. I think most people are just misinformed about the industry but for those that do know about it still only refer to actuarial/brokerage as being lucrative, when in reality there is a hell of a lot more..

 

Because all you see is the fact of the industry.

You see personal lines sales people, who constantly hound you down to make money off you and rarely do more than quote what you have currently and upsell (without really giving you a good reason).

However, there is plenty of money to be made if you know what to go into. Commercial insurance brokers can easily make 6 figures, goes the same with employee benefits brokers. There's the underwriting side which is analytical AND slightly sales based (same percentage as IB would consider analytical/sales) and above that is the actuarial world where after 10 years you're guaranteed 6 figures and a nice pension.

One of the biggest over sights in insurance, is within a risk management capacity. I actually currently have an offer on the table for a risk management analyst and the majority of my job is managing all the insurance based risk of the company (self insured retention, coverage gaps, contingency plans) and then on their vendor side (assuring that those vendors working for said company wouldn't be a potential liability). They're willing to pay a 21/22 year old 65K in a lower COL area. Not crazy money, but if you get the certifications (FRM, CPCU, etc.) you can easily make 6 figures within a couple years.

But this forum and most people look down on insurance because they think of Bob from Allstate calling to save them 10% on their $1000 a year insurance policy.

"It is better to have a friendship based on business, than a business based on friendship." - Rockefeller. "Live fast, die hard. Leave a good looking body." - Navy SEAL
 

Actually, here in San Diego, CA it is notable and note worthy that PWM and Financial Advisors (In general) retain the highest-earnings comparable to IBD, from my understanding growing up. People who live out in La Jolla or Carlsbad retain that the high-end FA/PWM earns a lot, which is great.

There is no need to bash -any- industry, that's fine if you hate or downplay the role. At the end of the day, as long as it pays the bills, puts a roof over your heads and provides a meal for you and your family, that should be enough. Most people frown on Financial Advisors because of MLM companies like World Financial Group and Primerica literally recruiting everyone they see and trying to sell to everyone.

I agree with Going Concern, figure out if it is something you are interested in and pursue it. Don't let others make the decision what is right and what is wrong, if the world revolved around that it would feel very communistic.

 

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