New York Life Reviews

Pros

Good Enviroment, Lots of the best Training in the Industry, Unlimited Income potential, Great Company Reputation and history, Good Benefits and compensation structure.

Cons

Poor Financial environment of economy has a lot of people holding on to their money. Prospecting high volumes of people. Cold calling.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to engage your agents to make sure that they are tracking on a weekly basis. When they make money they are happy. Other wise great managers!

Pros

lots of support to succeed if the drive is in you and you are up to the task of prospecting for your own clients

Cons

there is no client base, you must find your own niche market, not an easy job for everyone. But, worth the effort.

Pros

Great Training and income potential

Cons

Difficult for new agents to get started if they do not have sufficiently strong financial reserves

Advice to Senior Management

Great job - company is doing well

Pros

For hard workers the sky’s the limits, you’re your own boss, they enable you to succeed and give you continual education to keep you sharp and able to help your clients ever changing financial needs.
I like the long term offer of this career they offer a very generous pension plan, comp was far above the other companies. NYL the brand is a sure foot in the door for most clients due to their reputation and standings in our community. I found out before coming on board that thtey have the most Million dollar round table agents in the industry. This is great opportunity to make a very lucrative career.
In so many words they supply the business office and staff and you are the boss of your own branch.

Cons

You are your own boss that means you have to be a master of your own time management. Sometimes the freedom you have in this business is the down falll of the newer agents.
Income varies from month to month $10,000+ one month and $5000 the next, you have to manage your books accordingly for your overhead.

Advice to Senior Management

I am very confident in my management staff and direction of the Constitution office in Bala Cynwd.
We continue to grow and climb the rankings in a steady manner.

Pros

Excellent Company, Incredible Financial Strength. Great Product Line

Cons

Poor management/ leadership, failure to retain managers, disrespect to agents in office meetings

Advice to Senior Management

Work more closely with managing partners as well as individual partners, they are the key to having more successful agents.

Pros

Flexible Hours
No boss
Good commissions
Opportunity to get licenses

Cons

No base salary
Cold calling
Pay for cubicle, phone, everything.

Advice to Senior Management

Give marketing support to agents (this doesn't mean give them printable flyers).
If you're going to charge for using a cubicle, phone, internet, then at least pay a base salary for the first few years.

Pros

Best trainning, Great strong Company, first two years comissions are great.

Cons

Very product driven. They want to solve all problems with whole life insurance. Term product pricing is not competative. You will always be seen as a life insurance salesman not a financial advisor. If you are maried your spouse better have a good paying job and she/he better be patient. Plan to work 6 days a week and late nights. Alot of kool aid will be fed.

Advice to Senior Management

Get a 30 year term and be more price competative. Treat your new agents like adults not kids. Do better campaignning.

Pros

for the most part have your own work schedule

Cons

limited support, it you wish to be a door to door salesperson or a telemarketer then this is the place. You will pay this company to work for them, yes you pay them. You are 100% commission in terms of pay. No sale=No pay but you will still have a monthly bill to pay at NYL. They will worry you to death to buy way more insurance on yourself than needed. Run RUN RUN

Pros

It is a meritocracy, which is good if you have the willingness to relentlessly prospect for new clients. They have a strong whole life product, great training materials and knowledgeable trainers, first class facilities for employees and clients, and a staggering level of compensation once you start pulling in real first year commissions at $70K and above.

The compliance environment protects you from ever getting sued, and ranks the company at 100% compliance when the state auditors come calling.

This company pays death benefits without question, and the agents have been known to go way out of their way to make sure that the beneficiaries receive everything that is coming to them.

Very moral, very client-centered company when it comes to life insurance and the payment of benefits for life and long term care.

Cons

WHOLE LIFE WHOLE LIFE WHOLE LIFE. Dear God, please don't ever say whole life to me again. The entire company lives and dies on this product, so much that it is pretty much a "drink the Kool-Aid" kind of focus on it during training. They also have an expensive VUL product with a pathetic number of investment choices, a Variable Annuity product line with a very limited range of investment choices.

On the variable product side, NYLIFE Securities does not give two spits if your client with $1M in mutual funds walks away and takes their business elsewhere; they won't lift a finger to call you or send you an email warning you that a client is unhappy. Now, if someone misses a life insurance premium by a day, you'll get written and electronic warnings out the gazoo.

Here is the mantra that was repeated in company literature, by senior management and by the Chief Investment Officer of the company: WE ALWAYS GET PAID MORE THAN THE RISK IS WORTH. Let''s examine what that really means. When the company buys bonds, this is a good way to protect clients. When the company underwrites a life contract, they absolutely punish the insured if they smoke, have a little cholesterol, or anything wrong for any reason. As an agent, you are left with the impression that you need to find rich, skinny, young people in order to be competitive. When the company brings in a new agent, they know that 85% will fail in the first two years. This means that the company will NEVER, EVER, EVER pay for renewals on that product again, making all that business pure profit from your failure.

On the long term care insurance side, declines run at more than 50% because the company has such strict guidelines for acceptance. It really rankles me as a former agent that worked there for 4.5 years to hear the company brag over and over again about our financial strength and how many billions the company had in reserves while I am starving for people to talk to instead of the company providing worthwhile leads of people who wanted to buy something or talk to a rep.

You have to buy your own leads, manage all your own activity, pay all your own expenses, pay for a cubicle and phone, pay for software, pay MORE if you wanted anything but the most rudimentary help using the software, pay for E&O insurance, pay $1,500 a year to belong to NYLIFE Securities, pay for more and more and more and yet see rates increase and commission decline.

Plan on being asked to do some pretty ridiculous things, like Child ID events and manning a booth at the county fair or the boat show or wherever people might congregate. Or my all time favorite, being told to distribute annuity door hangers in freaking snowstorm. My managing partner never had a bad idea in all four years I was there, no matter how ludicrous it was, and I was dumb and eager enough to believe him.

Don't go into any life insurance career unless you have six months of personal expenses in the bank, $10K to spend up front on marketing and an assistant to call people and set appointments, intend to spend 10-20 personal hours a week on calling prospects, don't mind hearing "no" from people who clearly need your help, don't mind ruining friendships over insurance sales, and really want your life to revolve around building your practice and nothing else for the first three years.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide a base salary; provide real marketing for agents, not the sappy-happy nonsense that passes for a TV ad. Provide a stream of exclusive leads to help an agent supplement their own prospecting. Provide a mentoring program where an established agent oversees the new agent in their office as an intern and puts in place the tools for success. Stop paying your managing partners such ridiculous salaries (500K-1M or more is not uncommon) and use the money to develop agents.

Pros

Offers a pension.
401k matching.
Good vacation/holiday/sick day policy.
Good relationships with people you work with.

Cons

Conservative compensation once in a position.
Certain Culture changes to look at employees as numbers and cost, than valuable contributors.
Lack of communication. Keeping big changes private too long resulting in numerous rumor mills.
Lack of advancement for top performers.

Advice to Senior Management

There was quite a large hierarchy in management that ended up taking a long time to make decisions. With the organization flattening, this should help in decision making. Time will tell.