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I have been offered an associate agent opportunity at Nationwide. Any comments, negative or postive, will be appreciated. since I will be moving from an independent agent to a captive agent, what questions should I ask? What about the commission split?

Wow I am not sure I understand your question. Let see you can't go work for Nationwide Ins Co. as a agent. They do have and apprentice program but that takes several years and you have to work inside the company first, learn underwriting go school and then maybe sell. All out of your pocket for the sales side. So are going to work for and Allied Nationwide brokers and develop book. Commission split tells me your not working for Nationwide directly but a broker; in fact. So if I am wrong please correct and explain.

I have been offered an associate agent opportunity at Nationwide. Any comments, negative or postive, will be appreciated. since I will be moving from an independent agent to a captive agent, what questions should I ask? What about the commission split?

Farmers would be a lot better choice.

You gotta be kidding me Farmers Agent

You may not have much experience in this business so let me explain it to you. Farmers is hands down the best insurance company out there. Period.

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Your Farmers Agent, you must be a DM or have consumed a lot of the FIG kool aid. If you are a successful & happy FIG agent, congrats! There are not many of you out there who speak up much.

I'm a former Farmers agent myself, did about 4 years with them in the Midwest. I'll be honest and say that Farmers does have the best training program for agents new to the biz and I credit much of my success today from the things I learned at their training sessions.

Farmers, however, continues to have serious technology issues, has a fairly disgruntled agency force and has been steadily losing market share for the past 5+ years. Farmers also requires agents to sell more than just auto/home/umbrella/life by adding investments and other products. That's a lot for someone to do well when they most likely have a smaller office with just themselves or perhaps 2 people working for them.

Check out http://www.ufaa.com for more info but realize that many there are pessimists.

Kamile, no matter which way you go it will most likely be a learning experience. Try and find out as much as you can about training and then also how you can get out if it does not work out. Realize that any funds forwarded to you (stipends, advances, etc) will have to be paid back unless you meet each and every sales goal they set - usually a difficult task. I can tell you from my experience that we had over two dozen new agents join Farmers in my state in the late 1990's and only 2 are still with the company today.

Kamile, good luck!

Whenever I have Farmers as my competition, I am overjoyed! I can beat Farmers with any of the 20+ companies that I have to choose from, no question! I agree that if you think Farmers is the best Company out there, you are definitely not in So Cal. and that your Kool Aid must be quite strong!

Sorry guy, but you will need more than 20 companies to beat Farmers.

Going in as a Nationwide Associate Agent usually means you will be working as a sub-agent of an existing Nationwide captive agent. Is that the offer you have? Are you going to be the contracted agent for Nationwide or will you be contracted by an existing agent to produce business for him/her. If so, what ownership opportunities do you have down the road, if any? What products does Nationwide competitively offer in your area (home, auto, commercial, etc...). You need to figure out what your long term goals are. Becoming an Associate Agent for an existing Nationwide Agent may or may not be the career path you are looking for. You need to compare your goals versus what you are being offered as a Nationwide Associate Agent and see if you can reach your goals going in that direction.

Best of Luck

I guess that you have been "Farmerized" to the point that you don't read what is written. I wrote that I have 20 Companies that beat Farmers EVERY TIME! You are just not competitive in my area, and I think that that is just great!

I am in South Orange County and Farmers Has the best products available here. We may not always be the cheapest but with Farmers quality price is not an issue.

What "Farmers Quality"? What does Farmers offer that other companies doesn't? Better Forms? Better prices? Knowledgeable Agents? Most Farmers Agents i have spoken to had no idea about coverages

As a wholesaler, I work with alot of Farmers agents, and find they run the gamut from very professional and knowledgeble, down to the completely clueless and dangerous.....but you can say that about every carrier's Agency force. As a whole, I think Farmers puts out a pretty good product.

I am an ex-Farmers agent. In general, Farmers does have a good priduct. I would not, however call it the best. There are a lot of things that they can't offer. As an Insurance Company they are not bad for underwtriting or service. The down-side is that you have to work with their "SALES DEPARTMENT".

My District MANGLER gave me NO good support a lot of mis-information and a lot of WRONG and DANGEROUS product information. They also tend to throw agents up against the wall like dirt to see how many of them stick. The Divisional Agency, Divisional Sales and Regional Sales managers also LIED about a number of things when I was apopointed. Looking in from the outside, this does not sem to have changed. The sales department people are all trying to climb the PROMOTION ladder to see how high they can climb and don't care who they step on or lie to to get as high as they can.

When I was hired in 1982, one agent had announced her intention to retire in a 'few' years. The district MANGLER hird four agents to replace her. Of those four, I am the only one still in the industry. One of the agents left town in the dark of night, one made it for three years, the companies and I 'agreed to disagree' after seven years and the fourth agent made it for about nine years before taking up drinking full time.

Since that time (1982) they have hired over 40 agents to maintain the four agencies they had in this marketing area. They recently had an agent retire and they hired three to replace him. We'll see how many of those stick.

I am not working for Farmers now but am independent and working on both sides of Farmers. They were purchased from BATUS (British American Tobacco U.S. - R J Reynolds), who bought them in 1986, then by Zurich about five years ago and they, Farmers, purchased Foremost as a wholly owned subsidiary, about three years ago. I am appointed with both Zurich and Foremost and have been for years.

If you are thinking about becoming captive I would recommend State Farm if you can find an area that they are willing to appoint a scratch agency. Country Companies and American Family have had difficulty making agents stick (successful) in this area but that may not be true everywhere. They do appear to have a good product.

GregCW, CIC