How To Become A Life Insurance Agent: Complete Guide

So you want to become a licensed life insurance agent. Well, I'm here to tell you you've come to the right spot because I'm going to be breaking down literally step by step, everything that you need to know and do in order to become a licensed life insurance agent. So starting with step number one, which is pre licensing, okay? So basically in order to sell insurance, you have to have a license. In order to get a license, you have to do pre licensing. So the first thing that you need to do is sign up for your insurance classes. Right? If you're a life insurance agent, you have to do life insurance classes. If health insurance agent, you have to do health insurance classes. Sometimes for some states it's a mix of both. But I have two really, really solid options for life insurance classes here. One is Exam fx. And basically what you do here on this page, you just click register now.

And then you basically just go through and sign up for the classes. Now there's also. Yes, you just put in your.

Just leave this blank. If you don't already have a manager or whatever, sometimes the company you're going through will give you a discount. So if you're doing this like license getting licensed through a company like your IMO or Upline, sometimes they'll give you a discount. In this case, I'm just showing it for an example. So I don't have that. But then you just select the product, you know, life insurance, and then select the most basic package. Kaplan is the same way. I've heard really good reviews about both of these. So it really just kind of comes down to you know what you want to do, but both will work completely fine. You just hit shop by state, pick your state, and then sign up for classes. Okay, so once you've done that, you actually have to go through the classes after you signed up. And so I have a couple recommendations for that. A lot of people will take absolutely forever to go through their classes, and that is one of the biggest bottlenecks and holdups in getting licensed. So my recommendation is to go through the coursework and go through the classes with the sole intention of getting the information to pass the test. Most of the material inside of it you will never use again in your life. Never. Right. Similar to when you did driver's ed and they had like this thick workbook that you had to do. Like you learned to drive from driving, not from driver's ed. Insurance is the same way you learn to sell insurance and to help people by doing it. Obviously you need to know some base knowledge which is why they have the classes. But most of the stuff you're not going to need to know. So don't spend your time trying to become an expert in every single product and trying to memorize every, every single day. Like study to pass the test, right? Memorize the key terms, memorize the key words so that you can pass the test. And then I promise you after that you'll forget everything other than the important stuff, which is what you'll use on a day to day basis. So my recommendation is to do a lot of practice tests as well as make flashcards from the most common terms or topics that you see inside of the classes and coursework. Right? So if you see a word with like a definition, like for example, a type of life insurance inside of the coursework, write down what that type of life insurance means, write down the term and then write down the definition on a flashcard. Like literally buy paper flashcards and study those to prepare for the test. Okay.

Again, so yeah, do the practice test. Make flashcards from questions you miss. I've noticed that a lot of times a large portion of the test is specific to your state. So it'll be like state law about insurance. So when you go to that part in your course, make sure you definitely spend some time practicing and writing flashcards for that. So in order to pass the test, you need a 70% or above, right? Once you do that, you'll go in in person. You'll have to schedule your test. And I'm going to show you guys how to do that in a second. But you're gonna have to get a 70% or above. They'll print out a sheet of paper and hand it to you and you'll see whether you pass or fail. Failed. You have to get a 70 or above to pass. So it's nothing crazy, nothing too hard. But you do want to make sure that you're studying with those flashcards. So once you've completed all of your coursework, you're going to get a certificate of completion from either exam FX or Kaplan, depending on who you go with. And then you will need that certificate to get your license. You're going to need to save the certificate you get. Next, you're going to go to Pearson View. Pick your testing site and this is where you, you schedule your test. So Pearson View.

Ready, set, test. Right. I'm just going to put in the name of the test I want to take. So depending on your state, let's say I'm in Colorado, for example, I need to then Create an account and then find a test center and schedule my test. This is pretty self explanatory. You just have to create the account and then schedule your test and actually show up to it. I recommend whenever you do the classes, try to get them done within a week or two. Anything longer than that and you're just procrastinating. Right. It takes about, I think there was a total of like it's either it's 10 to 20 hours that you have to actually spend in the classes, but you can easily get through that within a week or two. So once you schedule your test, take the test and pass it, you're going to get that pass certificate. Like I was telling you though, your next step after that is to get licensed. Right. So now you have to go get fingerprinted. Okay, a few things to know about this. The best place that I've found to do it is like a local sheriff's office. At least in my state where I got licensed, which was North Carolina, the best place to do it is like a sheriff's office. Right. If you live in a county that has a lot of people, they're going to be booked out for weeks, maybe even months for you to get fingerprinted. So what I did is in the county I was in was not even that big, maybe like three to 500,000 people.

But what I did is I called up a few of the smaller counties around where I lived and I found one that was able to take me that, that following day. Right, right. So as soon as you like, the sooner you get your fingerprints done, the sooner you're going to get your, your, your license. Because these usually take about two to four weeks after you go in and do your fingerprints for them to process them and help you, you know, to get your license. So schedule this in advance if you can. And if you're not able to schedule it in advance, look for smaller counties near where you live. Next thing, after you get the fingerprints, you're going to apply for a license on nipr.com let me show you guys what this looks like. Go to nipr.com and then I'll click apply for a new license. Go to online application.

I'm going to hit individual. And then obviously you won't have a license number yet, so you'll have to put in your last name and your Social Security. And you're going to apply for this license after you've already taken the test and after you've submitted the fingerprints. Once they have that, then you can go and apply for the license, right? So you want to make sure that you apply for the license or maybe I know it's after you take the test. You have to have already taken and passed the test to get this to apply for the license here. I think the fingerprints may come after, but either way just go through. On nipr, once you get the fingerprints done again, takes two to four weeks for them to process them. But you can go ahead and apply for the license on here. So you just put in your last name, your social, and then go through and select the lines that you're applying for. So in your case it would be like life insurance or health insurance and then select the states that you're going for.

So that's the next step is applying for the license on nipr. To do that they're going to need your certificate of completion from your pre licensing company. So that's either Exam Effects or Kaplan. They're going to need your fingerprints and then the pass document. Okay. So after you apply, NIPR is going to take about two to four weeks to approve you and then they will give you a national producer number or npn. Okay. This is kind of like your Social Security number, but for insurance. This is what you will use to get contracted at each individual carrier. So the first thing you do is you get your resident license, right? That's the license of your home state. So if I'm from Texas, my resident license is Texas. And the cool thing is I can use that Texas license to then go get licenses all around the country. You can get all 50 states if you want, but you do have to have the resident license first. So that's everything that goes into getting license. The next thing we're going to talk about is actually picking a product to sell. Okay. So there's two main products in the insurance business. You will usually see people either selling term or whole life. Right? So term, let's talk about the pros of term. Right? This is insurance that is usually it's for a period of time, right? Usually 20 to 30 years and it's off. It's usually a lot more coverage for a lower cost, but it expires at a certain point. So it's better for younger people. Right. And because of that you're going to see a younger, potentially more tech savvy market. Right. These are working people, so they usually have more disposable income, they're working jobs currently, they have families, all these different things, right. Kids, young kids. However, the cons are oftentimes they see less of a need for Life insurance because they're younger and they don't think they're going to die, just frankly. Right. Oftentimes they can also be hard to reach during the day because they are at their job. Right. If you call them during the time when you would be working, they are probably also working, so they won't answer the phone as much. And then also with term, the downside as well is that you usually will fluctuate with the economy. So when the economy dips, people that are earning incomes usually see more of a fluctuation than the next market we're going to talk about which is final expense. So most of your clients with final expense are going to be on Social Security. So whether the economy is up or down, their income doesn't change. Right. So right now, you know, the economy is kind of turning towards a down point. Right. We're headed towards a recession if we aren't already in one. And so these people are going to have a more stable income when the economy dips, whereas the term people, their income will go down as the economy dips. Right. Another pro with final expense is the clients will usually see a need for the coverage. They're an older demographic, so they're thinking about death more often. Right. More of something that's on their mind. Whereas the younger people, again, they don't think they're ever gonna die. It's also usually easier to sell for beginner agents. It's a more simple product. It lasts for their whole life and you basically, they already kind of see the need for it. You just have to overcome objections and explain why they need it. The cons are it is an older demographic, so they can oftentimes be less tax tech savvy. And also a lot of your clients are going to be on Social Security. So their income is limited, it's consistent, but it's usually lower. Okay.

So I'll give you my personal preference. I personally prefer final expense because there's something called guaranteed issue with term. They don't have guaranteed issue. So guaranteed issue means that no matter how healthy or unhealthy someone is, I can guarantee that I can get them accepted on a product. Right. I know for a fact that I can get them insurance regardless of their health with term, if they have like any major health issues, it's really, really hard to get them approved. So my personal preference, especially for beginner agents, is a self funneled expense. All right, now let's talk about the next step, which is picking an agency or imo. So you need to pick a place to put your contracts. Right. When you're going to be an insurance agent, the companies, they don't take you directly. Right. They like to have as much of a buffer between themselves and the agent so that the other parties can take responsibility for anything the agent does. It, it gives, it releases a lot of liability for the companies. So they have a lot of downlines and layers between the agent and themselves. So you do have to go with an IMO or like some sort of agency. And one thing to consider is whoever you put your contracts with, view it as a partnership. Okay? They're going to earn an override off of you. So you, they are not a customer of you. Right. You are a customer of them. So you need to go and interview IMOs to see who's going to offer you the most value for the override you're giving them. Right. They're going to take a percentage of whatever you make. So the higher your commission, the less of a percentage that they're making. The lower your commission, the more of a percentage they're making. So it's not always the best thing to go for the highest commission. You want to go for somewhere that's going to offer you support, training, teach you everything that you need to know and help get you to a point where you need to go to. But you don't want to give up all of your comp. So in my recommendation, I wouldn't touch anywhere that gives you less than like 60 point comp. 70, 80, 90, 100, that's all. Okay. But make sure you're getting training and make sure that you trust the people that you're going to work with. Right. If you get like an icky feeling about them, I would just run the other way because in the very beginning, that's when they're trying the hardest to get you to work for them. So just make sure people are earning their override, make sure that they're going to give you support and make sure that you trust the people who you're going to work with. So good trust test is if you would be comfortable leaving your spouse alone with that person or those people. Right. And then also if you ask them to hold on to $10,000 for you, would it still be there when you came back a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, would they still hold that $10,000 for you? And if the answer is no, might not be someone you want to be in business with. So the main things you want to ask about are comp. Training if they're MLM or production based. So MLM is going to be more like recruiting heavy. They're going to want you to get a bunch of agents into the door to kind of grow a team, especially early on. Whereas a production base is going to be more so focused on having you write policies and sell insurance. So I personally prefer places that are more production based. But it's totally up to you. Just make sure that you know what you're getting into. The next thing to consider is whether you want to be captive or independent. So captive agent can only sell one product, right? Or they can only sell products with one imo. So if I'm a captive agent, I usually don't own my book of business, the company does. So if I leave and decide to go somewhere else, that company is going to keep my clients and I don't get to take them with me. So this is a mistake that I made early on because I didn't know enough about the business is I went and worked at a captive agency and when I left they took all of my renewals on Medicare that I had written, which was like, you know, $20,000 a year of recurring revenue that I would have been getting, which I didn't get because I left. So my recommendation is make sure you go somewhere where you're independent and you can sell multiple products. As a broker, an agent is someone that only recommend recom represents one company. So like a Jake from State Farm for example would be an agent. And so it's going to be tougher for you to compete on price if you're an index or if you're a, an agent at a company that only has one company and you're in your captive, right? Whereas in an independent broker you own your book, you can work with every company and no one can really tell you what to do. You're more so like your own boss, which is what I personally prefer. But again totally up to you. Do your research, do your own due diligence and decide what's going to be the best fit for your situation. The last thing is culture, right? Make sure that the place you're going has a culture that you want to be a part of. If you're not the person that's like all about the MLM stuff and you know, rah, rah, whatever, like you know, super competitive. If you're not about that kind of culture, don't go somewhere with that kind of culture. If you are about that culture, go somewhere with that kind of culture, right? It depends on what you're looking for, but make sure it's going to be a culture fit. I see. This is oftentimes like a massive thing that screws agents up is going somewhere where they don't have a good culture. So, yeah, make sure that you're going to be comfortable staying with the company you start with for the next 12 months, because if you switch early on, it's going to make your life really hard. So do the due diligence on the front end. Don't just sign up with the first person that recruits you. Do your due diligence, find the right fit for you, and make sure that you're comfortable staying there for at least a year. Because as a new agent, there's so many variables. You don't want to be, IMO hopping and having to deal with that in your first few months, first year doing business. All right, so we're almost finished. Let's talk about the last step, which is getting contracts. Okay. So once you've selected your company, you'll be able to get. You'll be able to start getting contracted with each carrier, right? Because you have to get your contracts under the company because they're going to be your agency. Right. And the company being your IMO or agency. So once you selected the company, your agency or imo, you now get to get contracts with all of the insurance companies and carriers. So my recommendation is to get contracted with carriers that cover all of the major medical conditions. So different companies are going to be best for different conditions, right? So like someone with diabetes might be really good for Mutual of Omaha, or someone with COPD might be really good for forcers or diabetic neuropathy, Royal Neighbors or guaranteed issue cancer. Congestive heart failure would be like a guaranteed issue, like a Great Western or an aig. So make sure that you're going to have companies that can cover all of these major health conditions, because if you don't, you're going to lose out on a lot of business that you could write if you had those options, right? These are the most common ones that you'll see is diabetes, copd, diabetic neuropathy, cancer, or congestive heart failure. And then also get a company with a really good smoker rate. You have all of those things, you'll be golden. And you can write just about anybody with the best policy they could possibly get. So last thing we're going to touch on, with each carrier, you're going to get something called a writing number, right? So this is different from your npm, your NPN is like your Social Security number and your writing number is a number you have with each individual carrier. So you can have a different writing number for every single carrier. I recommend having like a Google Doc where you track all that info. Otherwise I guarantee you'll forget it. But once you get contracted, some of the companies will take longer than others. So you want to make sure that you go ahead and put these contracts in as soon as possible and then they'll kind of trickle in over time. One might come in immediately, one might take a few days, and then one might take a few weeks. So that is literally step by step, how to become an insurance agent and get your license. If you guys want this PDF, I'm going to include it below this video. It has links to everything and all this stuff listed step by step so you guys can go through this. And if you guys, once you get your license, once you start, you know, getting contracts and selling, we have a ton of free content on our channel. So to help you guys level up and get to the next level. So be sure to hit that subscribe button, leave a like and check out our other content because we're here to help you and support you in your journey. I'm excited for you and I look forward to getting to know you in the future. Thank you guys for watching this video and I will see you in the next one. Peace.

Sam.