Back in 2010 -2015 many agents signed up as EA owners. There were some offices with three or four LSP agents and a customer service agent and a receptionist. At the time if you picked an area where there werent alot of offices you could open one. At the time CIC would write policies and the policies would then be assigned to the agent in the area. If the customer needed service, they could call the agent or CIC. Then owners realized they could get by with less LSP agents and CIC would write and then service the policies. Some offices had 50% CIC policies in the books. Later, after some EA owners started finding employees that could sales and service they went down to three employyes or two. The next favorite question "What is the minimum number of employees required?" by Allstate for EA owners. Then you had offices with at one time two required employees then one. Some agents collected three figure income per year without having two employees. Why would a company pay you to get assigned millions of dollars of customers you never met and never serviced? Years later the panick hit when those agents realized they actually had to work. 2018-2019-2020 (like pick up the phone and do quotes.) Allstate was no longer going to assign you all your policies and you needed to get new business yourself. Now all the new business needs to be generated by the EA offices. There were many EA agents and still are that are trying to make it work and write the business with four LSP agents. Now Allstate is telling them you had your chance. You made hundreds of thousands or millions and now they are not giving it away for nothing. Meanwhile the consumer is faced with increasing rates and commercials telling them 45% of the money goes into the agents pocket. The internet agents (Independent licensed in 50 states with quote offers on FACEBOOK/TIKTOK) sell polcies and making bank off selling consumer information. This is why SF you don't own the book. You treat it as an aowner and build it when you get a turn.
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Wait until the 2026-2028 agency compensation models and sales requirements are released and put into force....
Agencies will be dropping at a record rate with most being terminations and absorptions of books of business into corporate with zero for the agencies.
EA's are company liabilities.
If they could make them disappear tomorrow and still achieve growth it would be done in a second. But very few companies have figured out how to do this successfully, especially the old monoliths like AS. Many have bought smaller Progressive-like companies to try to integrate that model to varying success.
There is still a good chunk of Americans that want an advisor to help navigate the subtleties of insurance so this tug-of-war will continue until companies can replicate the relationship aspect that agents provide.
@2rk As a 36 year agent who was lucky enough to sell and retire...knowing what I know about Allstate's direction and blatant disregard for an agency force - I find it hard to believe that any existing agents are willing to buy additional agencies. Way too big of a risk with decreasing commissions, unobtainable bonus levels and obvious corporate desire to be a direct provider.
I have been involved in agency sales for a long time. I am shocked some still invest. I hope it works for them. This is a very interesting time and glad to see agency investors are doing well.
EA's are sociopathic human garbage that highly overvalue themselves.
@k8 the truth hurts? You own an office and have to work or actually speak with customers instead of hiding behind your dusty cube wall. Haha. Have fun being customer facing to make your money. Allstate isn’t going to hand you every CCC policy in your area. Oh nooo you might have to work for your money or just retire like all the other boomers that can’t or don’t actually want to do the job.
@ry I am an LSP in a crusty office and over 50% of my clients are gen z that want real advice and want to learn about coverage, they don’t want an automated system. They want to know about collision and comprehensive and they want to know about uninsured motorists bodily injury. I don’t know what gen z you are basing this off of but because of the internet they are prepared early on how to try to protect themselves.
Agents are still writing over 70% of all the business in ASC. Concerns are overblown
@ve lol, just LOL, GEN Z gets anxiety making a phone call, you think they want to sit in some crusty boomer agent office and get greased into buying some overpriced policy to protect assets they don’t have?? They will just buy a bare bones policy online from the f-ing GENERAL in between TikTok videos, but 95% of the time they are too useless to do that and their parents just keep them on their insurance until they are 40. Agents gon be go the way of the dodo!!
@qr you don't know what you are talking about...Young consumers want things easy and accessible but they do value expertise. Local agents also are able to connect with niche markets, local demographics. these are things a call center can never do. I would also point out that agents employ staff. The largest carrier in the US is State Farm and they still have local agencies. Allstate wants agencies, but they want larger agencies that are spending on marketing. They do think they can capture market share with their direct call centers but the agencies are driving the new business and are also better at retention.
@rq Nobody born after 1970 wants to sit in a agent office. Get with the times gramps!!
Yes EAs are an expense. But they’re also the main competitive advantage that Allstate has. Get rid of the EAs and you’re just a faceless organization. Can you still win? Sure. But it’s a harder sell/easier no when you’re not sitting in someone’s office.
I think you're trying to say that agents are an unnecessary expense and the proof of that is their reliance on the call center to sell and service policies. You're not wrong, agents are an expense. The reality is simply that consumers don't want to pay for that expense. Boomers are dying and the younger gens don't want an agent if they cost more. With the new product, now an agent costs 10% more, so customers can choose to pay for that or not, and slowly this will reduce the number of agents. It is that simple.
Ummm....whut?
yep - a rather incoherent post...
Got to get myself some of that 3 figure income and start livin like a KING!
this post ^^^^ is complete nonsense.