insurance agent

sales representative

sales support representative

medicare agent

customer advocate

ASSURANCE IQ

I joined in December of 2018. I have been a licensed life / disability agent for 18 years. I welcomed the opportunity to work with Assurance because of  difficulty doing field work  / driving due to medical issues. 

Due to several surgeries I was unable to work the phones as much as needed in order to remain at a higher Tier level in order to receive the most calls. At the start I had many calls and made some decent sales, no problem there. It is my understanding that there are 6 Tiers, 1 being the highest and 6 the lowest. Most folks tend to fall in the middle, perhaps 3-4. 

Shortly after joining the organization, (due to aforementioned medical events), I was unable to commit as much time as needed  to retain a high Tier rating (when you begin as a new contractor, you are given a decent amount of calls and encouraged to write as much business as possible in order to keep the calls coming in), and the amount / quality of incoming calls rapidly dropped to virtually nothing. 

Management encourages the new hire to get licensed in as many states as possible in order to receive adequate call volume. I understood the risk / reward ratio and spent close to 5k in order to acquire licensing in 34 states. I initially assumed I'd still get some level of calls coming in during my rehabilitation, which was extended and difficult. Between December and February, I incurred two surgeries at the same location which presented a difficult recovery. My time spent on the phones was limited and as the calls by then coming in were of low quality, I wrote less business. 

Without decent call quality  / volume, its impossible to maintain a level of production required to maintain same. Essentially, if there are not good / frequent calls available, its virtually impossible to write business. The less business written, the lesser quality / volume of the calls the agent will receive. 

Management is 'supportive' but has no advice but to spend either more time on the phones or monitor for calls at different times throughout  the day. This is all fine if one has maintained a viable Tier rating and is already receiving an adequate volume of calls, but once an agent falls behind, it appears next to impossible to regain ground / calls / business / income. 

I have queried my manager several times and at this point don't get much in the way of response, either because he doesn't care, or doesn't know of any other way to regain a decent status. Naturally, his job is to promote and focus on those that are producing good business, but those that fall behind are left behind with no opportunity to regain a decent rating and income. 

As previously mentioned, I have been licensed 18 years. I understand that any facet of this industry requires hard work, attention to detail and dedication. If an agent (myself or anyone else), is non-performing due to simply being unwilling to put in the hours to make the grade, its perfectly understandable why the system would gradually downgrade / eliminate that agent thru simple attrition. 

In a case where an agent falls behind due to issues such as those previously mentioned, they are treated with no exception, just another non-producer who is eventually washed out of the company due to having no business and subsequently no income. 

I take issue with this based on the above scenario. I believe those that are not producing due to extenuating circumstance should be evaluated on a case by case basis. It is obvious that once behind the curve, the company / management essentially eliminates non-producing agents, regardless of the reason for non-production. It is no wonder why the company is constantly hiring in order to keep production levels high. It is a difficult business to begin with and perhaps if the company were more transparent with individuals going into the opportunity they might have better luck with employee / contractor retention. 

Also interesting is the fact that most of the positive comments on this board are written by 'home office' employees and by managerial staff who naturally would not have a negative thing to say about the company or its implementation of various algorithms to facilitate producing vs non-producing agents. 
There even appears to be a positive recommendation by the president of the company- incredible!

It would be great, Assurance, if someone would positively address these concerns. I feel folks in my position are unfairly treated and ostracized and in my case, trying diligently to payoff 5k of licensing debt with virtually zero income. Not good.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Assurance IQ offers two different paths for employment; W2 and 1099. Having done both, if you are already established as an agent and have no problems talking to seniors about Medicare, then 1099 is a much better path. The compensation is much higher, and the flexibility can't be beat. Downside: You will have to pay for your own health insurance, which can easily be done through the ACA.

If you are unlicensed or a new agent who just became licensed, then the W2 path is probably a safer way for you. They start at about $17/hour with good health insurance benefits. It is 100% remote and they provide the equipment. That is not a plus - their equipment is not that great. But it is adequate. The upside is, they will teach you how to sell, and you will experience success if you try. The downside is your schedule is their schedule and it is a production environment. Be thick-skinned and prepared to accept criticism every single day. There is a paycheck twice a month, even during the lock-in period, and a third "bonus" should you have any sales the previous month. All in all, its not a bad gig for a new agent. You could do a lot worse.

For me, 1099 works because my schedule is a little complex, as I am already an established agent in multiple lines. The compensation for 1099 agents is much, much higher, but there are costs involved. You must pay your own AHIP and Licensing costs, and carry your own E&O coverage ($1M per/$3M aggregate), plus your own equipment. All these things are tax deductible, of course, which is good, because the paychecks on the 1099 side can be quite large.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
As a W2 agent, being chained to productivity standards and call volume expectations are a bit much. On the W2 side, there is no safety net. You don't work, you don't make money, simple as that.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
As a W2, it is fairly relaxed, at first. As one might expect, there are always those who abuse a good thing, which causes a rise in micromanagement. The more adult you are, with a good work ethic, the less this happens.

As a 1099, your work environment is exactly what you make it. No more, no less. Myself, I have a sound-insulated home office, and wireless equipment. *This position can be very mobile* - I have been known to take my laptop on the road and make a few sales from a hotel room. Or on a beach. Yeah. That's a fact. Wherever there is a connection. Some days, a change of scenery is needed. Just have to be secluded enough to protect confidential information is all. HIPAA compliance must be maintained. If you can do those two things, your environment is all up to you.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
I like to work early. Earlier than the W2's, so I am usually on the phone by 6:30 AM, until about 10:00 AM. After that, calls seem to be routed to the less expensive W2 employees, so I work on P&C until about 2 PM Central, after which I take a few more calls and make another sale or two. I am usually done for the day at around 4:30-ish, but it has run longer. Saturday mornings are very lucrative, but I don't do a lot of those except during the Annual Election Period (AEP), October 15 - December 7 every year. During AEP, I am online fourteen hours a day, five to six days per week. No exaggeration - I will net about $700 Per Day during AEP. The last two weeks of December, I always take off.

As a W2 employee however, your day will start on the phone. There is usually very little wait time between calls - but if there is, you will be expected to call outbound to "expired" leads, previously worked by other agents. There is a call cadence, five inbound, five outbound, hard stop at fifteen with no sales. This is important because too many "burned leads" will reduce your tier level, and thus will reduce the quality of calls you receive. You will get two 15-minute breaks and one 30-minute lunch. Weekends are rarely, if ever, compulsory.

Assurance only seems to receive Polarized reviews, so I’ll aim to provide an honest and objective overview of what to expect while working remotely for this company. Although, I am licensed in some states to sell Life & Health Insurance, I only work/worked as a “Guide”. 

Pros
- Paid daily (usually)
- Commission and compensation during your first two weeks is extremely fair and attainable.
- 35-45 efficient work hours = ($1k-$1.5k)
- Work as much or as little as you’d like 

Neutral 
    - Tiering system that’s supposedly automated
        -  1-6 Tiers, 1 being the best 6 being the worst
        - First two weeks you’re locked into Tier 2
        - They will not inform you of what Tier you’re in, how the system places you in said tier, or how to move up within those tiers.
        - Each Insurance you dial has its own tiering. So you may be tier 1 in xyz insurance and tier 6 in bcd insurance.
        - Due to being an independent contractor you will receive little to no coaching or development. 
            - Upon requesting coaching, you’ll be directed to read generic material that appear to have been pulled from a general “how to sales” google search. 
        - Certain requests will either be ignored or met with non-answer responses. Examples:
            - Is it possible to review call stats in order to help improve performance? (Both overall and personal stats)
            - May I please listen to my calls or others calls in order to help improve performance?
            - Suggestions in general. whether to improve processes, performance, quality, or system issue
        - Rarely if ever will you be interacted/communicated with personally, without directly reaching out yourself.
            - Communications are via a “read only” chat system where they post announcements and misc. information.
Cons 
- It’s very apparent that you’re a number on a spreadsheet as a remote Guide
- Outside of the workers who have been with assurance for several months - couple years. You’re encouraged to keep to yourself and accept that you may or may not have any control over your Tier placement, calls received, or progression/lack there of. 
    - Pleading with the two management level points of contact will either be ignored, or met with “we’ll definitely check into this/I’ll see what I can do!/I know things aren’t perfect but we are working to improve things” generic responses, that ultimately are used to keep you from spamming their chat.
- I do believe that placement is mostly automated, but I suspect that tenure, likability, and conformity play massive parts in getting educated on how the system works.
    - Higher Tiers may even be reserved for more tenured “independent contractors”
        - It’s quite literally impossible to tell

A big concern for me is that some of these systems and processes may actually impede my ability to perform my independently contracted duties. 
The tiering system and the refusal to explain how that system can be navigated  and improve or dampen my performance, may actually violate, nullify, or illegally take advantage of the IRS’s contractor / company relationship definition. 


After the first two weeks, if you like working from home, earning $15-$20 an hour, with minimal skills needed, and the freedom to work as you please and when You please, Assurance is great. 

If you’d like to be acknowledged, offered growth potential, a career path, or to be challenged, Assurance provides a serviceable option to make some extra money or hold you over in between jobs.

Additionally, agents are also tiered and are graded by Guides after transfers. My overall perception is that there are much better places to work as a licensed Agent. But I cannot speak personally on that.

They tell you that the leads are quality and show boat their top tiered 100 best performers and rub their success in your face every day but don't tell you that you'll never move up because the tier system to move up is completely unfair and not only that but they will NEVER show you where you are in the tier or tell you exactly how to move up within it. The system will literally feed you 80 absolutely garbage leads like people in there 40's and 50's that are a medicare lead and don't even qualify or people who are so angry that we've called them repeatedly non stop even after they say not interested that they're screaming at you and get maybe 2 transfers from it and even if you do get those 2 transfers, expect 1/3 of them not to count because they don't stay on for 2 minutes especially if it's an auto transfer. so 1 hour 80-100 calls maybe 2 count 8$ an hour and you pay the taxes lol You will NEVER be given a chance to succeed with this company and the system makes sure you don't move up. Quality leads are few so they only go to the top brass. If they could generate better leads then guides on lower tiers would be given the opportunity to close them but that just isn't the case. And don't you dare think about sharing the truth or you'll make yourself a target. 
The management even shut down our forum board so we guides couldn't  talk to each other about our experiences. They don't like to hear that the leads are horrible and that you're being used for 8$ an hour for data entry that I'm sure they profit off of somehow still by selling to a 3rd party marketing company (why else the 20 questions for the customer?) When the king cuts out his rivals tongue it's because they are AFRAID of what he has to say. When we had slack we could air our grievances we could at least learn from seasoned guides and get motivated or if we had system problems like Mute button being on when trying to talk with customers it would get fixed in a timely manner. More then once they just lost a bunch of transfers and we we'rent paid and if you bring it up they say oh well what was the customers name so if you do work with these guys WRITE DOWN EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMERS NAME that you transfer because you certainly can NOT trust Assurance. Funny watching them try to Rally the group for a big push after such a phenomenal breach of trust it's like they're out of touch with reality. Now even if you want to question the quality of leads or the system not operating correctly or you want real information about moving up you have to DM the management which is so intimidating. Expect the management to always speak to you in parables never give you any inspiration just regurgitate some testimonial about "Go for the No" when in reality it's just a facade, the carrot on the string to make sure you believe there's a future so you'll make them a profit doing data entry for 8-10$ an hour which YOU PAY THE TAXES on I mean what a deal right? They say it's your business but if that was the case then how come we don't have access directly to our tier performance? Why are we not allowed to communicate with our other fellow guides? When they got rid of the slack forum for us guides it was obvious how shady this company is.Don't waste your energy with these guys or you'll be hungry and homeless real fast!

All the people leaving horrible reviews probably have the same thing in common: They are approaching this thing as a regular 9-5 job. Just like other "gig" opportunities (Uber, DoorDash, Postmates, etc) you have X amount of hours per day to make money- what you do with that time is entirely up to you. If you are only passively engaged you will see minimal return. If you want to make at least $100 per day expect to work 6-8 hours. 

The job is simple- get insurance shoppers in touch with insurance agents. Most of your time will be spent dispositioning answering machines and immediate hangup calls. It's mundane but nothing to complain about. Just trudge through and deal with it. Transfers seem to come in waves. It is very common to end up having 3-5 in a row so keep your energy high and flowing from each call to the next. 

There are enough fixed and random bonus opportunities to keep you motivated. There will be several times when you are unable to successfully transfer a warm lead due to tech issues or unavailable agents. This, too, is nothing worth complaining about. Stuff happens. 

On the topic of pay- it sounds complicated up front but is really super simple:
- For each call that lasts >40 seconds you get 10 cents
- If a call lasts >90 seconds that 10 becomes 25 cents (they do not stack)
- You receive 30 cents for each call successfully transferred to an agent
- Your goal is for your transferred calls to be Quality Transfers:
   - If they speak with an agent for >5 minutes = $3
   - If they speak with an agent for >10 minutes= $6
   - If they speak with an agent for >20 minutes= $9

Some hours you will make good money and others you will make a hundred calls and only bank $2. Track your working data to determine the best days and times of day you should focus your attention on for maximum results. 

If you have a ton of bills and are the primary earner for your family this may not be an ideal opportunity for you to consider as a full time role. If you are staying at home anyway due to unemployment, disability, or child care- this is a perfect way to earn money and earn a sense of worth. 

Being an Assurance guide is not a dream job and you will not advance beyond the guide role. You will be a 1099 independent contractor that will still have your performance measured by KPIs and calls will still occasionally be audited. There are currently about 700 total guides, about 200 of which are regularly active. Many of those 200 contribute to the company Slack channel which apparently has a "hugs and smiles only" policy where anything you say that is negative will be reported to the mods and you will be warned that any more negative feelings you choose to express may get you removed from the Slack channel. It's actually pretty comical. 

You can simply go to the website and sign up.  No one tells you anything about what to expect.  Your managers, you will never speak to.  Your team lead is supposed to help you with onboarding and work related things as you continue to hopefully grow with the company, however that doesnt happen. You have to sign up for classes to get an answer to a question you may need right then. They have vague "articles" that are to help you but dont. If you use the chat feature to speak with someone for assistance on a call due to system issues or even i guess questions on products, you wont get help.  Some of the trainers in the classes fill in a lot of blanks but you most likely lost a bunch of sales by then because no one will answer you immediately or timely.  As for pay, you can get paid daily if their system is on point but if its not you have to just wait.  Asking will do no good, they will change what is constantly and make it your fault until multiplw agents complain. Assurance also has a tiered system for you getting calls.  Even if a guide (and yes many are rude or just drop the call on you) sends you a call and it doesnt connect, that counts against your conversion rate. Get enough of those and you will see the quality of calls deteriorate rapidly.  Also every 2 weeks you sign something called a work order that you will take X amount of calls or 14 days. You have to agree to log on to the dialer. But you have no other information. It does not tell you what tier your on to receive calls.  Thats it.  Everyone you speak to will tell you something different so you have no clue who to listen to.  I could go on but i believe you get the point.  No tenured agent should he here. It is as bad as you see and in my experience worse.  And the best part, is after they fail to live up to the bare minimum of what they said is available to agents,  Assurance will not release you.  Why? Just because. Not that you owe money or something egregious, just because they wont and dont period. We know from the carriers that 6 months easy your waiting at least and possibly more. I dont understand how thats legal and ok, but i guess as important as agents are supposed to be to the organization, your not.  Do not, I repeat do not get tangled with this company. People are walking away from the profession altogether because of things like this.  And it is a great and rewarding job. But when you get screwed over so badly, especially for new agents that havent had the chance to see those opportunities, they feel the whole getting the license thing was a huge mistake. Its sad.  We work hard, dont spin your wheels with this company. The time you spend will not account for the money you make. Look elsewhere. Other companies are doing the same thing basically, with less resources and more income potential.  

I spent several years working for Assurance off a referral from a previous coworker once our other medicare organization closed office during covid. I decided to take the risk and give it a try and for the first year it was ok thanks to the daily pay system and knowing I could make OK money with a few hours of work, and get paid that evening. So if I was ever in a tight spot for money, I could use this to help. I also had the freedom to choose when to work. 
But Assurance had a way of really milking agents time and efforts by changing commission plans almost every 4-6 months, and eliminating daily pay. As an agent your goal income is to earn residuals. Unfortunately Assurance takes those, so you are on a constant hamster wheel for income. You also have to keep working or else your pay would decrease due to lack of sales. And if you fall behind, it becomes extremely difficult to catch up to the tier you were at. I had moments where I was making $300 a sale, which was great, but then dropped to $20 a sale thanks to their change in pay plan.
Before being let go I had over 1000 medicare enrollments, and now Im back at square one. Nothing to show for it, all while they still receive payments for and Im having to restart from scratch.
Assurance had a very easy script to follow to make sure you hit the topics on each call, but it was  overly redundant. Many moments of frustration with customers who didnt want to hear paragraphs of information and just wanted to get to the point. 
The culture of the job is also very limited. You will not find other Assurance people out in public and may feel you are alone most days. Assurance used to have a yearly get together at Top golf or other venues and that was fun but the people who were successful there were not agents. They were higher up staff and managers. I had yet to find a 100k agent at these events. 
Moral of the story: Use this as a short term way to get experience and learn how to sell on the phone, maybe a few months. Then go. Do it on your own. Or else you will waste years like I did with nothing to show after. I can't tell you how many times I had months where I was dissapointed from unexpected chargebacks, late payments, and low pay out rates. In a way I am happy and also angry I was suddenly let go but I realize the only way you will get true success in this field is to do it on your own. 
Also FYI: you have to file your own taxes and Assurance does not pay into taxes or unemployment, so by working here you cannot use unemployment if let go.

I started working for this company in October of 2018 as a life insurance agent. They promised three days of training and it lasted about 2 hours each day. I was then told to sink or swim on Thursday and I must have worked from 7am to 11pm for 4 days straight and made no money. I recalled the training manager mentioning a "guide" position. I put my name in the hat and transferred to that position. I made $300 my first week. I started to figure out everything and made $2,000 the next week and then $3,000 the next. I then went for 12 weeks straight and made $50,000! I paid off all my credit cards, my wife's credit cards, our toyota sienna and our ford mustang. I was number one in the company in November, number 2 in December and number 3 in January. Then they hired 2,000 guides. My income went from above $5,500 some weeks to $500 per week. They started to bring on a lot of companies to sell the leads to and the bonuses started to go away. In November 2018, they had the "November to Remember" bonus and a regular weekly bonus where you could win an extra $1,000 a week if you did more than 250 billables. Billables are transfers that last over two minutes with the potential client and the agent that you transfer the call to. In March I went back into beast mode and worked 14 hours a day, 7 days a week to get my income back to what it had been (as they raised the contest to getting 400 billables per week to get the extra $1,000. There were so many people that the training manager couldn't handle it anymore so he hired someone else to monitor all the guides. Their chat site would always "go off the rails" with people speaking negative about the calls. Then they started removing the negative folks from the chat room. Then they let a lot of the guides go. I switched to being a health agent for them. I remember waiting 5 hours for one call. I spoke up and got that fixed and made $3,000 one week and $3,000 the next. I was getting an average of 38 calls per hour. Then one day they switched it to 2 calls per hour and then back to 5 hours with one call. You bust your tail at this job and make a lot of money and then they cut your feet out from under you. It was good while it lasted but it becomes the "good ole boy system" and they only pay the people that keep their mouths shut. I am on to bigger and better things now. I assure you can make a lot of money if you work from 7am to 11pm CST, 7 days a week (that is 16 hours a day, 7 days a week). If you want to be the best, you can't ever take a day off. It was awesome back in the day. Now, it has become a minimum wage job dealing with customers below the federal poverty level who can't afford $50 per month for a policy.

Assurance is a decent company to began your career as an insurance agent.  You will learn a lot about insurance and the rules and regulations.  There was always someone available in the Teams chat to help guide you.  If you needed assistance from the manager, just ask.  

If you are contemplating this vs a W2 position, do a W2.  Ideally you should try to work as an independent agent, a real one not this company who says you are independent but you are not. 

They state you are an independent agent but you are a CAPTIVE 1099.  If you can't walk away, with your clients, or at least get contract releases before 4 months, you are Captive.  

You will be told different things depending on which introduction you attend.  I was told the average service fee was $100, someone else was told $75, and then when it came time for  AEP it was $65.  

You will be penalized for every single call you get.  Someone is calling for their dry cleaning - Against you.  No one on the other line (Against you).  You will see your service fee (which is the amount they pay you for selling a policy - not the commission) fall to the bottom, at one point $35.

Commissions are a joke, you might make $50 per policy sold.  

If you cannot be on the phones during prime time (10 am - 4 pm) you will NOT make any money.  Those who think they can pop on after work on the weekend are oftentimes stuck for HOURS waiting for the phone to ring. 

They will tell you that "You need more states" Don't fall for that.  If you have 4-6 descent states, you don't need to spend more money on more states, you need to go somewhere else. 

Your calls are recorded and if you fall below 85% compliance you will get a nasty email threatening to release you and kick off the platform 

You need your own E&O Insurance which is a $145 minimum to get and then $10 each month.  

Their points for SWAG are a joke.  Who wants a bunch of Assurance branded junk or electronics that cost 10,000 points to get and you only have 3,000.  

I would never recommend anyone to start out with this company.  Go with a W2 position at least you'll get paid a salary. 

If they don't like what you say, they will kick you off the teams chat, and if you make them too mad they will kick you off the platform.  

Please don't make the mistake I did and fall this trap. 



You start out in the training program that is nothing like the actual sales floor.  When you first join a team you are artificially put into high tier levels to boost your confidence.  Easy sales. You get juggled around until only the top sellers get the good leads.  Then a new group comes in and they're in the top tier so only those with the most sales stay near the top tiers.  You will easily lose tier levels simply by taking time off because you're not there getting sales.  You have to carefully balance your inbound calls with your required work hours-you have to make 10 calls last 8 hours and 9 of those calls aren't quality leads.  That leaves you having to comb through past callers that weren't interested trying to scrape up a sale and make your hours. If your conversion isn't high enough you won't get paid any commission and will continue to spiral into lower and lower lead quality tiers until you are talking to people that don't know why they are on the phone or don't have Medicare to begin with.  There is no way to recover from the spiral because everything hinges on your call tier.   You can be the best salesman and still can't make sales with the calls you are given in the low tiers. 
New team members are constantly introduced and set up in the top tiers. Your only hope is to work a ton of overtime to get a tier boost which is negated by even lower conversion due to taking more calls in OT.  Once you're at the bottom you are let go once a major enrollment period is over.  If you try to leave they hold your release hostage for about 6 months. 
You are given information by managers.  You even take notes and screenshots because it's important information.  It gets changed later and when you question it they tell you the info was miscommunicated by management.   Often, management will set up voluntary team meetings off the clock where they will discuss important information so the people that refuse to work off the clock are left in the dark.  Big changes were made without notice fairly often. 
 Pay structure changed multiple times during my employment there.  I watched "top agents" go from top to bottom to 1099 then gone.  There is no structure in place to make this a satisfying career.  It might as well be a temp agency..... 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Insurance agent 1 salary reported	$87,404 per year
Sales representative 5 salaries reported	$62,500 per year
Sales support representative 1 salary reported	$15.00 per hour
Medicare agent 2 salaries reported	$58,680 per year
Customer advocate 2 salaries reported	$51,500 per year

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