Why do you stay in the insurance industry?
Is everyone in the insurance industry similarly motivated? Probably not.
By Cheryl Koch, CPCU, ARM, AAI, ACSR, AFIS, and Mary Belka, CPCU, ARM, ARe, RPLU, CIC
With a combined nearly 100-year career in the insurance industry, we are occasionally asked when we’re going to retire to the recliner and let the succeeding generations of insurance professionals take over. The short answer is: Never!
While retirement may be attractive to some people, when you’ve spent your entire adult life immersed in an industry such as ours, getting out can feel a little like surrendering the fight. As long as there are still agencies that need help and individuals who need training and education to provide the best service to their agency’s clients, it is likely we’re going to keep on doing what we’ve always done, which is to say, we’re not done yet because there are still people who need what we have to offer.
We hope that doesn’t sound braggadocious, because we certainly don’t mean it that way, but rather it’s a realistic assessment of where we are as an industry. Luckily for us, our industry is ever-changing and ever-expanding; it continues to present opportunities that require new and better answers to emerging risk management challenges.
If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with
When we were very young, we all had some thoughts about what we would do “when we grew up.” Some people wanted to be teachers or doctors or firefighters. For Cheryl, play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Cubs was at the top of the list. There were no women doing that job at the time, and there are still precious few, but a dream is a dream. Mary played piano and sang in a band and aspired to become a studio musician. Go figure.
Ask many insurance people how they got into this sometimes-crazy business and many will tell you they simply “fell into it,” like a pothole or a pig trough. For most, it was some kind of twist of fate. Others were fortunate enough to have a family connection they could build upon. Still others truly consider it a “calling” and chose insurance from the get-go. Perhaps early on for some of you, it was about the paycheck our industry could provide that exceeded your existing income. Whatever the circumstances, for most of us, it didn’t take long to get hooked.
If any of these sounds a bit like your story, then like us, once you discovered how meaningful a career in insurance could be, you probably never considered doing anything else. In some ways, the insurance industry is like the Hotel California—you can check out (and some do on a frequent basis) but you can never leave. Believe us, there are those who have tried, and most came running back into the welcoming arms of the insurance industry.
If you love me, you have to love all of me
We’re not naïve enough to believe that a career in insurance is without its challenges and frustrations. You will have bad days. Clients will call and tell you about events that have taken place that you know—deep in your heart of hearts—are not going to be covered by any insurance contract they have purchased. Most sad of all are those clients to whom you have made repeated appeals to purchase a certain coverage but who have lived in a state of denial about the risks they face.
Think of our poor track record when it comes to the basics of selling flood insurance, cyber coverage or higher limits of liability. A huge portion of an agent’s work is to educate the insurance-buying public, because ignorance is one of the most common causes of poor risk management decisions. If people cannot or will not recognize and acknowledge that a risk exists, they are doomed to handle that risk with the only tool in the risk management toolbox—unconscious retention. And all too often, this ultimately results in an errors and omissions (E&O) claim against you and your agency.
Everything can’t be covered by insurance. Individuals, families, businesses and other organizations must retain certain risks of loss. If insurance contracts didn’t contain exclusions, the coverage would not be affordable to the public.
Although there will always be sad days, when you have to deliver a life insurance payment for the premature death of a loved one or a valued employee, when the amount of insurance purchased isn’t sufficient to restore the insured’s business, or when someone’s claim is legitimately denied by the insurance company, it is important to lean into those moments when everything worked the way it should. What we do in this business matters; if you love it, you have to love both the highs and the lows.
If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life
Consider and focus on the way you felt the first time you identified a huge gap in coverage that, left unfixed, could have been an existential threat to an insured’s business. Or when you were able to explain a potential risk to someone in words they understood, thereby gently guiding them toward a solution that would prove highly beneficial. Or when you were able to place a difficult coverage or negotiate successfully for better pricing or increased coverage for your client. Or when you solved a problem for a client that really had nothing to do with insurance, but you did it anyway. Priceless.
Are you in it for the money?
Don’t misunderstand us; a big part of our work is focused on helping agency owners who aspire to be the best: to run more efficiently, increase profitability, provide a satisfying work environment for their staff, and to truly improve the financial wherewithal of their clients through risk management-based, professional advice and insurance portfolio management.
There may not be anything inherently wrong in chasing money, and we’ve certainly known more than our fair share of people in the industry who have chosen that course. What we have learned is that most who act in the best interest of their clients—putting them first—tend to enjoy the most positive financial outcomes, as well as the feeling of satisfaction that comes from helping others.
We’ve watched some wildly successful individuals, by some measures, mostly financial, who lost sight of the goal of serving people and became obsessed with accumulating wealth. The problem with that as a strategy for life is that it tends to be an empty well that cannot be filled. How much is enough?
We’ve also known people whose careers ended far too soon, but we know they rest comfortably knowing they made a difference in many people’s lives. And for the rest of us, having embraced the good that is the business of insurance, we can look back and say, “We did it for the love of the game.”
Is everyone in the insurance industry similarly motivated? Probably not. People are motivated by different things when it comes to a career in insurance. Certainly, we are in a profession in which one can make a more-than-decent living, especially when compared to many other “jobs.” But is that enough?
Do you create and sustain a decades-long career because you are chasing money, or do you do it because of the sheer joy and satisfaction you derive from watching people learn, engage, and understand how very important it is that we all perform at the highest level we can at all times? For right or wrong, put us in this latter category. Call us crazy—we do it for love of insurance professionals and the people they serve. Full stop.
The authors
Cheryl Koch is the owner of Agency Management Resource Group, a California firm providing training, education and consulting to producers, account managers and owners of independent agencies. She has a BA in Economics from UCLA and an MBA from Sacramento State University. She has also earned several insurance professional designations: CPCU, CIC, ARM, AAI, AAI-M, API, AIS, AAM, AIM, ARP, AINS, ACSR, AFIS, and MLIS.
Mary M. Belka is owner and CEO of Eisenhart Consulting Group, Inc., providing management and operations consulting to the insurance industry. She also is an endorsed agency E&O auditor for Swiss Re/Westport. A graduate of the University of Nebraska, Mary holds the CPCU, ARM, ARe, RPLU, CIC, and CPIW designations.
