Final Expense Is A Broken Business Model (Here's Why)

So I was talking to a guy earlier today and he was telling me he was selling about 34 to $37,000 a month in final expense. And he hit me up because he had like met me through a mutual friend or someone had told him about what we do. He called me up, jumped on a call with him, talked to him for like an hour. He was telling me, like, dude, I'm selling 35 to $37,000 every single month, but I'm not profitable. This guy had like, had successful businesses in the past. Like, by no means was a clown whatsoever. Ultimately, I think is an important lesson that everyone watching this video that's selling final expense or mortgage protection or something, you know, kind of like that should really listen to and consider and think about this is a lesson that I had to learn the hard way and it took me about three and a half years to learn. And that is that selling simplified issue life insurance, specifically final expense, I'm not going to say the mortgage protection is completely bad because I do know people that make good money in it. But specifically with final expense, I can say without question, unequivocally is the dumbest business model you could possibly have besides trying to sell ice to Eskimos in 2025. Sitting here in beautiful Puerto Rico. This is called a little place called Dorado Beach. Bunch of like hundred millionaires and billionaires live here. Really, really cool spot. Like the minimum that you can pay for rent in this spot is like nine grand a month. So we're checking it out. Considering moving down here for the tax reasons in Puerto Rico and the networking in this particular spot. But what I really want to talk to you guys about today is why final expense is such a bad business model. And this is coming from someone who did it for, again, three and a half years. I got my start in it. If you go back and look at our old YouTube videos, you can see videos of me talking about selling it, even recorded videos of us selling it, me and my business partner selling policies. And I can tell you from someone that's done all of that, it doesn't work on an individual level. Okay, I'm going to explain why some people make money in it, why the majority of people fail, and what I would recommend for you to do instead. And ultimately I'm making this video like I want to talk to myself three years ago so that whoever's watching this can avoid the mistakes that I made. Okay? So the reason that people recruit into final expense at the level that they do is because for one, they have to. And for two, it's very simple. Okay? So there's a few sides of the insurance business. One of those sides is like selling to businesses, right? Like B2B, you know, health insurance, complicated life insurance plans, like key manager, all that kind of stuff. Right. You know, the other side is like more so on, like the retirement side, doing that kind of piece and then the most well known side. And the reason that the majority of people get into the business is like the recruiting side of the business. Right? This is how I got into the industry. It's probably how you got into the industry. What you have to realize is all these different little sectors, they have their own pros and their own cons, and there are different ways to play the game, right? Insurance is basically just one version of the money game. And each of these little games have rules within them. Okay? So for example, the rule of the B2B, you know, health insurance game is like, you need to find big business owners and you kind of want to network. And these deals take a longer time. You can probably figure it out over ads, but most people don't really do that. It's more of like you go and you network and meet people at business conferences and then you like, you know, sell them these big plans. Probably same thing with Keyman.

The retirement space is more so of like, you know, positioning, like branding yourself as an expert so that people want to go to you, or it's doing like seminars or like webinars and all kinds of stuff. And I can talk about that in a different video. But specifically, the recruiting game is very clear. Okay? The recruiting game is you bring as many people in, those people go and sell policies, and you're not. It's not based on people building a career out of insurance for the most part. The. There's obviously exceptions, but the whole model is based around selling a simple product that anybody could figure out how to sell. Okay? So a lot of these big IMOs, not every single one of them, like, I work closely with a lot of the IMOs, but as an individual producer, if you're watching this and you're kind of like looking through everything, what you have to realize is that most of these agencies, they don't really care if you succeed because it's not their business model. Right? So the reason that they'll have you go and sell final expenses, because anyone can sell final expense. It's very simple, very easy to understand, right. It's made for the masses to figure out how to sell. So it's not necessarily like the best opportunity. It's just where they have to start you, right? So the whole thing is you bring in a bunch of people, they go out like, let's say they sell 20, 30 grand a month for their first few months. All of a sudden, the chargebacks start hitting right in month 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, usually somebody is gonna leave the business, get out of the business at like month six. That's what I've consistently seen is final expense. Producers usually expire after like six months.

By that point, they've already written enough business. The upline can get a good override when they inevitably leave the business. And the book, the book of business goes to the upline. So the upline now owns the book of business. So you've essentially bought all of these leads. You paid to acquire all of these customers. But the upline or the agency, they didn't have to pay to acquire the customers. That's the whole game, right? So they're essentially like building their renewal base, getting this book of business. When you leave and exit the industry, they keep your book, it goes to you. You don't sell any like it. They, they, they continue to do it. They just, they take over the book of business. And anyone that charges back, they're gonna go and call those clients and more than likely resell them. So you're essentially paying to like, you're buying the leads. Usually they're getting an. Oh, they're, they're getting like a commission for you to buy the leads or something like that. Right? The agency's making money on the leads, more than likely. And then when you leave the industry, they absorb your client base. And so you can think about it from the agency perspective. If they just recruit a bunch of people, it doesn't matter to them whether they succeed or fail, because they're getting clients in either way. You're buying the leads from the agency. And at the end of the day, when you quit or leave or whatever happens, they just, they keep you the book of business. And then they can work those clients, say, hey, this other agent, go call all of the clients. So from an agency perspective, if you are willing to recruit a bunch of people into that model, you can make tons of money, and there's nothing wrong with somebody doing that. Like, I'm not, I'm not saying it's immoral. For me personally, I just don't want to tell people to do something that I'm not making tons of money and personally doing it right, or that I haven't seen that model crush right. That's kind of why we've steered away from final expense over, over the years, is just because, like, we've done it in and out and, you know, you can go back and look at old videos. I definitely, like, pushed selling final expense, to be honest. In retrospect, you know, I wish I would have known everything I know now because I probably convinced some people to do it. But, you know, you live and you learn. We all make mistakes. So that's the thing, is if you're willing to tell people to go and sell final expense, you can do the recruiting model. But if you're not willing to play that game, then as an individual personal producer, I mean, there was a guy who just commented on one of our YouTube videos saying he's never made less than multi six figures a year. Whether that's true or false, I have no way to verify, but let's just say it's true. Yeah, but he was probably grinding his face off for all of those years to do that. And for your average person, there's much better ways to make six or multi six figures in this industry. Okay, so to recap, with the recruiting model, the whole game is bringing a bunch of people in, getting them to buy leads from you. So you're earning money on the leads and you're earning money on the overrides. And then when they quit, you just resell their book of business for anyone that charged back, and you retain the book and it grows. And like, renewals are small, but if you're doing tons of production, it starts to build up, and that's the whole key. But from an individual producer level, even if you're like a great business person, like, for me, I'm like. I mean, I'm not like the best, but I'm no clown when it comes to running a business. Like, I know what I'm doing. When I was selling final expense, it was tough. I know people that have made $50,000 a month plus in other things, they come and they sell final expense, and it's like, oh, my God, this is insane. So what I recommend for everyone to do is just really like, the in. There's nothing wrong with the insurance industry fundamentally. This is a fantastic industry.

But you don't know what you don't know. And when you're first getting into it, the only thing you're exposed to is, like, final expense. And mortgage. And mortgage. Like, I know people making really good money with mortgage protection. The only downside with mortgage is it's very cyclical. So when the housing Market's doing well, you're doing really well. When the house market is not doing well, you're doing terrible. So that's something you got to factor in. But, but what is a major boom right now is the retirement market. Okay? I know people that are making millions and millions of dollars in like the selling to like businesses stuff. Like I know people that make tons of money with pnc. I know people that make tons of money with health insurance. But specifically, what I'm a huge fan of right now and I think is a little easier for your average person to do. Like you, you do have, you do have to have an I, an IQ to do this. Like the level of IQ you have to have to do final expense is entirely different than the IQ you need to have with doing like the retirement, like annuities, whole life iul, that kind of stuff. Like the more advanced markets, totally different level of intellect. If you're like, if you're an idiot, like, you should not do this, you should stay in final expense or just do something different. I can't help you if you're like super low iq, to be honest. No offense. If you do, the economic forces are in your favor right now. If you're selling annuities right now, iul IUL is really hot. So if you're, if you're selling those two things, whole life insurance is kind of like, that kind of has like a little steady burn. It's not super hot, but for the right people, it's a great product. So if you're doing those things, like the commissions are way higher. If you're selling to better clientele, they don't really churn. And I mean, I know people making multi seven figures a year selling annuities, but you have the right systems in place and you understand what to do. It's 100% possible. Okay, so to summarize, my advice to you, if you're in the industry now and you're selling final expense, or you just don't really know what's going on and you're just doing whatever your agency has told you, do your own research, look into the other sides of the industry and figure out what's going to match your skill set and give you the lifestyle. And I guarantee you it's not selling final expense building an agency. Unless you just want to do the recruiting spaghetti of the wall thing, which is fine if that's what you want to do. But for the majority of people that are getting into this, they're being sold a dream that doesn't exist. That's the reality of it. They're being sold a dream that doesn't exist. Like, the recruiters are very good at selling that dream. But Final Expense is not your your way to financial freedom. You're basically basing your entire income on the brokest. Respectfully. Respectfully, the brokest, most unhealthy people paying their bill in a living for over two years. That is what you are staking your income on. Those are two bets that I would not recommend making.

So with that being said, ladies and gentlemen, hopefully you found this video valuable. Hopefully it opens your opens your eyes in some way, shape or form. Open your eyes, look around, be cognizant. Look at the different games that you can play in the industry, because there's a lot more outside of Final Expense. See you in the next one.