Financial Representative

FinancialRepresentative

At a bank this is a salaried job. At an insurance company it is commission only selling, and your first list of prospects is usually your own family and friends.

The same work is also posted as

Financial AdvisorFinancial Services RepresentativeFinancial ProfessionalInsurance AgentWealth Management AdvisorFinancial Sales Representative

What the title covers

The work is selling financial products to individual people, most often life insurance, annuities and retirement or investment accounts. You meet someone, ask about their circumstances, recommend products your firm offers, and complete the paperwork. Doing it legally requires state insurance licensing and frequently securities examinations as well, which an employer usually pays for and sometimes reclaims if you leave early. What varies enormously between employers is not the work itself. It is whether you are paid to do the work or paid only when you succeed at it.

A second use of this title

Same title, two different arrangements

At a bank or credit union this is an ordinary job. You are based in a branch, paid a salary with a bonus, and the people you speak to are customers who already came through the door for something else. The licensing is the same and the products overlap, but you are an employee with a paycheck that arrives whether or not you sold anything that month.

At a career insurance agency the arrangement is different. Pay is commission, sometimes with a draw, which is an advance you are expected to repay out of future sales. Nobody walks through a door. You are expected to build a list of prospects, and the first list is the people you already know. Both employers advertise the same title, sometimes on the same campus, in the same week.

Where it is found

Two quite different sets of employers, and the difference is in the pay structure rather than in the daily work.

Banks and credit unionsBranch based, salaried with a bonus, selling to existing customers. The most conventional version of this title.

Career insurance agenciesThe commission model. Heavy campus recruiting, fast hiring decisions, and you supply the prospects yourself.

Independent brokeragesAlso commission based, but you choose products across several carriers rather than selling one company's range.

Registered investment advisersPaid a fee on assets rather than commission on sales, and usually requiring experience or a credential before they will hire you.

Typical entry requirements

Education: Bachelor's degree in any major, and a good number of postings do not require one at all
Expected: A willingness to ask people you already know whether they have thought about life insurance
Frequently required: State life and health insurance licensing, and often the Series 6, 7 or 63 examinations, normally sponsored by the employer
Often listed: No experience necessary. Here that is accurate, and it is also worth pausing on
Experience: None. Hiring moves quickly and in volume, and the interview is frequently shorter than for far less demanding jobs

What a typical day may look like

The request below is typical of how this kind of work is assigned. The steps that follow describe what completing it involves.

Your managing partner8:00 AM

Let us build your list this morning. Two hundred names before you leave today, then we start setting appointments this week.

Names by lunch. First appointments this week.

Write down everyone you know, because that is what the list means. Family, friends, former teammates, parents' friends, people from your first job.

Sort them by whether anything in their life gives them a reason to buy now, such as a new child, a mortgage or a new job, rather than by how close you are to them.

Learn the products well enough to explain what they cost and what happens if the client stops paying, since those are the two questions people actually ask.

Say your opening out loud to your manager before you say it to your aunt.

Book the first appointments with the people most likely to agree, because the firm measures your first weeks closely and so should you.

Record every conversation in the firm's system the same day, as activity rather than outcome is what your manager reviews early on.

Keep your own count of how many people you contacted and how many bought, so that after ninety days you can judge this arrangement on evidence rather than on how it feels.

What is delivered

A named list of contacts entered into the firm's system, a week of booked appointments, and your own record of what each conversation actually produced.

Is this job for you

Characteristics of the work itself, listed so you can compare them against how you prefer to spend your time.

Yes, if you like

Talking with people about money, family and what happens to both
Earning more when you produce more
Building something over years that becomes genuinely yours
Working without anyone scheduling your day
Staying persistent through a great many refusals
Selling products you would be willing to own

No, if you don't like

Pay that arrives whether or not you sold anything
Keeping work separate from family and friendships
A manager who plans your week for you
Colleagues who are not also competing with you
Knowing roughly what you will earn next month
Clients who remain yours if you leave the firm

What this work pays

Both figures below come from the same government category, because much of this work is commission based and comparing it against graduate starting salaries would mislead.

Where the field starts

$36,390Bottom ten percent of the range in this field

In the commission version, early earnings depend on sales made rather than hours worked, so some months produce very little. The salaried bank version does not carry this risk and is counted in a different category entirely.

Middle of the field

$60,370Middle of the range across everyone in this field

This covers everyone selling insurance at every level of experience, including people who have spent decades building a client base. The highest paid ten percent earn more than $135,660, which is real, and is reached by a small share of the people who start.

The wording in the posting was chosen on purpose

Industry retention research from LIMRA and Finseca has suggested that describing the role as a financial professional rather than an agent, and as being paid based on your performance rather than on commission, may help recruitment. The same research found that only about fifteen of every hundred people hired were still with their company after four years, with most departures in the first two. None of that makes this a bad career, and the people who last do well. It does mean the words are doing work. Before accepting, ask four things in writing. Is there a salary, or a draw that must be repaid. What happens to the draw if you leave. Who owns the clients if you leave. And what share of last year's new representatives are still there.

SOURCES / U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, OCCUPATIONAL OUTLOOK HANDBOOK, INSURANCE SALES AGENTS, MAY 2024 WAGE DATA. RETENTION FIGURES FROM PUBLISHED LIMRA RESEARCH. GOVERNMENT DATA DOES NOT LIST FINANCIAL REPRESENTATIVE SEPARATELY. THE SALARIED BANK VERSION IS COUNTED UNDER SECURITIES AND FINANCIAL SERVICES SALES AGENTS, WHERE THE MIDDLE OF THE RANGE IS $78,140.