How You Can Earn a Good Income as a Health Insurance Broker

 

If you’re considering a new career as a health insurance agent or employee benefits broker, you are probably wondering how much you can expect to earn – during your first year and in the years to come. You may also be curious about what you’ll be doing on a daily basis. This post offers some insight into your choices and your income opportunities.

Choosing Your License and Niche

Among the early decisions you need to make is what products you want to sell: Health and Accident Insurance, Life Insurance, Property & Casualty (P&C), or some combination. While not everyone feels as though they need Life Insurance, Health Insurance is required for most Californians under the new state mandate that took effect January 1, 2020.

If you want to focus on Health (or Health, Accident, and Life Insurance), the next decision you need to make is your market focus – Individual & Family Plans (IFP), which can include Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplements; Small Group employee benefits; Large Groups; or any combination of these. Many brokers who work with Word & Brown focus on the Small Group market, but they also write IFP, so they can help employees when leaving their groups or when “aging into” Medicare. With 10,000 Baby Boomers turning 65 each day, the senior IFP market is growing larger daily.

Of course, as a licensed Health and Accident broker, you can also sell products like Dental, Vision, Accident, Disability Income, and Long Term Care. If you add a Life license, you can multiple your sales opportunities in the group marketplace. Ancillary and voluntary products offer you a great way to expand sales, build a stronger relationship with your employer clients, and earn added revenue.

Working for Others, or Working for Yourself

Once you’ve settled on your license and market focus, the next major decision you’re facing is whether you want to work for someone else or go it alone. If you choose to be an independent broker, you have a lot of freedom and flexibility, including being to choose your hours and work location. If you have an in-house role working for someone else, you may have less flexibility, because you’ll need to work in their office and on their schedule. That’s not necessarily a good or bad thing. You just need to decide what works best for you. Sales is a commission-driven business. If having a regular income is important for you, you may prefer to be an employee of a company that offers you a base salary. As an agent or broker, your sales success is driven largely by your efforts, so it’s important you maintain your commitment to prospecting, quoting, enrolling, and servicing your customers whether you’re independent or an employee of a larger firm.

If you choose an independent broker role, partnering with a General Agent (GA) can make your job easier. That’s because a GA can help you with back-office activities, so you’re able to focus your time on prospecting and selling versus administrative tasks. Word & Brown has been partnering with brokers for 35 years – providing a diverse roster of products, services, technology, and resources to help you be more successful. These include guaranteed-accurate quoting, presentation assistance, online enrollment services, marketing support, an account management team, in-house compliance expertise, ongoing training and education, no-cost client extras like COBRA admin, a Premium Only Plan (POP), and HR support, and a commitment to “Service of Unequalled Excellence.”

How Much Can You Earn?

In addition to a commission paid on the policies you sell, you’ll have the opportunity to earn added compensation through carrier and administrator bonus programs. The larger your group, the greater your potential income. Plus, by adding Ancillary (like Dental and Vision) and Worksite Voluntary products (like Accident, Disability, etc.) to the mix, you can drive your earnings even higher.

Word & Brown offers a Salary Estimator to show you your potential earnings as an insurance broker. You just select the amount you want to earn in your first year (from $35,000 to $350,000), and the calculator shows you how many policies you need to sell. It also illustrates how you can increase your income over time by continuing to service your existing customers with renewals and additional sales as their businesses grow.

When you visit the Salary Estimator page, be sure to download a copy of Word & Brown’s Insurance Broker Salary Guide.

ADD BUTTON: Calculate Your Earnings

A Great Opportunity

Being an insurance broker is one of the few careers that offers individuals with limited or no work or sales experience the opportunity to earn a potentially large paycheck in a short time. To learn more about becoming a broker, helping employers attract and retain employees, and aligning yourself with Word & Brown, contact any of our six regional offices across California and Nevada.

 

 

How Much Can You Earn as an Insurance Broker?

Find out what you can be earning as an insurance agent in our handy, up-to-date salary guide. Produced by our in-house experts, this resource is bound to help you in advancing your career.

Word & Brown Salary Guide
arrowcaret-downclosefacebookhamburgerinstagramlinkedinpauseplaytwitteryoutube