Insurance Sales Agent (General)

Career Area: Finance

Occupation Group: Insurance Claims and Sales

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Insurance Sales Agent (General) earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $60,257

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $58,131

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Sells insurance to customers, working on behalf of an insurance company or independent insurance agent. Evaluates the insurance coverage needed by a customer and proposes insurance packages and prices. May specialize in one line of insurance such as life insurance. May provide first point of contact for customers filing insurance claims.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Insurance Sales Agent (General) is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Multi-Tasking: In computing, multitasking is a concept of performing multiple tasks (also known as processes) over a certain period of time by executing them concurrently.
• Building Effective Relationships: Building relationships is about your ability to identify and initiate working relationships and to develop and maintain them in a way that is of mutual benefit to both yourself and the other party. Good relationships are the key to getting things done and are essential when your success is dependent on others.
• Detail-Oriented: A detail oriented person is someone who pays attention to the details and can make a conscious effort to understand causes instead of just the effects, and that does this in a second nature type of way.
• Organizational Skills: Experience with a systematic process of structuring, integrating, co-ordinating task goals, and activities to resources in order to attain objectives.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Sales: Experience selling products or services to consumers.
• Insurance Sales:
• Prospective Clients: Working with Prospective Clients, which are indivuals who are not yet customers, but who have the potential of becoming one.
• Customer Service: Working experience with the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.
• Appointment Setting: Working experience of Appointment Setting, which involves contacting individuals to generate appointments.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Insurance Sales Agent (General) that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Insurance Recommendation: Working experience of Insurance Recommendation, which is the process of suggesting the coverage by contract whereby one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by a specified contingency or peril

Salary Boosting Skills

A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills:

• Annuities: Working experience of Annuities. An annuity is a financial product that pays out a fixed stream of payments to an individual, primarily used as an income stream for retirees. Annuities are created and sold by financial institutions, which accept and invest funds from individuals and then, upon annuitization, issue a stream of payments at a later point in time.
• Insurance Recommendation: Working experience of Insurance Recommendation, which is the process of suggesting the coverage by contract whereby one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by a specified contingency or peril

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Insurance Sales Agent
• Insurance Agent
• Insurance Sales Representative
• Insurance Account Representative - Agent Team Member
• Insurance Account - Agent Team Member

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Life / Health Insurance Sales Agent
• Personal Financial Advisor (General)
• Business Development Specialist