Best & Worst States For Life Insurance Sales In 2025

In this video, I'm going to be revealing the best and worst states for selling life insurance over the phone. Now the way that I've put together this list is from my own agency seeing what states have the best results as well as I work with dozens and dozens of life insurance agents that sell different types of insurance over the phone from Final Expense, Term and iul and I've kind of compiled what I've found to be the states that those agents see the most success in as well as the least success. And not to mention, we also do a lot of lead generation for insurance agents. So I've been able to kind of combine and mix together the sales side as well as the lead side and what produces the most cost effective and highest converting leads. So, ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, let's go into the worst and best states for selling life insurance over the phone. All right, Now, a couple months ago I did a version of this video. This is going to be a slightly updated version. A lot of the states have stayed the same, but there is a couple more that I do want to add in here on the worst side as well as the best side. So without any further ado, let's go ahead and dive right in, starting with the worst states for life insurance sales. And the first one that is going to pop up on this list maybe a bit surprising for some of you, but that state is Florida. Now why do I say that Florida is such a terrible state for selling life insurance? Well, to be honest, I don't really know. Okay, I don't have a straight answer for you on why Florida is so bad, but I can just tell you from my personal experience that it is incredibly hard to sell life insurance over the phone in Florida. Now, I have a couple suspicions, you know, maybe a couple theories as to why that may be the case. And I'll break those down for you guys here. One of which is that there are a lot of call centers in Florida. Florida is one of the highest call center, like it's one of the states with the most call centers in it of all, right? And so I think there's a lot of like Florida on Florida action that is taking place right inside of that state. So there's a lot of call centers internally that dial those seniors, right? You would think that with so many retirees and, you know, seniors and whatnot in Florida that it would be a great state for selling life insurance. Not just because you can sell final expense, but also because typically people that are on the older end, right People that are higher up in age, they tend to be more considerate and more thinking about their need for life insurance. So you would think Florida would be good, but I think it's just a situation where, like, there's so much saturation and so many people working Florida that ends up becoming a bad state to sell in. The other theory that I have is the Hispanic population, particularly South American. Right. So when I say Hispanic, I'm going to talk about another state later. That may be a little bit confusing as to why I would say that, but I'll explain it now. I mean, South American. So like Venezuelan, Colombian, you get a lot of Venezuelans and Colombians. Cubans as well in Florida. And a lot of. A lot of that culture, from what I've seen, and talking to people that are deep within that culture, right. Cubans, Venezuelans and Colombians is buying life insurance and doing these, like, expensive funerals or, you know, really like putting money into life insurance is not a very popular thing in that culture. And with such a massive population inside of Florida, you know, of South American people, it means that it can be a little bit tougher to sell within Florida. Right? So those are a couple of the things that I've seen in Florida. Lower demand for life insurance among certain demographics. I think there's just a ton of saturation in Florida, to be honest, on the people that are quality prospects. And yeah, that's what I've seen. Not to mention the Florida Department of Insurance is an absolute nightmare to deal with. So from a contracting and licensing perspective, it's just absolutely terrible to do any business there. They're one of the only departments of insurance that does not have telephone support. So you have to go back and forth with them via email, and it takes days to respond. So Florida is not a good state for insurance sales. Now, let's talk about the next states here. And again, these are. These are not going to be in any particular order. I'm just going to kind of list these off and kind of tell you guys what I've seen the other ones. This is going to be four states. And what I found is in these particular states, they are lower income, right? So when you look at the US and you look at the median or the average household income among different states, these states tend to be on the lower end of that. Right? And the four states, they're all kind of in the southern or like central area of the country are Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Now, it's simple math, right, Based off of whatever people's income Is if they have more income and more expendable income, they're going to be able to spend more on life insurance. And the beautiful thing about selling remotely is you can sell from anywhere to anywhere. So right now I'm in Texas, I can sell in Texas, I can sell in California, I can sell in, you know, Florida if I wanted to. I can sell anywhere. Right. And so it doesn't cost you any extra to target these other states I'm going to talk about later that have higher incomes, but the average policy size is considerably higher. Like double. Right, Double the size oftentimes versus if I go and target someone in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Oklahoma, they're earning so much less that like, I'll give you guys an example, like $30 to someone in Alabama or Mississippi is like $100 to somebody in California. So I'm just getting way more commission for the exact same work simply by just being strategic about where I, where I do business in. Right. So that's what I've seen in those particular states, the low income states, you're just going to see higher chargebacks, lower average policy size and a lot more frustrate or not necessarily frustration, I don't know why I said that, but a lot more hesitation to purchase a policy. Right. Just because of their financial circumstances. So that's something to consider in those particular states. So I'm just going to kind of lump in the southern low income states. Now the next one I'm going to talk about, this is not a low income state by any means. This is still the worst states to sell in. This is a state that is simply just like for whatever reason. Again, I have my own theories and suspicions which I can explain in this video, but for whatever reason this, this particular state just makes it a pain in the ass to do business with them. And that state is New York. Now interestingly enough, we did a kind of like a, an analysis of all of, because we run ads for like 50 plus insurance agents and I'm talking about, you know, tens of thousands of dollars a week in spend that we manage for our clients. Looking at that, we were able to see across all of these different accounts which states had the lowest cost per lead and which states had the highest cost per lead. And believe it or not, New York has the lowest cost per lead of any other state despite being one of the highest income states. So if for whatever reason the state of New York ever decides to pull their head out of their ass in terms of being easy to do business with, it's going to be a gold mine because. And I'll tell you guys, the reason the lead cost is so low, the reason the lead cost is so low is there's like almost no carriers that do business in New York. There's so much regulation and it's extremely hard to, to actually go and sell insurance in New York. So nobody wants to do it. Which means that there's a ton of people in New York that need and want insurance but have trouble getting it because it's so difficult to do business there. So the lead cost is insanely low. And if they ever decide to change it, this list will change. New York will be like top dog, best state, best, you know, only call New York, only run ads in New York type of thing. Just because the demand is so high and the supply is so low. But right now the demand is so high, but the supply is so low because it's just such a pain in the ass. So I would avoid New York at all cost. The commissions are lower, there's barely any carriers to do business there, and the regulations are absolutely insane. So that's going to wrap up our list of the worst states to do business. Now let's talk about the best states, which ultimately I think the worst states is really important to cover. But this section of the video is what's actually going to really make you guys more money. The first part of the video is talking about how to avoid losing money. But this is going to talk about how you can make more money, sell more policies and sell bigger policies with the exact same amount of work. So first state on our list, this is going to be Pennsylvania. Now whenever I look for a quality state to, to sell life insurance, I'm looking for a big population, right? Because you want to think about this strategically. Every single license that I buy is like a ball that I have to juggle, right? A lot of people will tell, will go out there and tell you, like, hey, just buy all 50 state licenses. I'm going to plug my computer up real quick. They'll tell you to go and buy all 50 state licenses. But not only is that expensive, but, but it's a lot of like balancing of, hey, you need to renew this and you need to renew that and you need to submit this requirement and that requirement. And there's really a lot that goes into it. So my advice, especially for somebody that you know is newer, getting started, is on a low budget or really just doesn't want a big headache is you need to be strategic about the states that you pick and so that strategy really comes down to what state licenses are going to give you the best, biggest bang for your buck. And that is how I'm going to kind of give you guys this list of the best ones. And the way that we look at that is like, what's going to have the highest population of qualified buyers that can afford what I'm going to sell them? So high population, qualified buyers, cost of the state license, right. If I have to pay $300 to be able to sell in South Dakota, is the. Tell me guys, is that a good investment or a bad investment? It's a terrible investment, okay, because there's nobody in South Dakota. It's like five people, right? And like four of them are on Mount Rushmore. So is that would be a very negative, a very poor choice to spend your money, right, versus Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has 12.9 million people now. There's like 300 million people in the U.S. that is a very, very large population of people. And that state, I think it costs like 80 bucks. So $80 opens you up to 13 million people that you can sell to. In my eyes, that is a fantastic investment. Okay, so we're looking for high population, high income. You know, we're looking for a high cost of living as well. Because if the cost of living is higher, that means that people are going to have to make more money, which oftentimes mean that they can spend more money. Okay, so Pennsylvania comes in at number five. Now, with that in mind, you guys are going to now be properly framed for how these other states are going to come in and kind of understand why I say these particular states. The other great thing about Pennsylvania, I will add, is they also have a lot of retirees that have pensions. Okay? A lot of retirees that have pensions, which, especially if you're selling like final expense or, you know, if you do like annuities or things like that, those can be great markets to be in. Now the next couple states we're going to talk about are Indiana and Ohio. So this is a new addition to my list. My past state video, I did not have these states, but what I found is in these particular states, they're not as. They're not like there's not as many agents that are licensed in these states. There's still, you know, enough agents that are in them, but they are not as populated. There's not as many agencies. Some of these later states I'm going to mention. So these are like really solid, kind of like they're not super high income states, but they're not. They're very, they're kind of untapped in a way. Right. And with Indiana and Ohio, they have a very strong middle class there as well as a lot of people that are blue collar. And what happens is like when somebody's blue collar versus white collar, white collar people tend to overanalyze financial decisions, which means they're usually going to have like a financial advisor or they're going to have like people that they want to go talk to. And it just extends your sales cycle versus, you know, if you talk to a trucker or a factory worker who's maybe banking, you know, a buck 50 a year, 150k a year, they're going to be more open and willing to make that decision without going and talking to like you know, their family's financial advisor that's been in the generation for three years. So it makes a much easier sales cycle. Right. Particularly for products like an IUL or an annuity or something like that. The lead costs are also really solid, particularly in Indiana, Ohio. Off the top of my head, it's like a solid state. But Indiana has a really, really low lead cost from what I've seen, especially recently. So for these two states, again, good middle class population, they're blue collar so they're not going to like overanalyze a lot of these decisions. And there's not as much competition as some of these other states. I'm going to mention later on in the video. Now the next state we're going to talk about is going to be Virginia. Now the nice thing about Virginia is there are a lot of religious people in the state of Virginia. Okay. Virginia also has a pretty solid population as well, so it's good bang for your buck. But there's a lot of religious people which particularly if you're selling a final expense policy, they put a lot of emphasis and a lot of value on a proper burial. Right. The other thing too is, you know, there's a lot of people that live in rural areas which for certain people, the they per. They. They would prefer to talk to people that live in rural areas because a lot of times they're nicer. So the. Some of the states we talked about earlier that I would say were not good states like an Alabama or a Mississippi, those are going to be really nice and kind people, but they're usually going to be lower income. Whereas in Virginia you kind of get that nice blend where it's a lot of nice and kind people, but they're more medium income. Right. They're Kind of in that middle class section right now, again, like a lot of this depends on what you're selling. So if you're selling, you know, financial advising, you want people that are going to be usually higher income. But if you're selling final expense term or you're doing like, you know, iuls to a middle income demographic, then you're going to want more people that are middle, middle income or middle class. Right. So Virginia is another one of those states that I put very high up on the list. High population, very religious, cares a lot about their family. Now we're coming down to our final three states that I'm going to talk about here. Number two, or not number two, but this next one that I'm going to touch on. This is actually my home state, where I am from originally. And it is the state that I started selling insurance face to face in person. That state is North Carolina. Now, why is North Carolina such a good state? Well, there's a couple reasons why. One, it's one of the fastest growing states in the country.

Which is great. Which also means there's a growing senior population, there's a growing millennial population, there's a growing Gen X population, there's a growing Gen Y population. So you have people all across different age ranges that are growing that the population is growing in. And it's also one of those states where, you know, for whatever reason people in insure, people in North Carolina, they just buy insurance. Like there's just a ton of people that buy insurance there. And a lot of the top IMOs have actually come out of North Carolina. For example, NAA, one of the biggest IMOs, actually, that is the IMO where FFL kind of spurred out of NAA is from North Carolina. Symmetry is from North Carolina. Balloons. FFL came out of nna, which is from north naa, which is from North Carolina.

The IMO that I started out, that I will not name came out of North Carolina, which they are an integrity partner. So they're pretty big. There's a bunch of other ones that I'm not gonna, you know, bore you guys with listing them all off. But there are a lot of IMOs that have come out of North Carolina. And so that state overall just has a high, like propensity to buy insurance. They're very, they're framed properly to buy insurance. There's also a very strong religion, a strong like religious undertone in North Carolina as well, which helps. Awesome. So coming into the top two, the next one we're going to talk about is Texas. And that's where I am right now. I just recently moved to Texas. Texas is just one of those states you know, we talked about bang for buck. It's so freaking massive. And there's so many people. Tell you guys exactly how many people are in Texas.

There's 30 million people in Texas, which is like a tenth of the entire U.S. population. And Texas costs like 50 bucks. Okay. It's gonna be pretty damn tough for Texas as a state to get saturated for insurance sales. It's going to be very, very tough. There's not Even, there's not 30 million insurance agents. There's not even close to that many. Right. So there's just so many people in Texas. The income is great, it's a great economy, very conservative and religious, which means they put a lot of emphasis on family and they you know, invest into the next generation. And the other thing too is there's a large Mexican American population here. Okay, now I know I talked a little bit earlier about like South Americans not placing as much of a heavy emphasis on burials. However, Mexican Americans and like people that are from Mexico place a very high cultural emphasis on burials. They care a lot about having a nice send off and they, they spend a lot of money on funerals. Which means that the, especially if you're selling like final expense for example, there's people are going to be, there's a high, high demand for that type of insurance. So if you're a Spanish speaker in Texas or in this next last state that I'm going to talk about, it's a huge market, huge opportunity for you. All right? Now the last state we're going to talk about is, you probably already know what it is. It's California, one of the highest cost of living states in the country. Which also means that there's a very high income in California. Now I know I talked about some of these, these port like the, the states that are not good to sell in earlier. Average policy size, you know, you're looking at like 6 or 700 bucks. In California we're talking about 1300 to 1400 bucks in annual premium. So it's just one of those states that everyone, everything costs more so everyone has to make more. And so this like, you know, if someone in California is getting a, a gallon of gas, it's like eight bucks, right? So paying for a life insurance policy that's 100 bucks to them, that doesn't seem like anything. And so overall, just by adding California and selling in that state, you're going to see a much higher amount of annual premium. Simply like for. You could sell the same amount of policies, but you're going to see a higher amount of annual premium just because of where you are right now. I know I looked at Texas's population. I'm going to tell you guys, California's population.

This one is shrinking, but it's still 38.97 million people. So whether you agree if California with California and politics or not, you just need to set that aside and freaking get a California license and start working there. Because there's a lot of money there. There's a lot of people that care about insurance and you know, the cost of living is high and 100 bucks is like 30 bucks to someone in Alabama. So California is huge. All right, ladies and gents, that's going to wrap up the video. But I do want to give you something else. I put together another video and extremely valuable, that is going to show you guys exactly how I would get to $10,000 a month in profit if I were starting over in the insurance industry today. This is a 30 minute video. It's an entire roadmap showing you how I would go from zero to making $10,000 per month in income selling insurance. If you guys want to see that video, it's going to be linked right here. Go ahead and check it out and I'll see you guys there.